They call him Sparkles, the tap-dancing vampire!

Hello, friends. In the interest of the season and my own amusement, I've decided to undertake something for nefarious purposes. What am I undertaking, you may ask? Reading the "Twilight" series. Why is this a nefarious purpose? Because I am reading it to pick it apart and laugh. Laugh hard.

Twelve-year-old fangirls, turn away and cry here.

Now, in no way am I disparaging fangirls. God knows I've done my fair share of fangirling. I just have to say, as a sci-fi connoisseur and a lover of geekery, I agree with the masses of people who got so pissed off that the twelve-year-olds swarmed ComicCon and ruined it for everyone else. Have your fun, but in no way are you more legit than the Battlestar Galactica or Buffy fans who've been flocking there for ages.

Twilight is a young adult novel. And it's a love story. My problem with many young adult novels is their tendency to play for the melodramatic, to hype things up and be overly obvious, and act as if it's not a novel, but a soap opera. This doesn't mean I don't have respect for the genre (though I can understand why some people don't with the fodder that gets published - yecch). "Homecoming?" Brilliant. "Artemis Fowl?" Nice. "A Series of Unfortunate Events?" Filled, filled with literary goodness. Roald Dahl? Are you kidding? Meg Cabot! Come on! But then we get all the trashy high school romance, clique-y, woe-is-me club. Gossip Girl. *shudder* All that Lurlene McDaniels crap.

Getting back to my point, Twilight is about the forbidden love of a human, Bella Swan, and a vampire, Edward Cullen. (Initial point of judgment: the horridly drab Edward is meant to be a Gothic hero, which - Smeyer, you're doing it wrong - based off of Edward Ferrars and Mr. Darcy. Really? REALLY? So I have my prejudices, but I hope you'll lend me the space for them because I'll bring the literary evidence to back it up. YES INDEED.

Now, some of you may be asking: "Karen, what's wrong with a little escapist literature? Don't we all love to read a trashy romance here and there? I mean, Shopaholic is hardly The Odyssey." That's true. Normally, I have no problems with trashy lit. I've read it, I indulge in it - the problem is that this series is being shipped off to middle schools everywhere for young girls to read and absorb, who then expound that it's the greatest book ever OMG! and that nothing compares. Jane Austen? Pfffffffft, take a lesson from Ms. Meyer here. She's got it going on. None of this personality bidniz, or that whole plot thingamajigger, or, what's-it-called-oh-yeah-FEMINISM.

So I've been browsing the Amazon chat boards because, god knows, I need more ways to procrastinate. And I've read plenty of reviews defending Twilight because it portrays teenagers accurately. So Bella is shallow? So are teenagers! Thus she is a perfect heroine! I just have two words to say to you all: SCARLETT O'HARA. You want shallow? Vain? Bitchy? KATIE SCARLETT'S GOT YOU COVERED. She uses men (which you can argue is antifeminist), but at the same time, she's got BALLS, okay? She gets her shit together when things get tough, uses what she can, takes care of her family. She throws vanity down the fucking drain when it comes to growing food - she doesn't care how people see her, she just wants to survive. THAT is a heroine.

(And none of the Twihards have even read the book, I gather, just watched the epic of a film that eliminated two of her children.)

A lot of what bothers me is how people argue that Bella's obsessive love for Edward is feminist in its portrayal of her decision and choice to shy away from things like school and a career in favor of love. That's all well and good - yes, feminism is about choice. But feminism is about equal rights as well - and there's a limit. You can say you're choosing to do what you please for yourself as much as you like, but if it's an abusive relationship, when should people step in and tell you that what you're choosing isn't the right option? That's mainly the problem with the characters so far. Edward and Bella fall in love in split-seconds, almost (which is mainly my reason for disliking, by which I mean HATING, Romeo and Juliet, but to be fair, they do die at the end, so you have to give them props for committing), and then become devoted to each other in this awesome, sparkletastic, obsessive, stalkerish way. No. This is not healthy. Stop telling twelve-year-olds this is healthy, Smeyer.

Edward tells Bella what to do and she obeys for the most part, waits to be saved, is a damsel in distress, is wholly apathetic and unwilling to make changes in her life yet expects it, becomes suicidal when Edward decides to leave her alone - what? WHAT? This isn't love, guys, this is called OBSESSION. It's unhealthy.

I don't think I could ever bring myself to the point to call Bella a feminist heroine. She's simply not. Heroines are proactive, and do something - Bella just waits patiently to be saved. And feminist? She whines and allows herself to be dominated by men. And I have no issues with the domestic aspect of it. As a woman, you should be allowed to choose how you want to live your life. But I have issues with dominion. Women are not property ANYMORE and her willingness to go along with it goes beyond this idea of choice. It's just embarrassing for anyone with ovaries.