so twilight is having a renessiance but remember how it was firmly killed off in the first place? like sure there’s the mormon brand racism and baby imprinting and whatnot but as i remember it, the thing that got brought up again and again and again was edwards abusive behaviour and how it was gonna corrupt young girls into thinking that this was ok???
like idk about any of you but i was super into twilight when i was about 14/15 as were literally all my friends and yet none of us grew up to think abusive men were anything but pure garbage??? so much of our generation is out there actively fighting against this shit and we did that despite reading and watching edward creep into bellas bedroom and watch her sleep without her consent. hell plenty of us thought it was romantic at the time.
anyway my point is that twilight is a prime example of how the ‘problematic media is gonna destroy the youth’ mentality is complete and utter bullshit and serves no purpose other than to shame teenage girls into hating something they previously enjoyed. thank you for coming to my ted talk
Honestly, what always scared me more re: twilight weren’t the preteen and teenage girls who lapped it up (because there was always the hope that they’d a) grow out of it, and b) have people in their life who could show them what happy, healthy relationships looked like, so they wouldn’t think That was it), it was shit like the massive Twimoms segment of fandom. These women in their thirties and older who legitimately thought Twilight was romantic and Edward and Jacob were ideal and ye gads, that site was quite honestly frightening to behold. (And their later resurgence with 50SoG.)
The primary take of the OP is still super valid ofc, for the same reason that ‘violent video games make kids violent’ is bullshit, it’s just that I was always more sickened by the idea that adults could look at this same heap of abuse-romanticizing drivel, and actually believe it was romantic. Because then the hope that they’ll just ‘grow out of it’ becomes far less assured.
The preteen and teen girls who liked Twilight kind of knew how problematic it was. Most of the adults who liked it unironically… did not.
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