The Twilight Series Obsession: Why Is It Soooooooo Popular? a work in progress
Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series is comparable (although doesn't touch the popularity of) to the Harry Potter rage. A great number of teenage girls (who generally already are reading)are obsessed with this series where a normal teenage girl moves to a town in Washington state and begins a romance with a sexy vampire. Not only do adolescent females obsess about this series but so do many 20-something females.
What is it about Twilight that grips these young women?
My first attempt at the first book in the series, Twilight, was failed. I read up to chapter 13 and lost interest. Because the popularity of these books continued and I listened to Meyer speak at a conference at BYU, I decided to take up where I left off, enjoyed the rest of the novel and devoured the second book in the series, New Moon. Luckily (or so I thought), Eclipse, book 3, would be released later that summer. Eclipse was a disappointment. Merely a part two of book 2 (Meyer was still building up her readership and the 700+ paged book that she can publish now may have been intimidating at the time), predictable, and highly verbose, Eclipse introduced a love triangle added complication to the story line. Regardless of the lack of good editing and a redundant plot, girls were head over heels with the sexy, "beautiful" vampire Edward Cullen and romancing him vicariously through the protangonist, "average" teenager Bella Swan. Despite their opinion of the events in Eclipse they couldn't wait for the next installment to see if (well, when) Bella is turned into a vampire. The fourth book, Breaking Dawn, has received bittersweet attention, including plot holes requiring an explanation from the author, an lame stand on a controversial issue of the day (abortion), and hot sex (but only implied--over and over and over.)
Often the success of this series is compared to the success of Harry Potter. But that is disparaging to the Harry Potter series, which contains many literary elements, lovable characters, and has still surpassed Twilight in its popularity. If the quality of writing in the series is nothing special and the stories long-winded and slow, plot holes, etc., what is it about the series that young women love? Why is the Twilight so popular when there are better quality young adult novels, romantic, suspenseful, and paranormal?
According to the Harlequin Romance Annual Report 2007 a high percentage of men and women consider themselves to be romantic. Seventy-two percent of the women interviewed wished they had more romance in their lives. (p. 3) According to the Business of Consumer Book Publishing 2007, romance was the biggest selling genre of books in 2007. The Romance Writers of America also compare the market share of romance novels when compared to other popular genres:
Romance fiction: $1.375 billion in estimated revenue for 2007
Religion/inspirational: $819 million
Science fiction/fantasy: $700 million
Mystery: $650 million
Classic literary fiction: $466 million
As you can see, Americans love reading about love.
The Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer has many elements of a harlequin romance.
Here are their similarities:
-Characters: They're sexy and exotic, although the heroine is usually described as having some flaw--like Bella. The main characters in Twilight are super sexy and out of this world.
-Passionate/physical/domination-oriented relationships: Harlequin heroes usually force themselves on the weak heroine who claims her hate of the man, but then she decides she likes him and they begin a hot physical relationship. Vampire/human sex is brutal but Bella wants more, more, more!
-Physical relationship: In both Twilight and harlequins there is little development of the relationship on anything but a physical level. Bella constantly praises Edward but mostly in a physical sense. How many times do we hear how "beautiful" Edward is? How often does she compliment his strength? How often does Bella want to jump him? Edward is initially attracted to Bella because her blood smells sweet and she's hard to get (or at least her brain is hard to get into).
-Superficial character development: Because the harlequin is written primarily for the physical relationship, little is necessary for character development. We get a basic profile of the heroine. The hero is a man of mystery. Any other information is not necessary and not really wanted by the reader. Bella is an adolescent. She acts like a stereotypical adolescent and her motivations outside of that are not really necessary. She has many self-absorbed ruminations but they don't extend very deep. We have limited information on Edward. He's been around for almost a century but he doesn’t volunteer very much information about his past. Most of the discussions between Bella and Edward are about her life being in danger, how much she wants to jump him, and why he should accept her relationship with Jacob?
I'd like to hear your opinions.
Thank you.
Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series is comparable (although doesn't touch the popularity of) to the Harry Potter rage. A great number of teenage girls (who generally already are reading)are obsessed with this series where a normal teenage girl moves to a town in Washington state and begins a romance with a sexy vampire. Not only do adolescent females obsess about this series but so do many 20-something females.
