Content Note: Abusive RelationshipsTwilight Summary: Bella has traveled to Port Angeles, where Edward saved her life, took her to dinner, and brought her back home without the knowledge of her father Charlie. During the ride home, Edward confirmed that he is a vampire and can read minds. In Chapter 10, Edward will take Bella to school, Jessica will question Bella closely about their relationship, and Edward will eat lunch with Bella and discuss vampire eating habits.
Twilight, Chapter 10: Interrogations
Alright! We're all rested up and back in the Twilight saddle again! Just in time for Edward, who is definitely not better than chocolate, to ruin our good moods with his horrible hostile behavior towards the woman he loves more than anything. Let's get to it, shall we? (And remember that we're back-tracking just a bit -- last time, we went through Chapter 10 with an eye towards Bella-and-Edward's abusive behavior towards Jessica; now we're going through Chapter 10 a second time with an eye towards Edward's abusive behavior towards Bella. Excelsior!)
IT WAS VERY HARD, IN THE MORNING, TO ARGUE WITH the part of me that was sure last night was a dream. Logic wasn’t on my side, or common sense. I clung to the parts I couldn’t have imagined — like his smell. I was sure I could never have dreamed that up on my own.
One of the frustrating things about Twilight for me is that we aren't on the same page at all, it and I, when it comes to the subject of love. A *huge* portion of this chapter is about female desire and how incredibly sexy Edward's face and voice and body are. Even his breath is sexy scented, in a stark (and deliberate?) contrast to the usual bad-breath of dead, decaying vampire-creatures that live on the death and destruction of other living beings.
And on the one hand, I think this is healthy. I think it's one of the reasons why these books have taken off the way they have. I think there's value in saying, hey, women have sexy feelings too and women can be attracted to men's bodies. Yay for female desire and for the normalization of the same; boo on the people who hate on Twilight because it's about female desire since I rarely see those same people getting all het up about the approximately eight hundred beiberbillion pieces of pop culture that are constructed towards male desire. So there's that.
But! Female desire, as awesome and valid and great as it is, doesn't key to me as the same thing as "love". So I read all these passages about Edward's perfect face and his smoking body and his amazingly tight pants -- okay, not that last one because this is all very coy and abstinence pornish -- and I'm all onboard with Bella being lusteriffic and then suddenly the book shifts a gear into lovelorn and I'm left feeling confused and disoriented. Because Love and Lust, for me, are connected, but not as intimately as all that. I've lusted after Edwards while still recognizing, internally, that they still weren't better than chocolate. Bella doesn't seem to have that internal recognition in play.
So we're back to the fact that she and Edward have apparently gone all Werewolf Brand Imprinted (TM) on one another and we're just supposed to accept that that's how love works. Okay.
Anyway. All that to say, Edward's breath, voice, body, face, and presumably butt are flawless in the extreme and therefore love. But it's totally pure love and not lust-based 'love' (the kind that you fall out of after getting the sexeh out of your system) and the fact that Bella is willing to overlook all of Edward's assholish behavior in order to be with him is evidence of the depth of that love. Check.
“Do you want to ride with me today?” he asked, amused by my expression as he caught me by surprise yet again. There was uncertainty in his voice. He was really giving me a choice — I was free to refuse, and part of him hoped for that. It was a vain hope.
“Yes, thank you,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm. [...]
“I brought the jacket for you. I didn’t want you to get sick or something.” His voice was guarded. I noticed that he wore no jacket himself, just a light gray knit V-neck shirt with long sleeves. Again, the fabric clung to his perfectly muscled chest. It was a colossal tribute to his face that it kept my eyes away from his body.
There's something really wrong with this passage, but it took me a few read-throughs to figure out precisely what. Then it hit me: "He was really giving me a choice."
Interpreting that as charitably as I possibly can, I'm going to assume that the intent there was to indicate that the "uncertainty" in Edward's voice was intended to give Bella a free choice without expressing his own personal preferences. In other words, the question is meant to be entirely neutral, with no Edward-induced value on either the yes or no options. Whatever she chooses, they can still be friends, he won't berate her for making the 'wrong' choice, there's no pressure intended, and so on and so forth.
That's with me being charitable. The less charitable interpretation is that this is the first time that Edward, Bella, and Edward's car have been in the same scene together in which Edward didn't either physically force Bella into the car with him by dragging her by the collar of her jacket or order her to get in if she valued her life and the lives of those around her. Excuse me while I go get the ick out of my head.
Moving on, I'm struck by the casual callousness of Edward's language here, "I didn't want you to get sick or something." I suppose he's just playing it cool, trying to keep things low-key, but that doesn't work because that's not really the relationship that he and Bella have at this point. They're way past keeping things cool, and this latest attempt won't last long into the car ride, so it almost seems kind of cruel to be chilly here and yet so intense a few pages from now when Edward starts lamenting that he wants to read Bella's mind and can't. You can't, after all, get much more personal than that.
It might seem like a nit-pick, but almost everything Edward says to Bella is framed in this awkward, almost hostile manner. I find myself craving a simple and direct "you can use my jacket if you like" or something in a similar vein: an open offer for Bella to accept or refuse, rather than a tortured explanation of how Edward cares about her enough to think in advance to bring a jacket but not too much in order to keep cool and distant, and then Bella has to either accept his implied protection or protest that she doesn't need it, or -- most frequently -- both at the same time. Can we just have five minutes without co-dependency issues?
