**SPOILER ALERT GALORE**

It’s Twilight time, baby.

Have you read it? Are you part of the drooling drove of fanpires who can’t get enough of Bella, Edward, Jacob and Forks WA? Do you dream of volturi, fast expensive cars and a love so pure it lasts a lifetime? Did I say lifetime? I meant eternity. Do you long for a werewolf best friend, vampire lover, and an omniscient personal stylist sister in law?

Or are you completely and utterly confused by this phenomenon? Do you not get the significance of South Park’s new vampire themed episode? Are you wondering why your fourteen year old cousin just changed her name to Bell?

I know, I know. This whole Twilight hysteria is leaving no one untouched. Even if you have no context for the book series, you probably know that the movie is coming out soon (FRIDAY) and some guy is stirring up a boy band caliber response. Young girls across the country are swooning over the idea of Edward, and Robert Pattinson has been cast to manifest that dream, while going deaf in the process.

Lest I lead you astray, I have already purchased my tickets for Thursday’s midnight showing of Twilight.

It didn’t really take much to convince me to read the series. As a rule, I love young adult fiction. Additionally, I love Harry Potter. As Twilight was being heralded as “the next Harry Potter,” how could I refuse? (I do, however, have some opinions about that designation.) I threw myself head first and surfaced about two weeks and almost 2,500 pages later. I remember putting down the last book, looking around my room and trying to remember the last time I ate a meal. It was that serious.

So I loved it, you know? It was a great ride. I laughed, I cried, I pined for Edward (and Alice, lets all be honest). But there was something I just couldn’t shake. Actually, there were a few things. Bella’s character troubled me. (As my roommate, who is reading it for the first time said to me this morning, “Does she really have to be carried everywhere?”) The relationship model the book presented disappointed me. (Eternal monogamy, anyone?) The treatment of the Quileute tribe angered me. (Did you know that they actually exist and have a reservation in La Push? Did you notice that, for the most part, they are the only people of color in the book? Did you notice that Stephanie Meyer makes them into WOLVES?) So here I am, trying to bask in the afterglow and I can’t stop thinking about how millions of young girls (and youth in general) are reading/obsessing over this book. What are the messages being sent to them about love, relationships, gender, sex, and race?

Bella is a wimpy heroine. There. I said it. Do with it what you will. She is plain yet beautiful. Smart yet quiet. Only gets into trouble to bring Edward back from his disappearance. Boooooring. Also, look at the men who surround her. Her father is a POLICE OFFICER. Her boyfriend is an immortal overprotective knight in shining armor on super speed. Her best friend is an enormous, equally protective, werewolf. Who needs to take care of themselves when the men in their life can do it for them? You must be kidding.

And she is sooooo in love with Edward. We’re talking, like, would do anything drop of a hat jump off a bridge in love. He is her everything. She bases her entire existence around him and ultimately sacrifices it to be with him. There is no doubt in her mind that he is her “one true love” and they are destined to be together forever. I’m sorry, but that’s gross.

Which brings me to the relationship model. All of the Cullens have their “other half.” Carlisle and Esme, Jasper and Alice, Emmet and Rosalie, and poor sullen single Edward. Also, lets not forget about werewolf imprinting. (At some point, the wolf boys “imprint” on a girl that they may or may not know and become inexorably in love with them. Some imprint on girls their own age, some imprint on toddlers, and some imprint on half humans half vampires.) When the wolfieboys imprint on someone young they take a paternal, nurturing role, which gradually blends into a best friend, which will inevitably become romantic investment. Between the werewolves and the vampires we are taught one thing: True love is found with one person (of the opposite sex), and if it is true, will and should last a lifetime. Did I say lifetime, again?

So what has Twilight taught our youth?

1. Women must be cared for by men.
2. They must sacrifice everything for love.
3. Ideal relationships are heterosexual.
4. Ideal relationships are ETERNALLY MONOGAMOUS.

Can you tell that #4 really gets me going? I’d like to flush out the idea of eternal monogamy more, but this post is running on too long already. Keep a look out for part II where I will talk about the movie (as I will have seen it), eternal monogamy (duh), race, and the moral neutrality achieved in the midst of potentially amoral subject matter (vampires=evil).

Who else will be at the theater tomorrow night? See you there!

xx