I have a thirteen year old daughter and like many fathers I like to make her happy. And daughters seem to have an advantage over their brothers in this regard. A father wants to see his son mature into whatever they perceive the quintessential man to be: strong, self-reliant, dependable, trustworthy, hardworking... you get the point. So we beat 'em up a little and deprive them of things like hugs and kisses in order to prepare them to run this gauntlet called life. With our daughters we tend to protect and coddle and maybe overindulge. I've learned this past week that this double standard is bad for our daughters. I now know that I need to take a more active role in preparing my daughter for the challenges that she will face in life. She's going to need someone to give her a dose of reality. I say this because as an indulgent father I rented and watched The Twilight Saga: New Moon with my daughter this past weekend and have seen first hand the drivel seeping into their skulls full of mush, and I'm pretty darned terrified.
First, I have to say that my son and I did find a way to enjoy New Moon; we both found it such a bad movie that we were able to laugh at it's inanity throughout. We treated it like it was a Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode and had a ball. I think our favorite thing to make fun of was Bella's singular facial expression throughout the whole movie. Whether sad, happy, brooding, pouting, or smiling (I'm not sure that she did smile, now that I think about it) her facial expression never changed. I'm trying to figure out if that's bad acting or bad directing. And she mumbled the whole movie. What gives? We both found the story laughable; I mean you laugh so much that your belly aches laughable. I'm trying to figure out how this movie made over $700,000,000 at the box office. Again, what gives?
Now that leads to the problem I'm facing here. Why are the book and movie series so dang popular? Sure, I'm a guy and I'd be easily dismissed for not getting the whole romantic qualities put forth, right? It's true that I contend that the movie 300 is one of the most romantic movies ever made (you'll need to read one of my earlier blogs for more on that one)! But that doesn't mean that I don't get the romance. My problem is it's the wrong kind of romance! The heroine is completely obsessed with a vampire that craves human blood and wants to have him change her into one despite the fact that she'll also want to feed on human blood, that is until someone runs a wooden stake through her heart. And her vampire boyfriend loves her so much that he can't help but put her in dangerous situations with other vampires who want to eat her. Now, he gets credit from all the ladies on this count because he protects her from all the ravenous blood suckers, that happen to be his family! I say do her a favor and not bring her home to meet the parents. Just sayin'. I know I've over simplified the story, but it's hard to get around the truly heinous qualities and laud the good ones. Geez, what a mess.
My fear is that my daughter might see this pap and think it a healthy romance when it's not. We have a depressive, brooding girl with an obsessive personality falling in love with a somewhat good intentioned monster. Is it a healthy model of a romantic relationship for one to go from seeing their fellow man with compassion and good will to seeing them instead as a good meal? I hope that there are enough good relationship models in her life to counterbalance this Twilight swill. Actually, I do believe she does have those positive role models. Still, her mom and I will need to step up and make sure she has a good perspective to work with and a good model with our own relationship. And I really hope this New Moon is waning. Can you imagine a world where all our 13 year old girls are picking between Team Edward and Team Jacob? Man, that would suck!
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