He turned to smirk at me. “What, no twenty questions today?”
“Do my questions bother you?” I asked, relieved.
“Not as much as your reactions do.” He looked like he was joking, but I couldn’t be sure.
I frowned. “Do I react badly?”
“No, that’s the problem. You take everything so coolly — it’s unnatural. It makes me wonder what you’re really thinking.”
“I always tell you what I’m really thinking.”
“You edit,” he accused.
And then there's this. Oh gods, there's this.
Edward and Bella have been together for all of, what, a few hours? A day or two? (As a couple, I mean. I'm ignoring the long "I'm ignoring you in the wake of the accident" lead time.) And he's already aggressively accusing her of not being completely honest with him, and giving her grief for not opening every part of her mind and soul to his scrutiny and comment.
This is not healthy. And it's not something that makes me like Edward. We've mentioned "True Blood" here before, and I'm going to again now. For all the many, many issues that the series + books have, there is at least a tentative nod to the idea that being the only telepath in a relationship can have some very difficult consequences and can be very isolating. A major reason why the telepathic Sookie is attracted to the men she dates is because their thoughts are largely closed off from her, and she feels a sense of peace and quiet when she's with them. And yes, this leaves her open to devastating betrayal and pain, but in a way she seems to welcome that as well, all in the name of living a "normal" life.
Edward doesn't want a "normal" life. That's fine; everyone gets to make their own choices. If he'd rather be with someone whose mind he can read, that's something for him and Bella to talk out and discuss. Edward needs to lay out his needs on the table and Bella needs to decide if she wants to try to accommodate him or if he's definitely not better than chocolate. That is part of being in a relationship with anyone -- figuring out if you can deal with their baggage.
But what is not part of a healthy relationship is badgering people because you have baggage and they've failed to accommodate you to your needs and desires within the first half-week of dating. Especially when those "needs and desires" are extreme invasions of privacy like "I want to have access to all your thoughts, unedited, any time I want."
And then there's this:
“You don’t want to hear it,” I mumbled, almost whispered. As soon as the words were out, I regretted them. The pain in my voice was very faint; I could only hope he hadn’t noticed it.
He didn’t respond, and I wondered if I had ruined the mood.
They've been together for a few days at most. Edward is already aggressively berating Bella for things she has no control over (her mind-shield) and her failure to accommodate his needs for complete access to her unedited thoughts. Bella can barely summon a voice to defend herself, and then when she does, immediately worries that she's "ruined the mood".
How is this not an abusive relationship, I don't even.
“So what are you going to tell [Jessica]?”
“A little help?” I pleaded. “What does she want to know?”
He shook his head, grinning wickedly. “That’s not fair.”
“No, you not sharing what you know — now that’s not fair.”
He deliberated for a moment as we walked. We stopped outside the door to my first class.
“She wants to know if we’re secretly dating. And she wants to know how you feel about me,” he finally said.
“Yikes. What should I say?” I tried to keep my expression very innocent. People were passing us on their way to class, probably staring, but I was barely aware of them.
“Hmmm.” He paused to catch a stray lock of hair that was escaping the twist on my neck and wound it back into place. My heart spluttered hyperactively. “I suppose you could say yes to the first . . . if you don’t mind — it’s easier than any other explanation.”
“I don’t mind,” I said in a faint voice.
“And as for her other question . . . well, I’ll be listening to hear the answer to that one myself.” One side of his mouth pulled up into my favorite uneven smile. I couldn’t catch my breath soon enough to respond to that remark. He turned and walked away.
We've already discussed my myriad of issues with Edward and Bella sharing what's in Jessica's head, and their coy decision to exchange love notes via Jessica and telepathy. My contempt for this couple is legion and well documented.
Yet here we are again from another perspective. Bella has to ask Edward flat out how she can define their relationship in a way that others will accept and Edward will be comfortable with: Are they dating? Edward's answer, like all his answers, raises more questions than answers. He implies that they aren't really dating, since there are other, less acceptable but more accurate, explanations available, but doesn't enumerate what those explanations might be.
And yet I think Bella has some right to know what her relationship with this man is. Does he want to feed on her? Turn her? Be friends forever? Date? Marry? Have sex with? I'm not saying Edward should have all those answers now, or even that he should be forced to bare his soul at this moment, but I do think that Bella deserves some kind of "I want" statement from Edward. If it's "I'm attracted to you and I want to be near you", then alright, they're a dating high school couple. An unusual one, yes, since one-half of the couple is a vampire and the other half has a fully formed mind-shield despite that being a Sparkly Vampire Power, but so be it.
Bella shouldn't have to use Jessica as an excuse to ask basic "so what precisely are we doing here" questions.
And then the bell rang for lunch. As I jumped up out of my seat, shoving my books roughly in my bag, my uplifted expression must have tipped Jessica off.
“You’re not sitting with us today, are you?” she guessed.
“I don’t think so.” I couldn’t be sure that he wouldn’t disappear inconveniently again.
