Its a little tongue-in-cheek irony, but it was unintentionally (ironically?) confirmed by the fact that she chose to inflict "Twilight" on a gullible, inherently moronic market: Tweener girls, and by extension, their poor, quality-time-starved Moms.
Much has been said about the "values" promoted by "Twilight". It is a "chaste" vampire romance novel, which would take balls to pull off because of the inherent smuttiness in that God-forsaken genre. Now, I would normally be happy with such a development. Problem is, it has to be done well. Stephanie Meyer does not do it well. She's not half-bad...she's practically all bad. And she's supposedly on my side of the culture wars. Yech.
First off, the "values" of "Twilight", its only redeeming factor, is compromised by very shitty characterization.
Here's are excerpts of a review of the series from a conservative mag:
But how much is a pro-abstinence message worth when the unconsummated relationship is so unhealthy? It gets even worse after the wedding night in Breaking Dawn, when Bella finds herself trying to cover up a multitude of bruises left by the super-strong Edward. That scene, which Meyer treats with appalling lightness — “This is really nothing,” Bella tells her remorseful husband, insisting that the experience was “wonderful and perfect” — should send a chill down the spine of any parent with a daughter.
How much indeed? The last thing we need to be the face of abstinence education is a freaking battered girlfriend / wife constantly enabling her dick boyfriend / husband. What was Meyer even thinking? Then, there's the simply amateurish romance novel crap.
Edward . . . lay perfectly still in the grass, his shirt open over his sculpted, incandescent chest, his scintillating arms bare. His glistening pale lavender lids were shut, though of course he didn’t sleep. A perfect statue, carved in some unknown stone, smooth like marble, glittering like crystal.
Good God Almighty, that is horrible prose. What the fuck is an "incandescent chest"? Is he radioactive? (I wouldn't be surprised.) Oh, and he's sparkly! Its a combination of the dumbest and douchiest vampire in history.
But, back to values:
One can see his point. Becoming one of Meyer’s glorious and godlike vampires is a horribly painful process, leaving the subject with uncontrollable bloodlust. Bella would have to be forcibly restrained until she could learn to control herself. In fact, she would emerge so changed in every way that her family would not be able to see her again, for vampires are not permitted to tell humans what they are.
Families are expendable. Some "pro-family" value that is...
The amazing thing is that, just when one thinks that the system of values here can’t get any more bankrupt, it does exactly that. For in Breaking Dawn, swept off her feet by her romantic fantasy, Meyer recklessly breaks her own rules to ensure that the ending is not just happy, but — in Bella’s word — “perfect.” Bella undergoes almost none of the expected post-transformation struggles or sacrifices; instead, all at once she’s gorgeous, talented, self-controlled, and even more admired than before (and goes from self-deprecating to insufferably vain). Awkward and implausible solutions are worked out to let her keep the relationships she’d given up. And by means of a wild plot twist that is never explained, Bella and Edward get to add to their family. (Bella is still human at that point, but Edward is, technically, a walking corpse without normal bodily fluids.) Even Jacob the werewolf gets Meyer’s idea of a happy ending — which involves both an age-inappropriate relationship and the loss of his own free will.
Looks like Meyer has never heard of the nature of natural law. Then again, it seems that she never grasped the nature of writing either. This is consequentialism 101. The ends justified the means. Oh, and somebody tell Meyer that you have to be really good to pull off Deus ex Machina without sounding like a total retard. If the ending is any indication, Meyer has probably never encountered the human race before. Paging Tom Cruise.
In the final analysis, Meyer has deprived her characters of both choices and consequences. And young readers are left with the image of a girl who discovers her own worth and gets all she ever wanted, by giving up her identity and throwing away nearly everything in life that matters.
That’s scarier than any vampire.
Aye. Stupid tweeners are an alarming portent for any believer of natural selection. Funny thing about Meyer and her values is that, in the end, her wish-fulfillment avatar Bella Swan has more in common with your local ho than with a virgin queen.
Here's another review of "Twilight" which comes to the same conclusions:
If there is anything striking in The Twilight Saga it is Bella’s seemingly total lack of a sense of her own dignity and worth. Ultimately, she is killed during the delivery of Edward’s child because the vampire baby eats its way out of her body. She is then reanimated by vampire venom which allows her to go on living - not as a human, but as a vampire. This requires the surrender of her human soul, which she willingly relinquishes because, as she says earlier to the already damned Edward “You can’t make me go somewhere you won’t be…That’s my definition of hell.”
Bella reminds me of Kirk Lazarus and Tugg Speedman talking about method acting.
"You mean, become a moron?"
"Yeah"
"Like, moronical? Like you're the dumbest mother-fucker that ever lived?"
(Pause.)
"When I was in character."
Once more, Meyer's tone-deafness when it comes to human nature is so breathtaking, one wonders if she's even human at all. Paging Tom Cruise...again. Looks like we have a live one.
"Come with me, Stephanie Meyer!"
Edward sneaks into the house without her father’s knowledge and lies in bed with her all night long - every night! Old fashioned? Chaste? The descriptions certainly aren’t.
For Stephanie Meyer to claim her books are all about values means that she's either an alien, or insane. Take your pick.
Meyer's wedding day photo...*gasp* Kinda hot for an alien though.
