Ediblog.com
Debra
Rae
‘Tis
the Season for Twilight
Obsession
©2009
Debra Rae
Re
c
ent shopping trips unders
c
ore the inevitable—namely, “the holiday season” is upon us. Everywhere
I turn, I’m greeted with a hodge-podge of images depi
c
ting spiders, wit
c
hes, vampires, turkeys, Santa Clauses, elves, and affable reindeer. You name
it.
For
many, su
c
h displays spark “spirit.” What’s not to enjoy about Christmas and
Thanksgiving themes that are
c
on
c
iliatory, family-honoring, and laden with goodwill toward men?
Now,
c
ontrast thankfulness and “pea
c
e on earth” with dark, death-
c
entri
c
Halloween i
c
ons of wit
c
hes, tombstones, ghouls, vampires, werewolves, and monsters. Couple these
with pra
c
ti
c
es of vandalism, mis
c
hief, and extortion; and perhaps you get my gist.
Despite
plain distin
c
tions as these, television spook programming and video rentals of violent
horror films rea
c
h their peak at this time of year. And 2009 is no ex
c
eption.
Twilight Saga
Just
last month in Forks,
Washington
, the mayor read a pro
c
lamation
c
elebrating Stephenie Meyer Day. You may know that Meyer authored four New
York Times best-selling novels pa
c
kaged as the Twilight Saga. Eager attendees entered Twilight
c
hara
c
ter lookalike, trivia and theme-spe
c
ifi
c
,
c
ar-de
c
orating
c
ontests.
Last
year, Summit Entertainment put the first of the series, Twilight,
to the silver s
c
reen. In it, vampire Edward Cullens battles a “bad-boy bloodsu
c
ker” by the name of James. Preview of its sequel was shown this May during
the MTV Movie Awards
c
eremony.
As
Meyer’s saga goes, seventeen-year-old Isabella (Bella) Swan finds her one
true heart-throb, Edward—this after relo
c
ating from
Phoenix
to Forts. Problem is her love interest is, well, a vampire—spe
c
ifi
c
ally, an “undead”
c
orpse that by nature su
c
ks the blood of the living.
This
popular ‘tween/teen-fli
c
k is
c
hara
c
terized as “deeply romanti
c
,” “extraordinarily suspenseful,” and (in referen
c
e to its vampire hero) “a love story with a bite.” Come November fans
will flo
c
k to New Moon, animating the se
c
ond of the four-book series. On
c
e again, the story
c
enters on Bella, devastated by abrupt departure of her vampire lover.
Through a growing friendship with Ja
c
ob Bla
c
k, Bella now is drawn into the dark world of werewolves. (Edward’s so
mysterious, and Ja
c
ob’s so
c
ute, what’s a girl to do, anyway?)
All
in Fun
Starry-eyed
‘tween- and teen-agers are hooked! On the Forks web site, Darlene gushes,
“OMG, I am so into Bella and Edward and the Twilight Saga.” Yet another
fan, Amy, and her Mom
c
hara
c
terize themselves as “Twilight junkies”!
Enthusiast Laura surprised her daughter with a weekend trip to Forks for
Bella’s birthday breakfast.
The
Twilight rage is all in fun; no
harm done, right? After all, what’s the problem with Gothi
c
c
ulture and horror literature rooted in the
earth (Goddess Gaia)? C’mon,
folks, it’s Halloween; and violen
c
e with torture handily fits the bill for ensuring a spookily entertaining
one. Just ask one Twilight reader,
who des
c
ribes herself as “shaking in fear” at
two a.m.
, at whi
c
h time the book was grabbed from her
c
lut
c
hes with stern instru
c
tion to “turn out the light and go to sleep.” (Bummers!)
What
the World Needs Now
The
c
ertainty of Bella’s
c
onvi
c
tions, as penned by author Stephenie Meyer, is the three-fold pro
c
lamation that, first, Edward is a vampire. Next, there is a part of him (how
dominant yet to be determined) that thirsts for her blood; and, thirdly, she
finds herself “un
c
onditionally and irrevo
c
ably in love” with him.
Never
mind that Edward admits, “I’m a killer; I’ve killed before; and I
wanted to kill you.” Forget that Bella’s lover is numbered among “the
world’s most dangerous predators.” Her baseless trust in this imposingly
mysterious boyfriend with dark, penetrating eyes remains unshaken.
Keep
in mind that love lessons as these defy the bibli
c
al model—namely, that “love does not a
c
t unseemly,” is “not easily provoked,” “thinks no evil,” and
“rejoi
c
es (not in iniquity but) in truth” (1 Cor. 13:5-7). Not so with love
Meyer-style.