But outside the door to our Spanish class, leaning against the wall — looking more like a Greek god than anyone had a right to — Edward was waiting for me. Jessica took one look, rolled her eyes, and departed.
How much do I love Jessica for rolling her eyes at the whole situation? So much.
I'm going to wind this post up and leave the rest for next week, but here's another example of the same thing. Bella doesn't know if she'll have lunch with Edward, because she doesn't know if he'll show up or if he'll want her to eat with him. She doesn't know if she'll see him tomorrow or if the family will skip town without even a goodbye. She doesn't know if his family will successfully pressure him to stop putting them all in danger by dallying with a human.
None of this is because Edward is a vampire. Bella wouldn't know this stuff with any of her human suitors, half of whom were probably relocated to Forks as part of a witness protection program for supernaturals, based on the locals curious willingness to not notice odd things about newcomers. No, Bella isn't left in the not-knowing because Edward is a vampire, but because Edward refuses to communicate with her. Rather than talk to her about them, about his hopes, about his dreams, and about whether he'll be there for lunch, he spent the morning talking at her about how she can alter her behavior to make his life easier.
In this chapter, Bella doesn't get anything. She doesn't get to have needs and desires of her own. She wakes up, is aggressed against in the car by Edward, and has to answer questions for Jessica whilst remembering that everything is being psychically overheard by Edward. Then she'll be collected for lunch and aggressed against by Edward again, based on what he didn't like hearing from Jessica's mind.
This is an abusive relationship because -- once again -- Bella is covertly burying her needs. Renee needs Bella to be the adult in the house and take care of everything, and so she does without complaining until such time as a replacement is found. Charlie needs Bella to be the servant of the house and take care of the femininely-coded chores, and so she does while silently seeking out fulfillment from one of the boys at the local school. Edward, the boy of her dreams, then aggressively explains how he needs complete access to Bella's thoughts, so Bella immediately becomes a study in how to wipe any "inappropriate" thoughts and feelings from her language, body language, and facial expressions in order to make Edward happy. Seriously, here's an example:
I banished that thought before his quick eyes read it on my face.
We'll get to what the thought was next week, but for now it's frustrating -- no, terrifying -- for me just how willingly Bella folds into another abusive relationship. I don't blame her; it's what she was brought up to, and it's what society holds up as a model for us to follow. But I'm frightened for her because this isn't something that I think can possibly make her happy. Either Edward is going to have to change, majorly so, or any happy ending tacked on four books later is going to feel fake and unreal to me.
50 comments:
What, that isn't the subtitle of the book? If it was, like half of my objections would be gone and I would applaud SMeyer's transparency and honesty.
Now off to read the post!
Off-topic, but the mention of True Blood reminded me of Snoop Lion's totally amazeballs song Oh, Sookie. I hadn't thought about it in a while, but when it came out a couple years ago I laughed until I cried. Best True Blood fanwork ever.
The less charitable interpretation is that this is the first time that Edward, Bella, and Edward's car have been in the same scene together in which Edward didn't either physically force Bella into the car with him by dragging her by the collar of her jacket
That's where my mind went. Historically when Bella has tried to not get in a car with Edward it meant being dragged across a parking lot and then threatened. Alice moves the truck.
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I clung to the parts I couldn’t have imagined — like his smell. I was sure I could never have dreamed that up on my own.
You sell yourself short Bella. You can imagine better than Edward, I'm sure. Just because you haven't yet doesn't mean you can't.
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He shook his head, grinning wickedly. “That’s not fair.”
Not fair to Jessica in the least, but given the participants in the conversation it seems like an equally not fair thing is, "You edit. I deliberately withhold."
He wants a running commentary on everything Bella is thinking, he won't even tell her the basis around which he's forming his present thoughts. He's carrying on the conversation by building it around things Bella can neither see nor hear and he won't even tell her what those things are.
Plus, he's right, it's not fair, and yet he does it to everyone other than Bella on a constant basis.
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looking more like a Greek god than anyone had a right to
His goat legs covered in a thick brown fur and one of his brilliant cloven hooves clacking on the ground in impatience. Not to mention the beautiful horns and of course the beard.
Truly he was a descendant of Pan.
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Yay for female desire and for the normalization of the same;
So, about this, this seems to be the one good thing in Twilight which kind of makes me feel uneasy about Snarky Twilight, because as near as I can tell Bella is asexual there. Which means that I've cut out one-good-thing.
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he spent the morning talking at her about how she can alter her behavior to make his life easier.
Oh good god, my sister is Edward. Actually I was seeing the connection yesterday anyway. But unlike Bella I don't have control over my body language so she still gets the signals she doesn't like.
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Trying to remember if you appreciate getting typographical errors pointed out or not, memory isn't working. If you don't don't read on.
Bella doesn't know if she'll have lunch with Edward, because she doesn't know if he'll show up or if he'll want her to eat with him. [...] She doesn't know if his family with successfully pressure him to stop putting them all in danger by dallying with a human.
Last word of the first sentence should be "her" or else everything you've said about female sexuality doesn't apply to Bella. In the second sentence should be "His family will" otherwise there's a lack of main verb.
"You edit. I deliberately withhold."
