There is a lot going on in this recent blog entry from Kimberly George and some of you may be drawn to other parts of it, but I wanted to share the following section about the violence at work in the "Twilight" stories. While I admit to not having read the series, I very much share Kimberly's concern about models for relationships -- and this is not the first time I've heard the word "heroin" in a description of Bella & Edward's relationship. For those of you who have read these, what do you think?
What Twilight Has to Teach: Today’s Normative Gender Restrictions and the Marriage of Sex and Violence
As we talk about normative gender restrictions, I think it’s important to highlight one extremely popular script currently in vogue, particularly for teenagers: the bestselling Twilight books and movies. The second book in the series, New Moon, just came out this fall as a movie. The gender stereotypes in these stories are as damaging as any of the religious beliefs around gender we have so often analyzed on our blog. Here, I will restrict my comments to the original book in the series, Twilight, which is the only one I have read, but reading summaries of the others in the series has assured me the problematic gender scripts only get worse.
The drama of this original, bestseller revolves around the awkward Bella and the “god-like” Edward falling tragically in love. She is the new girl in town who wins the attention of the aloof, mysterious sex symbol. He is a 108-year-old vampire in teenage form who is disturbingly volatile and controlling, but only because he “loves her” and is trying to “protect” her. Our vampire-hero is so intensely moody—the reader late finds out— because he is edgy from fighting his vintage patriarchal battle: Bella’s so darn attractive to him, that he is in immediate danger of losing all control, dominating her, and leaving her dead. And so we read on—never quite sure if Bella will end up being a bloody mess should the teenagers decide to consummate their relationship. The intimacy in this book is like heroin—thrilling, dangerous, and flirting with death—and the drama of it makes Twilight a page-turner.
I am horrified, to say the least, by the 498-pages of dysfunction that passes as romantic entertainment in Twilight. Just when did “sadomasochistic teenage erotica” (as my colleague Kj Swanson terms it over at her brilliant blog) become so overwhelmingly popular? Twilight is unabashed in its reflection of some of the worst elements of our culture’s patriarchal dysfunctions: domestic violence patterns, eroticized violence deemed “romance,” and harmful power differentials between men and women that are either not noticed or are mindlessly condoned. In fact, the power differentials in this book are the very foundation of its plot. Bella is constantly being saved and infantilized by Edward; his moods continually switch from angry to intimate like a typical perpetrator; and the reader awaits whether the sexual tension between the characters will lead to Edward enacting violence toward Bella. It is her sexual attractiveness that arouses his desire to suck her blood and kill her. Because of how attractive she is to him, she is forbidden to initiate any physical relationship. It all must be led by him, and she must risk her life during any moment of intimacy.
And this is what teenagers (and many adults) are imbibing?
Friday, December 18, 2009
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Remember
Last Saturday, Seattle Police Officer Timothy Brenton was shot & killed as he sat in his patrol car on the side of a neighborhood street. His funeral procession was yesterday morning. The two-hour procession covered several miles & involved over 1000 vehicles and law enforcement officers from across the continent. Images from along the procession route are very moving...saulting boy scouts, grieving citizens, honor guards, drums and bagpipes, dark vehicles moving slowly through the morning drizzle.
I always feel a momentary pause well up from my deepest heart when I see funeral processions. The ritual and tradition of acknowledging death has been a powerful thing for me, ever since early childhood. I honestly do not remember the first funerals I attended - I was probably still a baby. In the religious group I grew up in (which my family left in May 1995 when I was 20), we went to lots of them. There were a lot of old people in the group, plus that's one of the things the people in that group just do a lot of (funeral-going). There was plenty about the content of those funerals that was lacking, preachy, and frustratingly impersonal; and there were plenty of funerals we went to simply because culturally in the group that was what you did; but all the same, funerals became very normal and non-frightening for me. In the year or two before we left the group and since then, funeral-going has become a very different thing for me.
My mom's name is Marion Diane Dahlin Abenroth. Everyone called her Diane since Marion was my gandmother's name too. She was born November 20, 1948. Next week marks the day my she died, November 13, 2000. Ten months after her death, I checked into a small hotel in a little town a couple hours north of Seattle and proceeded to write down every detail I could recall of Mom's death and the days surrounding it. The writing process I went through was highly intentional, ultimately good, very relieving, and wrenchingly excrutiating; and remembering it all...those days around her death & those days when I wrote...is painful. There are books to write about all those days, and each day leading up to & following them. But for purposes of this writing, I'll simply share pictures I carry from the day of her funeral. Her funeral was November 18, two days before her 52nd birthday, at the Presbyterian church my parents had been attending for a few years. My sister & I watched through the windows as car after car drove into the lot. Over 500 people attended the service. I bodily remember walking down the center aisle to the front pew of the church...Dewight, Melody, Me, Dad, Ned. I distinctly remember the five of us standing up in that pew at the end of the service while each person filed past Mom's rose-covered casket. In the midst of our own grief, I think my family were the comfort-providers, simply in standing there, acknowledging reality, looking each mourner in the eye and holding their hand momentarily as they walked past.
