Twilight....An Objective Opinion?

**WARNING** Die hard Twilight fans should probably NOT read this post. You know who you are.... I had never even heard of the Twilight book series until December 2008. I was at a Christmas party with the Phillips family and the Welling family. Aimei Phillips was talking to me and my sisters in law about how she is a total Twilight addict. Honestly, as I recall, none of us had heard of the books. She didn't want to spoil the plot for us, and therefore was really vague about the storyline. Her description left me believing it was a love story about two average married (possibly LDS) couple. She did talk about how cool it was that the author was LDS, and how popular the books are among the LDS community. She also made an interesting comparison. She had to teach a young women's lesson about pornography, in her lesson she used the addiction so many LDS women had with the book series to the vile addiction of pornography. Both giving the "viewer" an unrealistic expectation about relationships. She is still a big fan.

Then while I was perusing the internet at work I noticed on the homepage that there was a big brouhaha about the actors being cast t0 play the Twilight characters in the movie. I still had no idea what the plot was about and couldn't understand what the big deal was. Why was Robert Patterson (Cedric Diggery) not good looking enough to play Edward? And who is Kristen Stewart?

Later, (once again while on the internet) I believe I stumbled across a preview for the movie, or a music video for the movie....I don't remember which. This is when I discovered "whoa, this movie is about vampires!" Ok, I can remain open minded....especially since I grew up on Dracula due to my mothers love of everything Vampire. I have probably seen every vampire movie out there. So I borrowed my sisters copy of the movie and watched it this weekend. I loved it, I thought there were some really interesting twists to the vampire description. (Namely that they don't turn to dust in the sun....they sparkle like diamonds!!) Of course the whole
"a vampire falls in love with a human" bit isn't anything new. Dracula loves Mina, Selena from underworld falls in love the human Michael (who coincidentally becomes a Liken or werewolf), Angel loves Buffy (no...I was not a fan of the series.), and so on and so forth. But hey it was good, and there was the whole sexual tension romance thing happening. I could understand how the story line could be intoxicating.

Well since I knew I would not have time to read the books.....not for a while anyway, when my kids are older and less demanding. I decided to look up the book spoilers on the web to get an idea of where the plot was headed. This is when things went downhill. When I read about the plot for book #4 I was sorely disappointed. The reason? Because all this hype about an LDS author has been put out by the LDS community and guess what....the climax of her series is wrapped up in premarital sex and teenage pregnancy!! WHAT?? I expected more than the
A-typical worldly view of romance. But as my husband put it, premarital sex is romantic to the rest of the world. The sexual tension and anticipation makes is more exciting (steamy) than the
squeaky clean wait until you are married version we are taught as Latter Day Saints.

Still, I was disappointed. Perhaps it is because I have not been wrapped up in reading the books that I can say that. I'm sure some would justify the need for the pregnancy as being detrimental to the story at large. (ie: vampires can't have children, but no one said a vampire and human couldn't---as the spoiler put it.) But was this "love child" really necessary?

This reminded me of something I have already contemplated before. Isn't it interesting that Hollywood, and novels have a way of changing our opinions, even if for just a moment. How many of us have cheered the "good" bad guys. We applaud the thieves in the Ocean's 11, 12, and 13 movies. How many of us were excited when the Thieves in The Italian Job stole back their loot from the other thief that took it from them. Or my all time PERSONAL favorite comes from the movie Titanic. I remember sitting in the movie theatre with my sister and mother watching the film. And after you realize Jack sacrificed his own life to save his lady love I thought...."well, at least they were able to have sex before he died." almost immediately after I had that thought I chastized myself, "what the heck am I saying!!!" We somehow excuse acts that break commandments or covenants and deem them as acceptable, all in the name of entertainment. And I am just as guilty of it.

This has bothered me for some time, which is probably where my disappointment in Stephanie Meyers (LDS author) comes from. Perhaps she isn't even LDS, maybe everyone is assuming it because she graduated from BYU, perhaps she is LDS but not active, who knows. But because her target audience is young adults.....it is disappointing that she glamorized and romanticized premarital sex and teenage pregnancy. It goes against what we are taught in the church, what we teach our children....and I certainly wouldn't want my teenage daughter (if I had one) to get sucked into the whole......oh it's ok because it is just a story mentality. Like I said before, it probably grinds on me because the author is believed to be an active LDS woman. I guess I expected her work to reflect her moral beliefs.