Not only does Edward have an unfair advantage in every conversation (though a smidge less of one with Bella), due to his mind reading, but Edward's attitude toward Bella's thoughts would be all kinds of wrong even if he weren't a mind reader. He wants her thoughts - all of them, while being pretty reluctant to share anything about himself, particularly his thoughts.
I mean, what's up with "tell her we're dating, it's easier than any other explanation"? So...from Edward's point of view, they're not dating, they're.... something more complicated? WTF? Bella doesn't seem to notice this, but I'm with Ana: What is your relationship with Bella, sparklepants?
Bella and Edward's relationship is so creepy I find myself wishing a fan (or even an ex-fan) would explain what it seems like from the fanish perspective. Clearly, the people who think that this is an epic, wonderful romance and that Edward is an ideal man are seeing something very, very different. What is the interpretation that doesn't lead to "Run, Bella. Run very far away from this creepy, creepy controling abusive stalker who wants to eat you." (Or, alternatively, "Research vampire slaying, Bella. I'm pretty sure there are ways to kill even sparklepires, given Carlisle's backstory. Because Edward really needs to go. Even if you have to stake his butt with a jackhammer.")
"Research vampire slaying, Bella. I'm pretty sure there are ways to kill even sparklepires, given Carlisle's backstory. Because Edward really needs to go. Even if you have to stake his butt with a jackhammer."
If ever there were a girl who needed an introduction to Joss Whedon and his oevre, Bella Swan is that girl. Where's Buffy when you really, really need her?
So how many times has the adjective "perfect" been applied to some part of Edward? IIRC, that adjective is getting pretty monotonous.
"Where's Buffy when you really, really need her?"
Here: http://www(dot)youtube(dot)com/watch?v=RZwM3GvaTRM
"His goat legs covered in a thick brown fur and one of his brilliant cloven hooves clacking on the ground in impatience. Not to mention the beautiful horns and of course the beard. Truly he was a descendant of Pan."
YES! Also, "aggressed against" needs to be in the dictionary.
As the Dead Pirate Roberts said, "Get used to disappointment." (Re: Happy ending)
No, Bella, Edward is not giving you free choice. He's already demonstrated sufficiently to you that he will overpower you if you don't do what he wants. Free choice would imply that you had an ability to refuse him and have it stick even if he decides he doesn't like your answer. Having Mr. Pointy and knowing how to use him against a sparklepire would indicate free choice.
As for looking like a Greek God, if I recall my mythology correctly, in addition to Pan's particular form, Zeus especially liked to transform himself into an animal so he could mate with human women (similarly transformed) without Hera noticing he was stepping out on her. (She noticed.) So if Edward is looking like a god, are we sure he's in a form the statues were modeling?
@depizan -
I'll take a stab at the idea of dating as a non-optimal state, with the caveat that I have never been a fan.
If one reads Twilight as primarily abstinence porn, dating as a status is actually a negative state for Isabella and Edward. Everyone Knows in a scenario like this that dating leads to behaviors and lustful thoughts which then leads to premarital, unapproved sex. Since Bella and Edward are supposed to be chaste until marriage, dating bad. True Love is okay, which I suspect is what the fans are going for, because True Love Waits.
Of course, if you tried explaining that to the average high school audience, you would be laughed out of the room by your peers and given a pat on the head and a "that's nice, dear" by most of the adults. (At least, in Secular, Atheist, Public school.)
So saying "we're dating" is inaccurate but understandable to the high school audience, and thus, Edward us okay with it, even if that means he has to see the thoughts of what other high schoolers think Edward and Bella having sex looks like. (Quelle horreur. Or in his case, amusement.)
And we're on chapter ten of a four-book 'Saga'. We haven't even -begun- to -really- hear how perfect he is!
If we're seriously considering him as looking like a Greek god, and we're assuming he's in human form (not Pan, not a swan, etc.) about the only thing we can say is that he almost certainly has a beard. It's not quite certain (there are exception), just almost certain.
Beyond that, it depends on the art style.
I started underlining that word when I read this.
I stopped around 25.
But! Female desire, as awesome and valid and great as it is, doesn't key to me as the same thing as "love". Because Love and Lust, for me, are connected, but not as intimately as all that... I've lusted after Edwards while still recognizing, internally, that they still weren't better than chocolate. Bella doesn't seem to have that internal recognition in play.
Bella is, what, seventeen? A lot of seventeen-year-olds may not have developed that kind of recognition skill. OR maybe I'm showing my age here, maybe the average high school senior is rather more sophisticated about these things than I remember being, but I don't think it's too impossible that she's feeling a strong emotion about a boy for the first time in her sheltered life, and is a little confused about what exactly she's feeling. I could see that.
Of course, the trouble with that is that the narrative itself is apparently going to go on equating lust and love, as uncritically as any old-fashioned Harlequin romance. You know, the ones where if the heroine has any sexual feelings or any sexual contact at all with a man, it's going to turn out to be True Love on a grand scale.
And Bella never will be older than seventeen, or eighteen I guess by the time she's vamped. She'll never have the chance to go through that sometimes painful but always interesting process of figuring out which men are better than chocolate.
...he asked, amused by my expression ...
He turned to smirk at me....
He shook his head, grinning wickedly....
WHY IS HE ALWAYS LAUGHING AT HER?
