#you are not inherently any smarter or better than abused women of the past. they thought they made the best choices they could too.

[chaoxfix]

god i need the algorithm to stop recommending lore olympus to me.

reframing a kidnapping of a woman as romance, and painting her mother as an overbearing shrew rather than rightfully worried and protective, and portraying the kidnapper as sympathetic ... what about my overtly feminist ass makes anyone or any algorithm think i'd enjoy ANY hades/persephone romance retellings.

at this point the only hades and persephone retelling i'm interested in is a retelling that focuses on demeter's love for her daughter. one where persephone's abduction and transition from kore, the maiden, to persephone, goddess of the dead and queen of the underworld, was one where she carries out a revenge fantasy against her abductor... She cannot fully escape the underworld, no; she is death, doomed by the narrative. Underground she will stay for half the year. But she will not subject herself to be trapped with him.

hades dies at dawn; hades dies in the spring light, by persephone's power, and a knife garnished with evergreen thistles. demeter holds him down, and persephone cuts the head. judith slaying holofernes; persephone slaying hades.

[ryanmeft]

The Favourite Movie Review

If you happen to suffer from Anglophilia, The Favourite may very well cure you of it. America’s obsession with everything British owes a lot to the fact that movies and TV have painted our overseas cousins as being upstanding, intelligent, and just a little above it all. If Brexit hasn’t killed off that impression for you, take a look at this movie: the court is petty, the most common language is insults, the royal helpers fight like bloodthirsty schoolgirls, and the Queen is mad. How delicious.

It’s the early 18th century, and there are a few issues surrounding the rule of Queen Anne (Olivia Colman); namely, that she’s battier than a thousand-year-old attic. Among her many lovable antics: telling off the servants for things she told them to do, being pushed around in a completely unnecessary wheelchair which she likes being rolled very fast in, falling on the floor and screaming, demanding royal courtesy be paid to an army of rabbits, deliberately making herself sick on sweets, and generally being so out to lunch she frequently forgets there’s a war on with France. In fairness to her, this is England, so remembering when there is and is not a war with France is a full-time job. My only serious regret about all of this is that, while having wheelchair races with herself, she at no point shouts “Vroom vroom”.

These days, we might have sympathy for such an unfortunate soul, but Queens then and now are not so much persons as objects of political desire. The Tory party, here identified only as the opposition, wants to end War With France Number 76b quickly, because the taxes needed for it are taking money out of the pockets of wealthy landowners and, as Tory leader Robert Harley (Nicholas Hoult) sneeringly informs us, putting it in the hands of those darned merchants; one is reminded of the airline shareholders who griped that the employees were getting paid before they did. Anne’s primary confidant is Sarah Churchill (Rachel Weisz, and yes, she’s his ancestor), the Duchess of Marlborough. She wants the war, in which her husband (Mark Gatiss) is a leader, to be funded and fully supported. Just as you think she is the one of the two with the more honorable intentions, the movie corrects you: her support for her husband has more to do with the benefits of being married to a war hero than with any real affection. She is, in fact, shtupping the queen, something left in absolutely no doubt. This is a movie far more frank about sexuality and especially lesbianism than even most indie films dare to be. In that regard, it is incredibly forward thinking; at one point Anne is quite explicit about tongues and her preferred use for them. In other regards the movie’s attitude toward sex is less progressive but no less frank, as it is frequently used to attain power.

This fine arrangement is threatened by the arrival of Sarah’s cousin Abigail (Emma Stone) who has fallen on hard times after her father, from what I could gather, burned down both their house and himself. She initially becomes trusted by the Queen entirely by accident, in fact through the only unadulterated show of good Samaritanism in the entire movie. She will soon learn that in this place, no good deed goes unpunished. She evolves, if you can call it that, until she fits right in with the nearly murderous intrigues of royal life. Sarah pushes: she threatens her life, has her beaten, and attempts to humiliate, ruin and tear her down. Eventually, Abigail will become the better fighter, even engineering a scenario that leaves Sarah rotting in a brothel while she moves to solidify her own position. Nor are Sarah and the Queen the only ones to be used or abused by her. The film goes as far as to subtly suggest she, unlike Sarah, is not even that into sex, as she pursues marriage to a randy nobleman (Joe Alwyn), then loses interest once she has him, and the royal benefits the marriage provides.