What is it about Twilight that grips these young women?
My first attempt at the first book in the series, Twilight, was failed. I read up to chapter 13 and lost interest. Because the popularity of these books continued and I listened to Meyer speak at a conference at BYU, I decided to take up where I left off, enjoyed the rest of the novel and devoured the second book in the series, New Moon. Luckily (or so I thought), Eclipse, book 3, would be released later that summer. Eclipse was a disappointment. Merely a part two of book 2 (Meyer was still building up her readership and the 700+ paged book that she can publish now may have been intimidating at the time), predictable, and highly verbose, Eclipse introduced a love triangle added complication to the story line. Regardless of the lack of good editing and a redundant plot, girls were head over heels with the sexy, "beautiful" vampire Edward Cullen and romancing him vicariously through the protangonist, "average" teenager Bella Swan. Despite their opinion of the events in Eclipse they couldn't wait for the next installment to see if (well, when) Bella is turned into a vampire. The fourth book, Breaking Dawn, has received bittersweet attention, including plot holes requiring an explanation from the author, an lame stand on a controversial issue of the day (abortion), and hot sex (but only implied--over and over and over.)
Often the success of this series is compared to the success of Harry Potter. But that is disparaging to the Harry Potter series, which contains many literary elements, lovable characters, and has still surpassed Twilight in its popularity. If the quality of writing in the series is nothing special and the stories long-winded and slow, plot holes, etc., what is it about the series that young women love? Why is the Twilight so popular when there are better quality young adult novels, romantic, suspenseful, and paranormal?
According to the Harlequin Romance Annual Report 2007 a high percentage of men and women consider themselves to be romantic. Seventy-two percent of the women interviewed wished they had more romance in their lives. (p. 3) According to the Business of Consumer Book Publishing 2007, romance was the biggest selling genre of books in 2007. The Romance Writers of America also compare the market share of romance novels when compared to other popular genres:
Romance fiction: $1.375 billion in estimated revenue for 2007
Religion/inspirational: $819 million
Science fiction/fantasy: $700 million
Mystery: $650 million
Classic literary fiction: $466 million
As you can see, Americans love reading about love.
The Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer has many elements of a harlequin romance.
Here are their similarities:
-Characters: They're sexy and exotic, although the heroine is usually described as having some flaw--like Bella. The main characters in Twilight are super sexy and out of this world.
-Passionate/physical/domination-oriented relationships: Harlequin heroes usually force themselves on the weak heroine who claims her hate of the man, but then she decides she likes him and they begin a hot physical relationship. Vampire/human sex is brutal but Bella wants more, more, more!
-Physical relationship: In both Twilight and harlequins there is little development of the relationship on anything but a physical level. Bella constantly praises Edward but mostly in a physical sense. How many times do we hear how "beautiful" Edward is? How often does she compliment his strength? How often does Bella want to jump him? Edward is initially attracted to Bella because her blood smells sweet and she's hard to get (or at least her brain is hard to get into).
-Superficial character development: Because the harlequin is written primarily for the physical relationship, little is necessary for character development. We get a basic profile of the heroine. The hero is a man of mystery. Any other information is not necessary and not really wanted by the reader. Bella is an adolescent. She acts like a stereotypical adolescent and her motivations outside of that are not really necessary. She has many self-absorbed ruminations but they don't extend very deep. We have limited information on Edward. He's been around for almost a century but he doesn’t volunteer very much information about his past. Most of the discussions between Bella and Edward are about her life being in danger, how much she wants to jump him, and why he should accept her relationship with Jacob?
I'd like to hear your opinions.
Thank you.
2 comments:
Anonymous said...
Wow! That's a great analysis of the series and a perfect comparison to the Harlequinn romance genre'. Did you hear that the first 12 chapters of "Midnight Sun" have been leaked? She gave out copies to cats members of the movie and now it is all over the Internet. There's some speculation that she did it to see if fans would like it enough for her to publish.- Sarah
M&M said...
I thought this was a great essay and made me more convinced than before that there is no need for me to read the next 3 books since I didn't care much for the first and it sounds like it's all downhill from there.