Sorry for shouting, but that's beginning to get to me. I mean, it's fun to laugh together about how silly you can be together, but I don't know how Bella puts up with all this Smirking At rather than laughing with.
Thanks! I suspected that I was simply failing to find the right angle to look at it from, and I was.
That...makes a lot of sense, Amarie. Very clear explanation (as usual!), thanks!
With Twilight, we’re fully allowed to be the sexual beings that teachers and parents told us we weren’t for so long.
Damn skippy. I think that was the big draw for a lot of my students.
It's amazing how deeply this sinks. What I remember like a drumbeat from adolescence is that boys have sex out of desire, girls because we want boys to like us. I think they thought they were protecting us from exploitation, but they were also telling us that the actual desires of our actual bodies were abnormal, and nothing for us to think about, let alone celebrate. Those desires had nothing to do with, you know, SEX.
I thought I was well past this, but in my mid-twenties, already dating my future husband, I developed a wild lust for an acquaintance, and went through some bad stuff...was I with the wrong guy? What was wrong?...before it dawned on my that I had no desire to be in a relationship with this man, I just thought he was unbelievably hot. Twenty-seven years old, and there I was, wondering if maybe there was something wrong with my excellent relationship if I could feel warm and tingly over another guy's body.
Bleah. The things we teach girls.
Smirk is becoming my personal Twi-trigger. Bad feels are keyed to that concept mentally, and so... any time the narrative mentions or involves the sparkly fuck 'smirking' I want to reach through realities and punch his perfect face. I believe the correct amount of smirking one should be doing at a good friend or romantic interest is zero, but by any standard he's doing it far, far too much.
Oh, hey, another awesome thing to read.
That was enlightening, thank you.
Edited, and thank you.
Re: Making Snarky Bella asexual, I think that's valid for two reasons. One, if you have to remove one good thing to infuse in eight+ new good things, I think that's a valid trade. Two, in Snarky Twilight, there's not much that is lust-worthy. Since Edward is finally recognized as truly odious, he's crossed the lust-worthy line into "ew, that guy" territory.
IMHO.
Thank you for this -- I think that's a good point, that Edward wanting to know what Bella thinks means that he cares about her brain. And I can see where INTENSELY CARES MORE THAN MOST BOYS WOULD! could mean dialing it up to eleven like this. Very insightful!
That's another thing about those old-school Harlequins that we keep comparing Twilight too. There's always a grand-resolution scene where out heroine finds out that the man she's been obsessing about, has also been obsessing about her. Everything he's done or said since he met her was done with her in mind. Even Jane Eyre, great-grandmother of them all, had that chapter-- although, Jane Eyre being what it is, that's not the end of the story.
The idea that a man might be thinking about you as much as you think about him was appealing to women brought up on Man's love is of man's life a thing apart, 'Tis woman's whole existence. .
So I can see the appeal of Twilight taking it one step farther, with Edward being upfront-- at least from here out, I suppose-- about thinking about what Bella's thinking about.
And there are far too many "thinking abouts" in this comment. I'll have to think about how to rephrase it.
Hey, guys! Glad to know that I made at least semi-sense and you’re all welcome! :D
Makabit…WOW. You struggled with those messages long into your late twenties? That’s absolutely terrible, but I’m glad you managed to work through it! Goddess bless women’s sexual feelings and desires! ^ ^
So, about this, this seems to be the one good thing in Twilight which kind of makes me feel uneasy about Snarky Twilight, because as near as I can tell Bella is asexual there. Which means that I've cut out one-good-thing.
But you've kept it in the gender-flip Twilight, haven't you? I know you haven't written explicitly (that I've read, anyway) about Ben having the hots for Edith (or vice versa), but there's definitely an undercurrent of romantic potential in their friendship.
TRiG.
It has occurred to me that this is one of those things were reading the text as a whole contradicts the interpretation. (Which is not to say Amarie's post wasn't insightful and incredibly valuable, because it was.)
Edward doesn't show any more interest in Bella's thoughts than he shows in Jessica or Eric's thoughts. He wants to know them all unedited which is precisely the interest he shows to every other teacher and student in the school. The only think that makes Bella different is that he has to ask, and he's perpetually pissed off about having to ask.
Edward isn't saying, "I want to know about you because I'm interested," he's saying, "I want you to be more like Jessica because she's not frustrating. I hear all of her thoughts the moment she thinks them, I want the same to be true for you, start talking."
He's taken Bella's one super special magic trait and said, more or less, "This sucks. You need to work around it because I'm pissed off about it."
The interest he's showing in Bella is the exact same interest he shows to everyone he ever meets. The only difference is that with Bella it's frustrating because he needs to put in the effort of asking and she (unlike Jessica, Eric, the incredible hulk, et al) has a certain level of consent in the process. Which he does not like at all.
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Which sort of brings me to something else. I think Twilight is meant to be read in severe isolation from context.
For example, Edward refusing to let Bella drive in her condition only works as Edward being anything but a complete manipulative ass if you've already forgotten that her condition was fabricated on Edward's suggestion.