What to make of the ensuing battle of wills between the deteriorating Queen, her bickering fixers, and the Parliament? I’ll tell you what not to make of it: the idea that this movie has a feminist viewpoint. It seems that way initially, with both nominal and real power in the hands of a woman. One of the founding, most cherished myths of the movement, though, is that the world would be an inherently better place if women grasped the shorthairs of power. It’s impossible to say if that would be true. What I can say is that the screenplay, written twenty years ago by historian Deborah Davis and “freshened up” more recently by Tony McNamara, practically dies laughing at the idea. It will be tempting for those who want to see Sarah and Abigail in a certain light to say they are only responding to the viciousness of the world they live in, but they voluntarily go far, far beyond any schemes cooked up by the pompous, white-wigged men of the government. The simple truth an attentive viewer might notice early on is that it really, truly would have been possible for the two women to come to some agreement. The other simple truth is that neither wanted to; both wanted to win at the expense of the other. It is not that the men are spared---they are variously pompous, corrupt, callous, or incompetent. It is that power in film is usually shown as mostly corrupting or being corrupted by men, and here women are equally as eager to get in on the game. Sarah’s complicity in this is the most tragic, as it’s clear she really does care about the Queen; yes, at no point does she actually stop trying to manipulate her. No one is spared: even the scullery maids are needlessly cruel.

The main triangle that comprises the heart of the drama is infused with three of the most gripping performances you’ll see at the movies. The irony of Rachel Weisz having her big breakthrough as the nerdy, shy girlfriend of then-more famous Brendan Fraser in The Mummy is strong; she’s since gone on to be the more dominant actor, and it isn’t close. She has one of those mannerisms that can control a room; later, when her more subtle ways of squeezing the Queen have begun to falter in the face of Abigail’s tactics, she gets more forceful, and such is Weisz’s presence that we are shocked when it doesn’t work. Stone’s big hit role in Zombieland was more hard-bitten, but she too would need meatier roles to display what she can really do, and here gets her best to date. She starts out truly just wanting a second chance after going through a hellish youth and being dumped into another bad situation. Eventually, those who would push her to be horrible learn a lesson, as she can be far more vicious than they ever intended.

Somehow, Colman’s Anne is constantly on the verge of sheer, out-in-the-yard-barking-at-the-moon lunacy, yet never devolves to the level of parody, and maintaining her insanity while also not becoming a Jack Sparrow-esque joke must have been among the more demanding things asked of an actor. Most of the water cooler talk centers around the more widely recognized Stone and Weisz, but Colman needs to be both stark raving mad and entirely sympathetic or the movie falls apart; we need to believe this is a person two intelligent, driven, vivacious women would be willing to get in the mud for, even as they manipulate her to their own ends. This is one of the few cases where we can safely impose modern ethics on the past. Anne is mentally ill, and should have been cared for, but there was no chance of that ever happening.