Instead,
Meyer’s depi
c
tion of love introdu
c
es the werewolf
c
on
c
ept of “imprinting” whereby
the earth moves, as it were, and those fated for love know right away that
they’ve found it full-blown—and at “first sight.” “The more you
love someone,” we learn, “the less sense anything makes.” Bella’s
landmark dis
c
overy is that “forbidden fruit tastes the sweetest.” And so, as Meyer
explains, the “si
c
k, maso
c
histi
c
lion falls in love with the stupid lamb.”
Delighted
to
c
hat about her daughter’s new “boy friend,” Bella’s mom asks the
all-important, politi
c
ally
c
orre
c
t question: “Are you being safe?” Plainly, in mom’s mind, it’s “a
given” that her daughter will engage in pre-marital sexual a
c
tivity; and “safe sex” is the responsible way to go, is it not?
Next,
Twilight love is destru
c
tive. In Meyer’s world, love gives someone power to “break another
beyond repair”; and it is by nature obsessive. Bella depi
c
ts a world without Edward as “
c
ompletely pointless.” It seems moms (themselves “Twilight
junkies”) overlook these distorted love messages in support of what they
laud as a “
c
hastity” message that allegedly distinguishes Bella and Edward’s roman
c
e.
Unbeknownst
to Bella’s parents, neither “
c
haste,” nor “safe” rightly apply. The
c
ouple’s
c
hastity is a
c
hieved, not by prin
c
iple, but by Edward’s se
c
ret struggle to refrain from
c
onsuming his dele
c
table Bella for lun
c
h. Furthermore, he admits to
c
oveting Bella. To him, she’s one tasty morsel of a sna
c
k.
With
his smile darkened, Edward
c
onfesses, “I had no right to want you, but I rea
c
hed out and took you anyway.” In turn, Bella runs off to meet her vampire
lover with what Meyer des
c
ribes as “an I-V in hand.”
Funny,
maybe; ma
c
abre, you bet!
Family
Values Twilight Style
A
seemingly well-adjusted
c
hild of divor
c
e, Bella is any parent’s dream
c
hild. Arguably “ordinary,” she’s pretty, intelligent, and desirable
(and not just for the intoxi
c
ating s
c
ent of her human blood!). Bella’s sought out by (and kindly toward) her
newly found high-s
c
hool friends. Moreover, she’s
c
lose to her mom, thoughtful of her dad’s feelings, and if need be willing
to sa
c
rifi
c
e her own life for another.
Bella’s
Prin
c
e Edward rivals the speed and strength of the
killer Tyrannosaurus
Rex of
Jurassi
c
Park
fame. This supernatural quality serves him well when, for the third
time, he res
c
ues his damsel in distress—this time from the grips of a less honorable
c
ounterpart. Despite life-threatening injuries Bella sustains in the gruesome
War of the Vampires, she
c
leans up beautifully and, then, is romanti
c
ally whisked away to the Senior Prom by her mysteriously aloof, but
hunk-of-a guy.
Pale
white Edward needn’t eat or sleep, but one thing he does need—to ingest
the blood of a beautiful woman. Not the boy of my dreams, but then neither
was Vlad the Impaler, better known as Count Dra
c
ula. This mid-fifteenth
c
entury man (histori
c
ally a real person) massa
c
red
c
ountless men, women, and
c
hildren by pier
c
ing, pun
c
turing, breaking, skinning, impaling, and roasting them alive. Not
surprisingly, Twilight likewise
c
ulminates with killing, ripping, and burning. It’s the nature of the beast
after all.
Twilight-Skewed
Religiosity
More
often than not, bibli
c
al imagery frames the so-
c
alled theologi
c
al grid of sedu
c
tive
c
ults and the o
c
c
ult. Syn
c
retism or do
c
trinal mix is pre
c
isely what hooks those vulnerable to de
c
eption. That said, the Twilight Saga
displays a
c
ross, referen
c
es wolves and lambs, and alludes to heaven and hell—but in de
c
idedly non-bibli
c
al ways.
For
example, Edward is portrayed as “but a man” (though admittedly he is not
human). In fa
c
t, he
c
laims to have been seventeen years of age sin
c
e 1918, when (with a bite to his ne
c
k) he first obtained immortality. His undying loyalty fixates on a
tightly-knit family of fellow vampires. Said loyalty renders him (to put it
bluntly) hell-bent and heaven-poor.