If you've forgotten that the condition is nonexistent and Edward knows its nonexistent because he's the one who made it up in the first place, not wanting her to drive in her condition might make sense. This will lead to Edward towing Bella across the parking lot with such force and speed that she has to struggle to not fall down and be dragged. Then, after he let go but she didn't get into the car there was the threat to chase her down and drag her back.
If that's still fresh in your mind when Bella talks about, "He was really giving me a choice — I was free to refuse," then that comes off as pretty negative because it seems a direct contrast to last time when he was really overruling her bodily autonomy and threatening to do greater violence than he already had if she didn't do what he chose.
When you put the pieces together, any positive interpretation falls apart. Or at least that seems to be the case. So in isolation, "I want to know what you're thinking unedited," seems like he's interested, in an abusive way, in Bella. But in context he's just saying that he wants from her what he's getting from Jessica. He's interested in her thoughts precisely as much as he's interested in random person's thoughts. There's a total lack of any kind of special interest in Bella displayed. Just his ordinary interest in everyone forced to be given words by Bella's black hole mind.
I'm glad things are better for you now. :D
Hopefully one day we can get some form of society where this sort of problem is just gone, like how we entirely wipe out infectious diseases like Polio and that other one we beat recently.
This is one of the main things to infuriate me about Twilight sometimes. Yeah, its positive aspects make me even more mad at it, because, well, uh. We could have all of the good things Twilight does for culture and girls, etc, without the fifteen billion metric tons of Oh John Ringo No. We could have better. We should have better. In a lot of ways, we do have better if you know where to look, but I just want something to catch on Twilight-style that doesn't carry Twilight's carloads of Problems.
--“Do you want to ride with me today?” he asked, amused by my expression as he caught me by surprise yet again. There was uncertainty in his voice. He was really giving me a choice — I was free to refuse, and part of him hoped for that. It was a vain hope.--
"and part of him hoped for that" made me scream CHEATER at the narrator.
*****
"He turned to smirk at me."
That's it.
No more RPatz.
From now on Edward is played by Mitt Romney.
I am SO sorry for spamming the living crap out of Ana's blog, but...
"From now on Edward is played by Mitt Romney."
Ahahahahahahahahahahaa!!!!!!!
*literally laughing that much in real life...as well as pounding keyboard and making my mommy worry about me*
A sparkly Mitt Romney...yeah, that's a priceless image. I think we can adjust the imagination. Although that presents an entirely different set of creepy things, considering that we now have a middle-aged man playing a teenager.
No, we now have a middle aged man playing a 103 year old man. Edward is older than Mitt Romney, not younger.
Though when I had Edward record a campaign ad it was in the style of Rick Perry.
The meadow scene is now terrifying.
@Jonathan: Yep. Twilight has moved from something whose popularity angers me because OMG DUMB--although I still roll my eyes at it--to something whose popularity angers me and makes me sad because it fills a hole that SHOULD NOT FUCKING EXIST. We shouldn't have to have these little baby steps to tell girls that lust is okay. We shouldn't have a generation that's so goddamn scarred by Twu Wuv Waits and similar bullshit that they need this much hand-holding.
Annnd yet. It's like the "forced seduction" in old-school romance novels: okay, on the one hand, I get that society required this standard, and on the other hand, OH MY GOD SOCIETY REQUIRED THIS STANDARD WHAT THE LIVING FUCK WAS WRONG WITH US? And the subsequent desire to beat Reagan and Robertson with hockey sticks.
@brin: Men are turned on by sight. Women are turned on by personality and actions.
Ugh. Yes. That's one of those sentiments which occasionally surfaces in the romance world, and oh my God does it make me queasy. (See the corollary "It's not the sex, it's the emotions!" because...I get what people are trying to do with that, but it's a really bad way to go about it.) It's got all the implicit condemnation of alternative roles that any "women are X, men are Y" statement does; it's also got a metric ton of guilt, because, well, clearly you should stop being shallow and date the guy with a "great personality" who does nothing for you.
Hate. Furthermore, hate.
And it's interesting because if you look at movies from, say, the 90s, this whole NO FEMALE GAZE thing seems like a relatively recent backlash.
Like, I went on a Brendan Fraiser movie kick this last weekend via the animated Tarzan movie. (It went Tarzan Book --> Tarzan Movie --> George Of The Jungle --> Dudley Do-Right --> The Mummy 1 --> The Mummy 2. I was sick and husband was out of town and don't judge me, lol.) Anyway, there was a point in here and that point is that while I'm not a hardcore Brendan Fraiser fan, I was struck by the amount of beefcake in his movies.
Like, in GotJ, he is ripped and oiled down and there is AN ENTIRE SCENE with a bunch of girls watching him chase horses with his shirt open to the waist. He looks more like Fabio than an honest-to-goodness Tarzan depiction. And don't get me started on the Mummy movies; I believe TV Tropes calls a cast lineup like that "estrogen bait brigade".
It's subtle, but with those movies, I feel like I'm being invited, as a Het Woman, to gaze at the sexy men. It struck me hard this weekend because I can't remember the last time I've felt like a movie was asking me to do that -- lately, the sexy man (often singular) seems less an invitation for the Het Woman to LOOK and more an invitation for the Het Man to BE. Like my presence in the movie theater was not expected or planned for.