The world her court inhabits has been recreated by director Yorgos Lanthimos, working for the first time since before his critically acclaimed Dogtooth with someone else’s script, as a place that lacks the sumptuousness with which English finery, English dress, English buildings and English everything else are usually treated in American cinema. That’s probably because Lanthimos is Greek, and whereas Britain to us is the ideal parent---upright and mature yet far enough way that we don’t need to call that often---to him it may be just another country in Europe. The halls of St. James’s Palace (My best guess; the film never says) are not particularly ornate or beautiful, or at least they are not portrayed that way. Robbie Ryan chooses to shoot many scenes in near darkness, with candlelight, and the result is that much of the palace appears gloomy, close and not especially grand or even inviting; there is one moment in which Sarah speaks through a door whose other side is hidden by a tapestry when we could well believe the house as a setting for a ghost story. Nor are the actresses spared the visual signs of moral decay. Though the costume department drapes them in every bit of finery you expect from pompous royals, both competing women are literally drug through the mud, and Anne shows little care for her personal hygiene. We are reminded that this was a dirty world in more ways than one, and whatever glamorous ideas we might have of the past are shot out from under us. Like the highly underrated Marie Antoinette, almost the entire movie takes place within the cloistered walls of the royal residence; I doubt most of those involved in the drama ever spare a look for an actual citizen of the crown.

Lanthimos’s last film, The Killing of a Sacred Deer, inspired strong feelings in me. Specifically, it inspired the desire to beat it with a stick. I am morally opposed to films that seek to prove how much smarter they are than the audience. Similar to his more popularly received film The Lobster, The Favourite is quite intelligent in the way it approaches its themes: power, political games, and the puncturing of the myths we build for ourselves surrounding both royalty and the romance of the past. It ascends to greatness because it never once alienates the audience in order to say these things. Just leave your fantasies of ladies and gentlemen in flower at home; those guys aren’t in this movie.

Verdict: Must-See

Note: I don’t use stars, but here are my possible verdicts.

Must-See

Highly Recommended

Recommended

Average

Not Recommended

Avoid like the Plague

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[crewhonk]

Papa Don’t Preach ii

Authors Note: I know i usually dont to these but you guys are the loves of my life! all 306 of you!!! MANY HUGS AND KISSES TO ALL. And see if yall can catch my Power Ranger references in this one!! :D

Words: 2,637

Summary: After a week of silence from Billy after the family dinner gone wrong, you confront him about it and talk it out like adults. He propses a crazy idea after a public fight with your dad, Chief Jim Hopper

Requested: HIGHLY REQUESTED GOD LOVE YOU ALL! If you want more, just lemme know!!!! 

Masterlist

Part One | Part Two

It had been an entire week since you had spoken to either Jim Hopper or Billy Hargrove. Jim had taken to grumbling around the cabin every night, and slamming doors and cracking a new beer every ten minutes. Eleven had been quiet, spending more time with the Party and up in your loft reading books and listening to you talk about your day at school and how Billy was. Eleven had developed quite the fascination with Billy, as they had similar experiences growing up. She and Max had spoken about him sparingly and without your friends true and undying support in your affections for Billy Hargrove, it had been nice growing closer to the younger girls who seemed to understand. You and Billy hadn’t been growing closer over the past week, however, and it had left you disgruntled (and almost offended) since you had been inseparable these past few months. It was a shock to your system not having him in your life as a constant, and it had been even more of a shock to you to have to ride in the backseat of Jonathan Byers car. The biggest shock, however, was watching Jonathan and Nancy interact with each other, and feeling nothing but resentment towards them for even the slightest actions (Nancy had brushed a piece of hair that was hanging in his face and you wanted to vomit, honestly) despite them being two of your closest friends.

So, here you were, staring at your locker at nothing but your thoughts and fiddling with the necklace Billy had given you one random day. He saw it on sale in some store downtown and when he had given it to you two weeks into your relationship he had mumbled something about ‘I don’t know. It reminded me of you— don’t make a big deal about it’. Since then you hadn’t taken it off- even when it left green marks around your neck, and even when the fake silver had made your chest break out in bumps. Your eyes flashed in sudden anger towards everything in your life, and your fist gripped your necklace before you slammed your locker door shut, calling the attention of a few passerby’s.

Including Carol and her gang.

“Trouble in paradise, Y/N?” She asked, smiling and brushing a piece of your hair over your shoulder and fiddling with your necklace.

“Last time I checked, it wasn’t any of your business.” You glared, and pushed past her. She grabbed your arm to spin you around and you ripped your arm out of her grasp.