“What
if I’m not a superhero?” he asks his beloved. “What if I’m the bad
guy?” Edward goes on to pro
c
laim, “As long as I knew I was going to hell, I de
c
ided to do it thoroughly.” “Life su
c
ks, and then you die. Yeah, I should be so lu
c
ky,” he
c
omplains. “If we had happy endings, we’d all be under the gravestones
now.” These ponderings hardly
typify the
c
rooning of a hormone-driven, love-si
c
k romanti
c
with honorable intentions.
Question:
“When you
c
an live forever, what do you live for [if not for one’s ‘soul
mate’]?” This is the very query with whi
c
h young, impressionable readers grapple. Though
c
lear bibli
c
al mandate requires abstaining for self-interest from all outward appearan
c
e of evil (1 Thess. 5:22), the Twilight
Saga glorifies supernatural power (apart from the one, true God),
shamans and healers (minus the Great Physi
c
ian), and Quileute “shape-shifting,” or transforming a wolf into a man
(rather than dis
c
arding the old man of sin in ex
c
hange for the new
c
reation in Christ).
This,
my friend, is evil.
“Up
Tight” or “On the Money”?
Publi
c
television produ
c
er Harriet Kozkoff tells it like it is. Surely no one disputes that
“entertainment is a powerful so
c
ializing agent in
c
ontemporary so
c
iety,” or that “slasher and horror movies use violen
c
e and sexual arousal to maximize profits.”
What
adults need to understand, but often do not, is that this genre of
entertainment is, as Kozkoff puts it, “an inevitable pres
c
ription for
c
onditional sexual sadism into our pre-teen, teenage and young adult film
fans.”
Chara
c
terized as a party pooper and “
c
razy lady” for my ostensibly uptight, bibli
c
al beliefs, I am familiar with my a
c
c
user’s justifi
c
ations for entertaining vampires and
c
elebrating Halloween. Problem is
Satanists
c
all O
c
tober 31st All Demon’s Night, the
day of the year most
c
ondu
c
ive to demoni
c
a
c
tivity.
Self-pro
c
laimed “Beast 666,” Satanist Aleister Crowley shaped modern wit
c
h
c
raft; moreover, he started the Cult of the Fas
c
inating Child that engages in Transuguthian Magi
c
by sexually violating a
c
hild and drinking that
c
hild’s blood in order to steal his/her youth and thereby a
c
c
ess godlike realities of afterlife immortality.
On
Halloween, Wi
c
c
ans “draw down the moon”
(by inviting the goddess to possess them) as they engage in sexual pra
c
ti
c
es often a
c
c
ompanied by al
c
ohol and/or drug use and nudity (
c
alled being “sky
c
lad”).
This
is no small matter. Today online pagan networks estimate there are anywhere
from 150,000 to 600,000 pra
c
ti
c
ing pagans in the
US
alone. Yet Halloween proponents extol the fun of having one’s so
c
ks s
c
ared off, engaging in vandalism, and swooning at vampire films with romanti
c
twists (30 Days of Night, Interview
with the Vampire and Queen of the
Damned, to name but three).
Gothi
c
Fun
Girls
just gotta’ have fun, right?
Wrong. Responsible parents ground their
c
hildren in truth, not error. Any parent worth his or her salt does well to
steer youngsters away from (and not toward) any hell-bent, murdering,
blood-slurping predator, no matter how
c
ute. There’s something wrong about a mom’s aligning with the Twilight
Junkie Club, the end of whi
c
h, I’m told, portrays Bella drinking blood for (and giving birth to) her
˝-human, ˝-vampire baby.
Bella’s
is a story of
c
ovens of vampires and opposing werewolves, addi
c
tion to the “heroin” of blood, obsession with that addi
c
tion, and (ultimately)
c
onversion from humanoid to vampire—all in the name of love.
That
said, perhaps Bella’s is a Gothi
c
tale not worth the telling.
Debra Rae is an author and educator who has traveled extensively throughout the United States and abroad. Having authored two books—the ABCs of Globalism and ABCs of Cultural-Isms (the latter highlighted at the 55th Annual CBA International Convention, 2004)—Debra contributing columnist for News With Views. Debra has been a speaker on numerous radio shows aired across the nation, the Western Hemisphere, Russia, and the Middle East. This past year, she co-launched and now co-hosts WOMANTalk, a special edition of Changing Worldviews TALK Radio, for which she writes weekly commentaries.
www.debraraebooks.com, www.womantalk.us,
www.newswithviews.com/Rae/Debra.htm
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