TL;DR: I remember female desire being a normal thing. in movies in the 80s and 90s When did it stop being a normal thing in movies?
I felt that way with Thor and Captain America, which endeared those movies to me considerably. ;) And I hear that it's also true with Supernatural, although I just...don't, myself.
But otherwise? Yeah. Not sure what's up, and it bugs me.
Video games, OTOH, seem to have trended more Female Gaze-y, which I applaud.
I didn't notice it with Thor and CA at the time, but I can see it in retrospect. I miss the variety, though. In the Mummy movies, for all their many issues, you had a cast of multiple attractive men working together towards a common goal. Thor had an ensemble cast, but we didn't see them very often because Thor kind of stole the show; CA had, well, CA, but was there anyone else besides his ill-fated friend?
It just feels different to me, but in a very subtle way that's hard for me to put my finger on.
I did like the lineup in the Avengers, but I didn't feel like I was being openly invited to ogle.
Izzy: @brin: Men are turned on by sight. Women are turned on by personality and actions.
That was Amarie.
Oops, sorry about that!
Well, reading can be more immersive, and you can get deeper into someone's head or have a more visceral experience sometimes. I think a lot of it comes down to individual preference, too: being primarily verbal or visual, whether you came of age to alt.sex.stories or XTube, and so on.
I'm a pretty appearance-oriented girl, myself, but--possible TMI--my preferred form of erotic media is definitely the written stuff. I just want it written about people who look like Tom Hiddleston or Colin Firth. ;)
Stark the Elder was reasonably yummy. ;)
But yeah. I find I don't need that much variety within movies myself, if Hot Dude gets a lot of screen time and takes his shirt off. More is always better, of course, but if I want a different guy, I can just cue something else on Netflix--but that's me, and on a larger societal scale, I see what you mean. Usually there's one Designated Hot Guy, maybe two if ZOMG LOVE TRIANGLE or...I don't even know, with Supernatural...but otherwise, just one.
Now that I think about it, that kinda bugs.
I can see it. I tend to lust after second-stringers, possibly because I feel guilty lusting after the Obviously Coupled Hero. In my mind, Rick O'Connell 'belongs' to Evie, but Ardeth Bay reads as highly available.
(Plus, second-stringers usually seem to have more interesting back-stories. And often better manners, what with them seemingly existing to help the Hero and Heroine. That seems nice, and awfully dependable.)
It's interesting to note, this being the Twilight thread and all, that the Twilight movies have a LOT of male variety on hand to gaze at. Carlisle, Emmett, Jasper, Charlie, Edward, Jacob, Mike, Tyler. There's really not anyone in the movie who isn't conventionally attractive by some standard or other.
@chris the cynic -
True, he is older. Would "playing at", with the implication that Edward "Mitt" Romney is trying and failing (spectacularly) to be a teenager, be more appropriate there? There is a certain amount of Nightmare Fuel, aptly illustrated by Caretaker Of Cats, that I'd like to preserve and think is appropriate here.
@Ana Mardoll -
I think its a Hollywood thing that even the ugly people must be attractive, but yes, canonically, I believe a have a type for most readers here. I'm tempted to call it a reverse harem, excepting for that everyone is coupled, as you point out. That, and Isabella Swan would never admit openly to having sexual thoughts about more than her Destined Partner, despite the fact that she has so many attractive, sparkly men to look at.
I think I have a suggestion on why the gaze has swung back to ogling the women and not the men - the last decade or two has seen a significant amount of movies based in superhero and comics properties as the Big Summer Blockbusters everyone sees and that has a major media blitz about. Comics properties, as we well know, are not exactly great about providing equality of costuming and ogling opportunity.
Brendan Fraser may be the exception, but they can get away with it because those movies are action-comedies instead of straight up Male Gaze pr0n.
"Bella and Edward's relationship is so creepy I find myself wishing a fan (or even an ex-fan) would explain what it seems like from the fanish perspective. Clearly, the people who think that this is an epic, wonderful romance and that Edward is an ideal man are seeing something very, very different. What is the interpretation that doesn't lead to "Run, Bella. Run very far away from this creepy, creepy controling abusive stalker who wants to eat you.""
Not having been raised in an environment that encouraged abstinence, I'd like to Amarie for an amazingly informative response.
I'd also like to pull out another aspect of the control/submission dynamic that a significant number of people seem to find attractive.
Possible TW: Theology, God and the Problem of Evil
Even before I decided I was an atheist in my theological outlook, there was always one 'solution' to the Omnipotent, Omniscient, Benevolent God yet Evil Still Exists problem that struck me as incredibly cruel just because of how insidious it was. That was the Everything Happens for the Greater Good argument. No matter what atrocity you look at - assault, sexual abuse, murder, genocide - _somehow_ that horrible thing was the best possible outcome in all possible worlds as determined by a benevolent, all powerful deity (so what right do you have to question the foresight and judgment of the Omniscient, Omnipotent, and most importantly, *Benevolent* deity by being bitter/angry/disconsolate/*Grieving*?! You should be grateful these unbearably painful things, really). What's more, you have no right to expect an explanation from that deity on why that pain and irreplaceable loss was necessary, or what greater good it was in the name of.