“He’s beautiful in bed, Y/N, just in case you forgot.” Tina piped up from behind Carol, cackling before walking away. You shoved past Carol and Casey and wrapped your fist in her brown hair, pulling hard enough for Tina to spin and glare at you, raising her fist. Before she had a chance to hit you, you pulled your hand back and slapped her hard on the face.

“Did you just slap me?” She shrieked.

“Yeah, I guess I did.” You replied before shoving her back into the lockers behind her. She let out a high-pitched scream that you could barely hear because your pulse was racing in your ears and your rage blocked most of your senses. You drew back a fist before bringing it down hard on her face and splitting her lip with the ring you had stolen from Billy’s makeshift vanity.

“Dont— you— ever— speak— about him— that way!” You yelled, punctuating every syllable with a punch or a slap to the face. Before you could damage her face any more, you felt yourself being heaved over someone’s shoulder. “Let me go!” You screeched, hitting the denim-clad back that you were faced with.

You fought and wriggled until you were put down on the grass but the parking lot. You were face-to-face with the bare chest clad with a virgin mary pendant. You glared up into the blue eyes of your boyfriend and pushed past him.

“Y/N lets talk.” He said, grabbing the back of your shirt and pulling you into his chest. He wrapped his arms around your waist, not letting your run from him. You spun in his arms and slammed your palms against his chest.

“No! You don’t get to want to talk to me after avoiding me for a week. You don’t get to!” You yelled while hitting him over and over. He took his hands and wrapped them around your wrists. “You’re a dickhead, and I deserve better than someone who ignores me after one shitty date with my dad. My dad is mad at me too, thanks for asking. He’s not even speaking to me and all he does is drink and grumble and everything is shit right now. So, no. You don’t get to talk to me.” You cried, tears flowing from your eyes and running down your face. He removed his hands from your wrists and brushed them over your cheeks, wiping away the blush you had applied on your cheeks that morning. You slid your hands around his waist and under his denim jacket and cried into his chest. You cried for Billy, and your love for him and you cried for him because your dad didn’t see what you did.

What you saw in Billy was a beautiful star of a man. You saw someone who was filled with repressed potential, and you saw someone who compensated for their home life at school. You saw someone who loves chocolate milkshakes and Krispy Kreme coffee. He loved when you cooked your favorite greek chicken and was genuinely so excited the first time you made it. You saw someone who portrayed themselves as a dog person but melted whenever they saw a cat or kitten on the street. You saw someone who wanted to be a social worker. Someone who wanted to fight for children who showed up to school with bruises, or to fight for the women and men who had to put on makeup to hide the dark circles under their eyes. You saw someone who wanted to save people but hid that desire to be respected in their school community. You saw someone who was beaten and abused and manipulated by toxic masculinity and broken families. You saw an inherently flawed man who was the love of your life.

“Come on, Princess. Let’s go somewhere else.” He whispered in your ear. You felt his lips brush against your ear, and the closeness made you shiver.

“What about Max?” You mumbled, rubbing your nose into his shirt, and continuing to rest your head against his chest.

“She has Nerd Club tonight.”

“Be nice.” You warned. He laughed and grabbed your cheeks, bringing your face to his and pecking your lips softly and pulling you to his Camaro. His arm was wrapped around the back of your neck and you held the hand that was resting on your shoulder, fingers intertwining together. He opened the door for you to climb into his car and you curled up in the seat. He got into the car, started it and turned down the music until it was nearly inaudible. The crooning voice of Steven Tyler reached your ears and you wiped your eyes, blinking rapidly. He pulled out of the parking lot and tore down Main Street ignoring cars that honked and anyone who cursed his driving.

“Where do you wanna go?” He asked, resting his hand high on your thigh. You rested your hand on top of his and played with his fingers.

