The One With The Vamp

FADFILE: Twilight

What's The Sitch?

For those of you who have zero contact with teenagers, or who have just been living under a rock for the past year, I'll give you the low down. Twilight is the first book in a relatively new series by Stephanie Meyer consisting of four books: Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, and Breaking Dawn. The books are about Bella - a teenage girl who has just moved from her mother's home in Arizona, to live with her father in the small town of Forks. At her new school she meets Edward, a member of the strangely beautiful, and somewhat antisocial, Cullen family. Edward and Bella soon fall in love, and Bella works out that Edward is, in fact, a vampire. There’s a bit of violence/conflict in each of the books involving an ‘evil’ vamp who is inevitably trying to kill Bella. However, the main focus of the series is romance. In the second book Jacob – a friend of Bella’s – is introduced as potential alternate love interest for Bella….By the end of the third book she decides she loves both guys…but she’d rather marry Edward.

The main pulling card for the books is the appeal of Edward – the gorgeous guy in school who falls desperately in love with little old ordinary Bella. And whilst Bella isn’t necessarily ordinary from an outsiders perspective, she believes she is. Which mirrors the feelings of many teenage girls.
The introduction of Jacob, as part of a Jacob – Bella – Edward love triangle is also part of the books success, Jacob adds an element of conflict that girls are MORE than happy to talk about, and encourage their friends to read about, just so they can discuss it further.

The money that has been poured into the “Twilight franchise” (yes the Author herself called it a franchise) has resulted in the first book being made into a movie, as well as merchandise including: Games, jewellery, bags, hats, posters, t-shirts, costumes, water bottle’s...and even books ABOUT the books..

For more official Twilight merchandise click here

Points For:

Well the teens love it, and whilst it may not be high literature, there's an element of "at least they're reading". Because of the hype surrounding the 'Twilight Saga', less confidant readers are more inclined to tackle the larger books in the series (the longest is 756 pages). Which, because of the simple language, gives those readers a bit more confidence in reading bigger books.


Points Against:

Because of the Vampiric theme of the books, some groups believe that twilight is promoting evil or immoral ideals. Other people believe that Edward and Bella's relationship is potentially an abusive or unhealthy one (Edward kind of stalks Bella a bit...and is fairly possessive), and twilight is demonstrating to teens that that kind of behaviour and relationship is OK.
Others just think the book is crap. Crap writing, crap plot, crap characters.

For more detailed opinions check out these blogs:

http://kimolsen.wordpress.com/2009/01/27/twilight-evil-vs-more-evil-by-eric-barger/

http://outtheotherear.wordpress.com/2008/12/01/twilight-has-raped-the-minds-of-teenage-girls-everywhere/



The Haul So Far:

The Movie was made for 37 million (USD) and so far has managed 75 million in return. That's a profit of somewhere around 38 million. Now on DVD, Australians alone bought 264,077 copies in the first week of sales (according to The West Australian) at a price of around $30, working out to 7,922,310 (AUD). That's almost 8 million (AUD) just in Australia.

...In America 3 million copies were sold just in the first day.

And that's just the movie...

As far as the books are concerned Stephanie Meyer seems to be somewhat more tight-lipped on the subject of money than JK Rowling. But, given that on the Neilsen Bookscan, the entire series is within the top 10 Best Sellers, in Australia, America, and New Zealand, I'd say neither Meyer nor her publishers are too bad off.

Then there's the infinite money flow from the ever increasing merchandise range...


My Thoughts:

Personally, I didn't mind the books. I read them once, and never thought about them again...until every one started going crazy about them. Now I just think the books are crap, they were a fun read, but now that I've thought about them for more than a second, I can see how terribly written they are. But, in truth, I don't have a problem with that.
People have just as much right to write terrible books as they do excellent books.

The issue I have with Twilight is that money, time, and effort are being spent promoting and monopolising on an inferior product. That money could be far better spent on artists who's work has something worthwhile to add to our community.