In a narrative like Twilight, however, that Greater Power is *right there in front of you.* Not only that, he's ZOMG hot and real and pays attention to *you* above everyone else. When he does things that make you uncomfortable or unhappy or just generally controls your actions, the laws of the story dictate that it truly is For the Greater Good. Not just any Greater Good either - *Your* Greater Good. He'll hold you and comfort you and explain why he had to do those painful things to look after you. Sometimes. But if he doesn't he's guaranteed to have a really, really good reason for not doing it!
Basically, Sparkle!pire takes the traditional role of God - you don't have to worry about making the wrong choices or uncomfortable ones, because Sparkles will guide you down the absolute best course of action. What's more, in the world of stories you're sure to be rewarded for your Faith, unlike in real life.
And now for something completely different...
Ana Mardoll: "TL;DR: I remember female desire being a normal thing. in movies in the 80s and 90s When did it stop being a normal thing in movies?"
I think this is just one aspect of the larger reactionary push from the conservative right in the wake of 9/11, the Great Recession, and the election of the first African American President. More severe manifestations include the GOP War on Women and the various voter suppression laws that have been popping up in various states (seriously, PA's governor was celebrating how his state's electoral votes were sure to go to Romney after their onerous voter ID law was passed). It's privileged classes pushing back against the upstarts wherever they can, and a large portion of the country quietly acquiescing because 1) it's familiar, and thus 'safe' when little else is and 2) even when people do notice, there are so many more pressing problems than satisfying the Female Gaze that no one has energy left over to protest effectively.
-annoni-no
Would "playing at", with the implication that Edward "Mitt" Romney is trying and failing (spectacularly) to be a teenager, be more appropriate there?
Yes! It's amazing what difference the little words can make, but yes I think it would be much more appropriate.
I guess I should have read your hole post before responding.
Comics properties, as we well know, are not exactly great about providing equality of costuming and ogling opportunity.
Why is that? (Open question to everyone.) Anyone remember Hercules the Legendary Journeys? It was a TV show that sort of threw greek myth and some actual history in a blender to the point of making someone who died before the Trojan War (Hercules) contemporary with Julius Casear.
I ask because the show was basically about a superhero, Hercules, and his sidekick, Iolaus. Hercules wore a shirt with a v-neck so massive it reached his bellybutton or thereabouts. Iolaus (this font really doesn't distinguish between uppercase i and lowercase L, does it? ioLaus) wore a vest that seemed to be designed to leave him naked from the waist up in front.
I have exactly zero interest in the male body, I didn't oggle, but I imagine that for those who were interested in such those costumes were helpful.
Now admittedly from the waist down they were covered (it may have been tight pants, I know not, though just to point out, yes, they had the Greek heroes of old wearing pants) so there's still a massive difference of degree but it seems to prove that male superheroes can have oggle worthy clothing without any real problems.
So why don't they?
Spot on. Hercules was very female-gaze friendly. Funnily enough, Xena seemed to be too, which you might not have expected going in.
Brendan Fraser may be the exception, but they can get away with it because those movies are action-comedies instead of straight up Male Gaze pr0n.
Funny enough, I remember "The Mummy" being dismissively reviewed at the time (not that it's High Art, but stick with me here) as having too many lingering looks between Hero and Heroine and therefore all Chick Flicky and Girl Cooties. I remember one reviewer longing for a "gay version" of the movie so that the director would have to DO SOMETHING to fill all the yanked out lingering shots at which point I went LOLWHUT because I think he meant Asexual. I rather imagine the gay version of The Mummy would have just as many lingering looks, just between different characters.
Agreed. Although I don't recall if Hercules or Xena had been developed from comics properties or not. They both were very female gaze friendly (Xena also had an outright Les Yay subtext (did it stay subtext?), which may our may not have influenced the Male Gaze part). And there was Bruce Campbell.
As for why Hercules is an outlier, rather than the norm, the straight, and possibly cynical, answer its that it's mostly men in comics and in Hollywood writer rooms and directorships. That creates a bit of a spiral problem, as the men write for men, which deters women from entering, which means more men writing for men...
A somewhat less-sourced (wild speculation) observation on my part is to blame the Hayes Code and the Comics Code Authority for why we don't have many Female Gaze-friendly items - the tight straightjacket around what was acceptable may have doomed several careers and ideas before they got out of rough concepts. While we don't have either of those now, they might have generated enough of the current fanbase's orthodoxies and sacred cows that it's going to take a generation or two of letting those ideas die out in favor of a more robust field of creators. Webcomics, for example, could help with that a lot. As well as the more feminist lens to view films and comics with, along with a much more open community of people that aren't white, cis, and het.
(I'd forgotten about Bruce Campbell. When Husband sat me down to watch "Army of Darkness" a year or so ago, he was amused when I started shouting IT'S THE XENA GUY! at the television.)
Also? That guy from LOTRO-slash-DOOM will always be That Zena Guy, Too.
You know, the one who was both Eros AND Julius Caesar? Yep.
Karl Urban. Also, Martin Csokas (Borias) played Celeborn.
...Hercules? As in Kevin Sorbo?
Damn the Republican GOP. This little Amarie still DROOLS and REMEMBERS.
*goes through our old VHS pile like a blood hound on the trail*
Mmmm...
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