“I don’t care.” You sighed. He grunted lightly and drove down to a nearby lakeside. You both got out and you walked around to the front of the car to watch the small waves crash against the rocky shore. There was a small dock launch, and algae collecting around the pillars that held the dock up. You felt a tiny weight on your shoulders and looked down to see that Billy had draped his extra leather jacket around your shoulders. You hummed in thanks as he joined you on the hood of his car. He offered you a cigarette and you took it silently and leaned into the flame from his Zippo lighter.

“You can’t do that to me, you know. You can’t just stop talking to me.” You exhaled the smoke from your lungs and coughed at the scratchiness is left in your throat.

“I’m causing issues in your home life, baby. I can’t do that to you.” He replied, his voice strong.

“You don’t get to decide that shit alone anymore, Bill. We’re in a relationship that I know neither of us plans on leaving, so we need to start working as a team. There’s no ‘I’ anymore.” You replied, kicking rocks with the tip of your white (not really white. they were once upon a time) converse shoe. The wind blew both of your hair in your faces and you could smell the seaweed and fish living in the lake. The clouds were rolling in, promising a storm and despite knowing this, both of you had no intention of leaving this spot.

“I know. I’m scared of how much I love you, though. I want to take you away from that cabin, and from that asshole cop and I want to take you home to California where we can sit like this in front of an ocean instead of this shit pond.”

“He’s my dad, Billy. I can’t leave him. Not again— you know this. And Eleven would tear me a new one if I left her. She likes you by the way.” You tried to convince yourself. Truthfully, you had never felt welcome at Hoppers cabin and the only thing that chained you here was Eleven. You could feel Billy’s gaze on the side of your face, but you didn’t turn to get his gaze and instead, taking a long drag from your cig.

“Who? Jane?” You nodded in response. “What’s her deal, by the way?” He asked.

“Legally, I can’t tell you much, but she comes from a pretty bad place and was abused in every way imaginable. They didn’t teach her anything, so mentally she’s behind for her age. She’s smarter and stronger than everyone I know, though.” He only hummed in recognition of your statement and rubbed his cold nose with his sleeve.

The two of you stayed on the hood of his car until the sky darkened and thunder began rumbling in the distance. He drove you home soon after the first rain fell, and you two sat in the car, talking about nothing and letting conversations come and go naturally, comfortable silences lasting between each one. He drove back into Hawkins and pulled into the Benny’s Diner parking lot and you both laughed and ran into the building, using his jackets to avoid getting soaked by the March rain.

Your laughter died quickly, however when you saw Jim standing at the counter waiting for food to take home to you and Elle. He sent a hard glare towards Billy, before settling his eyes on you and motioning for you to come closer. You told Billy to go and find a booth before walking over to your dad and leaning on the fake marble countertop. He tapped his pack of cigarettes three times on the counter before turning to finally look at you. You saw the eyes of a genuinely worried father staring back at you and you just looked down at your fingernails in shame.

“Where’ve you been, Kid?” His voice had an underlying command that made you look up to meet his eyes.

“Down by the lake. I had a bad day today, and Billy was there to help me out.” You replied, trying to ignore the way your voice sounded a little too full of emotion. You expected many things when you would finally confront Jim about your situation, but being on the verge of tears after a two sentence conversation wasn’t on the list of things you had thought about.

“Eleven was wondering where you were. She’s worried.” He looked away from you and you watched his thick brow bone furrow in a little bit of frustration.

“Okay, so you weren’t worried? Good to know.” You rapped your knuckles twice on the counter and turned to walk away towards your boyfriend who was watching you and your dad protectively.

“Y/N, you know that’s not how I meant it.” He said sharply. You turned around to look at him slowly and clenched and unclenched your fists together.

“How did you mean it then?” You challenged.

“I meant it in the way that I’m not going to be around forever, and you are all Eleven has after I leave. You’re her family.”

“So what am I? Chopped liver, Dad? I’m your actual daughter! Or did you miss that wave when it washed over you? I get that Elev- Jane is your favorite, but I’m your actual skin and bones and blood and you’ve been treating me like the gum on the bottom of your shoe.” You growled at him, pointing at his feet and glaring hard.

“Y/N! Would you just listen to me!” He yelled. You were suddenly grateful that you, Billy, Jim and the chef were the only other ones in the diner. “You are a new thing to me! After Sarah died, your mom refused to let me talk to you and then all of a sudden, ten years later she throws you on my front doorstep without one word of explanation, and you’re suddenly expecting me to be a good father? I need time to deal with this too!”

“How do you think I feel, Jim?! My own mother abandoned me and made me move three states and expected me to live with an alcoholic of a father! I didn’t even get a chance to understand what was going on before it actually happened!” You said, angrily wiping away tears that had leaked from the corners of your eyes. “I get that shit’s hard for you right now, but you’re not the only one in this story!”

With this, you spun and fled the diner, not knowing where to go but knowing you needed to get out of that diner because suddenly the walls were closing in and the temperature was too hot for you. You ran out into the rain and stopped as the cold of the evening hit you. You tilted your head to the sky and took in a deep breath of fresh air. You jumped and were immediately pushed into fight mode when someone grabbed your hand and intertwined their fingers with yours. The scent of cheap cologne and cigarettes stopped you, and you squeezed your eyes shut.

“What do you expect me to say, Bill.” You whispered after a second. You were met by silence, and you let it draw out until you felt as if you were going to implode. You looked up at your boyfriend.

“You’re beautiful, you know that?” He mumbled, stepping closer and making you turn to face him. He cupped your jaw with one hand and gripped your hand tighter with the other. He leaned down and brushed his lips lightly over yours. You could sense his hesitation.

“What is it?” You asked, stepping closer until your chest was pressed flat against his.

“I’m gonna say something crazy, and you’re not allowed to freak out.”

“After the day I’ve had, anything would be hard pressed to phase me,” You said, kissing his nose softly.

“Let’s go to California. Just for a trip. I mean, spring break is coming up soon, and we wouldn’t miss much school time, and I mean I’ve always wanted to bring you home and when we were at the beach I just wanted to see you in the sun and playing in the sand in a sexy little swim number and I know it’s a little too much to ask, but I’d really like for you to—“

“Yes.”

“Okay.”

[negativereader]

Everything Wrong With Twilight: The Anti-Human Thing

“I’m not anti-woman, I’m anti-human,” -Stephenie Meyer.

It’s time to address this.

The Anti-Human Thing

The biggest and most common criticism against Stephenie Meyer is that she’s sexist. I mean, there’s evidence everywhere. Bella does nothing but cook and clean for Charlie, who seems incapable of doing so for himself, she often has to be physically carried places because she’s so weak and accident prone that it’s sort of amazing that the girl has managed to survive as long as she has. Her only goal seems to be getting with Edward, and honestly once he’s gone, she just sort of curls up and tries to die of despair. She’s called herself a ‘moon without her planet’ in New Moon, and the narrative has no problem with this.

In addition, you have Emily who just seems to submit to an abusive relationship because ‘he loves her’, and Leah, who is demonized for daring to be a girl and interrupting the boy’s club of the werewolf pack and then is told she is not female enough because it’s heavily implied that she’s infertile.

However, Meyer constantly denies that she’s against women in particular. What people are seeing as an anti-human bias that happens to involve a woman. Now, taking out the fact that I don’t see how that’s any better, I actually think that she’s telling the truth. She is very anti human, however her hatred of humanity tends to take the form of using some of the most degrading stereotypes around men, women, Native Americans, blacks, and just about everyone else.

“Human in Distress”

One of Meyer’s biggest defenses that she makes time and time again, to the point where she literally wrote a book in order to prove to her critics that she wasn’t sexist, is that Bella was not a damsel in distress. Rather, she was a human in distress, completely outclassed by the supernatural world around her.

There is, in Meyer’s mind, nothing that Bella can do, surrounded by creatures that are faster, stronger, smarter and just generally better than her. The only thing that she, or anyone else with any intelligence, can do, is try to join them. If Bella was male, as demonstrated by Life and Death, there would be no difference. ‘He’ would still be blind, weak and completely helpless. And this is the way that Meyer likes it.

Her Vampires are Superior

Despite the many, many jokes about how sparkling vampires sound like fairies and how the Cullens couldn’t stand a chance against ‘real’ vampires, I’m going to point out an unfortunately truth.

The vampires of this world are terrifying.

Most of the time, vampires have the same weaknesses. They can’t be out in the sun, they can’t come into a place unless they’re invited, they have to sleep and recharge, holy items and certain herbs like garlic repel them, and as terrifying as these things are, humanity has at least some defense against them. Meyer, from the first, makes sure to strip humanity of every single one of these protections. Her vampires are obviously able to come into the house without being invited (or else Edward would have some difficulty in his favorite hobby), they don’t need to sleep (so there is never a time when they’re unaware of your approach), holy items do nothing, and neither does garlic. Their skin is impervious to just about all human weapons, other than flamethrowers. And, oh yes, we have those, but vampires are also super fast, super strong, and have unique powers of their own.

Essentially, only the threat of the Volturi is keeping us from being ruled over by them, rounded up into ‘human farms’ and summarily devoured.

What’s worse is that Meyer doesn’t see a problem in this. In her Correspondence 12, she mentions how seeing humans purely as food is “a hard viewpoint to resist—after all, vampires are physically and mentally superior to the nth degree. Their life spans measure in centuries and millenniums. Human lives are so short—sort of like fruit flies that only live a day in comparison. Humans die so easily, too, in their sleep, from tripping, from a tiny heart glitch, from a virus, from getting bumped a little too hard by a car. It's sort of hard for an average vampire to take them seriously. They're going to die soon anyway, right? (I know it might be difficult to step away from a human perspective and see it through their eyes. The question is, is it really wrong for them to see the world that way? Vampires are at the very pinnacle of the food chain. Should they feel bad about that? Or are they simply following the dictates of nature?)” (https://www.twilightlexicon.com/2007/05/20/personal-correspondence-12/).

This paragraph sums up the true and awful power that Meyer has given her vampires, and just how little she thinks of humans in comparison to them. I’ve mentioned how, in the past, that Meyer clearly doesn’t see anything wrong with vampires eating people. This is my proof. The world for a human in the Twilight universe is perfect for a Social Darwinist: a place where the strong thrive and the weak deserve their fate.

Weakness is Human

What’s more, weakness is something that is identified as belonging to humanity. Bella, when she is being stupid, is not being a ‘female’, no, everyone tells her just how human she’s being. Every mistake that she makes is because she’s human. Once she’s a vampire, Bella happily crows about how her human failings have vanished. The moment that Bella isn’t human anymore, she goes full Godmode Sue and starts eating mountain lions, having no trouble with her transformation, and talking about how stupid and slow and hideous humans are.

Not only that, but humans are reduced to nothing but their flaws.

The place where Meyer gets hit the hardest for being sexist or racist is here. Throughout the entire book, humanity is reduced to the bare stereotypes of what they are really like. All human men of mumbling, sex-obsessed Neanderthals whose affections are as shallow and fleeting as a puddle. They’re all obsessed with ‘manly’ things like sports, and are all sniffing around anything good looking.

All human women are shallow, vain harpies who think of nothing other than their own looks, and resent all other women for possibly being competition for men.

Charlie, despite the fact that he is an adult man who has been living alone for most of his adult life, is incapable of cooking, and, as the series progresses grows more and more like the distant, insensitive, yet authoritarian father that belongs in a badly written soup opera. Renee is the same. Despite the fact that this woman is an adult, and she should be able to handle herself, she’s treated as if she is little more than a toddler in the body of an adult. She can’t do taxes, organize her life, or much of anything without a man (or Bella) to do them for her.

The same holds true for Bella’s friends, or the people that she talks to during Breaking Dawn.

We never actually see a capable human being throughout the entire series. Bella is not supposed to be weak because she’s female, no, in Meyer’s mind, Bella is weak because she’s human.

Why?

Twilight is, at its heart, a wish fulfillment fantasy. A chance for young girls to essential have their cake and eat it too. They get to be the weak, delicate flower that a handsome, wealthy man who will stay that way forever dedicates himself to protecting, but she also gets to rise above her humanity, eventually eclipsing Edward, and every other vampire in power, and growing to protect all of them from being told what to do and what not to do.

For Bella, humanity is the trial that she has to overcome. It’s not the vampires, not really. She has to rise above her humanity, which we are to view as her slow, stupid, worthless nature, in order to become a vampire, where every pleasure is magnified, and all flaws (physical and then some) are removed. The vampires aren’t the trial, they’re the reward.

Does that mean it’s not sexist?

Now, I’m going to say that I’m always reluctant to use terms like ‘sexist’ or ‘racist’ easily. I believe that terms have power, and if they’re used too often, some of the punch is lost. It’s one of the reasons that I would not call Rowling’s Magical America racist. There are areas that are insensitive or show that she has the same in depth understanding of American issues as most Americans have of European ones, but I’m always hesitate to throw out major words.

That being said, Meyer’s work is sexist, but not for the reasons that she thinks. Meyer thought that the reason that people called her work sexist had to do with the damsel in distress thing, and she’s wrong. That trope can be used and worked. A female character needing help is not inherently bad. People sometimes need help. The problem is the mindset around her needing to be rescued. The first thing with Tyler’s van wasn’t a big deal. It was something that happened randomly, served the plot and worked to make her suspicious, but also to wonder if Edward wasn’t a bad person. However so many of Bella’s kidnappings weren’t about her. They were about Edward. Even Lois Lane was usually captured because she was usually gathering information to write a story that would expose the person who kidnapped her. Lois was a threat in her own right (unless it was the sixties but whatever). Bella isn’t. Bella is just there to get to Edward.

Another reason I’d call the series sexist has to do with Rosalie and Leah, who are both at some level blamed for the horrors that befell them. Rosalie was just so good looking that she was apparently asking for Royce to rape her (Meyer even states in one interview that he loved her in a way) and Leah should have just been happy that her fiancé’s entire personality was rewritten so that he could have babies with her beloved cousin, and is treated like a raging harpy and ostracized for being hurt and angry. Both are considered someone inferior to Bella because they can’t have children, and both are supposed to be viewed with little to no sympathy.

Alice is just a raging stereotype that I have little to no interest in discussing.

So, yes, the series is sexist, just not why Meyer thinks people object to it.

Fixing it

Meyer needs to actually look at her beloved superheroes. What made Superman such an important figure not how powerful he is. It was the fact that he loved humanity and seemed to see himself as human.

Unless you’re Frank Miller, what made Batman as popular as he is isn’t the fact that he’s a rich, hot angst muffin. It’s the fact that, despite having no powers, he was capable of going toe to toe with beings far more powerful than he was and winning.

Even if you’re writing a wish fulfillment, which is all that superheroes and heroines are, it is possible to show humanity in a positive light, even if the focus is on characters who aren’t human, and half of fixing it would be to make the mindset of the vampires less of what Meyer sketches out in Correspondence 12. Make it clear that the vampires who see humans as meat aren’t justified, acceptable or anything else. They’re wrong. Make the Cullen’s, rather than ‘struggling’ as Meyer puts it, to honestly reject it, which is one of the reasons why they live with people.

Make it so that characters like Charlie are capable in their own way, make Bella, even if she is weaker than her opponents, clever enough to at least stand.

Rather than seeing humanity as a weakness, or a state that needs to be transcended, show it, at least, as something to be defended.