Although the two are intertwined, I think sometimes I feel more myself in moments of mourning than I do in celebration. I could stand being better at celebrating - that's one of the things the group I grew up in was not good at. But I'm grateful that marking death & grief feels organic for me because in our culture it seems the harder part. I remember the day we picked out Mom's casket...it was a Wednesday morning & I had a raging headache...standing in that room in the funeral home, feeling utter disbelief at what we were doing...I remember telling Dad, "We should NOT be doing this." We had to but everything in me resists having had to. The week seemed blurry...sort of on auto-pilot, but the day of the funeral I felt grounded until the end when I just wanted everyone to leave my family home and go away. But after that... I felt like the world should stop. My very mother had died and everyone was just going on with life. There were a blessed handful who remembered, who mentioned, who waited, who spoke...who still do that.
I didn't want to wear black for a year but I understand something of that tradition. It's difficult for Americans to be present in mourning. It is granted such a brief allotment of time in the rhythm of our days, and it's relegated to the realm of privacy. I can relate to people's confusion around what to do, what to say. But the failure to even simply say that to one who is grieving bothers me because more often than not the default then is silence. Not expressing uncertainty, not acknowledgment, but silence.
Last month I attended my uncle's funeral in Spokane. The funeral home is next to the cemetery where my maternal grandparents and other family members are buried so before the service Jonathan & I drove into the cemetery and made our way quietly to their section. I got out of the car and walked to Grandma's grave. I stood there in the barren, freezing morning and felt profoundly grateful that, even with the inadequacy of our efforts, we humans do this kind of thing. Every culture has its way...varying of course from people to people...but we humans do not fully just ignore death and the dead, and when it does happen that way we feel like something is very wrong. Life matters. Death is real. Pausing helps. Traditions can be supportive & healthy. These kinds of rituals and observances always make me feel the fundamental beauty and sacredness of mourning & remembrance.
©2009 Mindy Danylak
I always feel a momentary pause well up from my deepest heart when I see funeral processions. The ritual and tradition of acknowledging death has been a powerful thing for me, ever since early childhood. I honestly do not remember the first funerals I attended - I was probably still a baby. In the religious group I grew up in (which my family left in May 1995 when I was 20), we went to lots of them. There were a lot of old people in the group, plus that's one of the things the people in that group just do a lot of (funeral-going). There was plenty about the content of those funerals that was lacking, preachy, and frustratingly impersonal; and there were plenty of funerals we went to simply because culturally in the group that was what you did; but all the same, funerals became very normal and non-frightening for me. In the year or two before we left the group and since then, funeral-going has become a very different thing for me.
My mom's name is Marion Diane Dahlin Abenroth. Everyone called her Diane since Marion was my gandmother's name too. She was born November 20, 1948. Next week marks the day my she died, November 13, 2000. Ten months after her death, I checked into a small hotel in a little town a couple hours north of Seattle and proceeded to write down every detail I could recall of Mom's death and the days surrounding it. The writing process I went through was highly intentional, ultimately good, very relieving, and wrenchingly excrutiating; and remembering it all...those days around her death & those days when I wrote...is painful. There are books to write about all those days, and each day leading up to & following them. But for purposes of this writing, I'll simply share pictures I carry from the day of her funeral. Her funeral was November 18, two days before her 52nd birthday, at the Presbyterian church my parents had been attending for a few years. My sister & I watched through the windows as car after car drove into the lot. Over 500 people attended the service. I bodily remember walking down the center aisle to the front pew of the church...Dewight, Melody, Me, Dad, Ned. I distinctly remember the five of us standing up in that pew at the end of the service while each person filed past Mom's rose-covered casket. In the midst of our own grief, I think my family were the comfort-providers, simply in standing there, acknowledging reality, looking each mourner in the eye and holding their hand momentarily as they walked past.
Although the two are intertwined, I think sometimes I feel more myself in moments of mourning than I do in celebration. I could stand being better at celebrating - that's one of the things the group I grew up in was not good at. But I'm grateful that marking death & grief feels organic for me because in our culture it seems the harder part. I remember the day we picked out Mom's casket...it was a Wednesday morning & I had a raging headache...standing in that room in the funeral home, feeling utter disbelief at what we were doing...I remember telling Dad, "We should NOT be doing this." We had to but everything in me resists having had to. The week seemed blurry...sort of on auto-pilot, but the day of the funeral I felt grounded until the end when I just wanted everyone to leave my family home and go away. But after that... I felt like the world should stop. My very mother had died and everyone was just going on with life. There were a blessed handful who remembered, who mentioned, who waited, who spoke...who still do that.
I didn't want to wear black for a year but I understand something of that tradition. It's difficult for Americans to be present in mourning. It is granted such a brief allotment of time in the rhythm of our days, and it's relegated to the realm of privacy. I can relate to people's confusion around what to do, what to say. But the failure to even simply say that to one who is grieving bothers me because more often than not the default then is silence. Not expressing uncertainty, not acknowledgment, but silence.
Last month I attended my uncle's funeral in Spokane. The funeral home is next to the cemetery where my maternal grandparents and other family members are buried so before the service Jonathan & I drove into the cemetery and made our way quietly to their section. I got out of the car and walked to Grandma's grave. I stood there in the barren, freezing morning and felt profoundly grateful that, even with the inadequacy of our efforts, we humans do this kind of thing. Every culture has its way...varying of course from people to people...but we humans do not fully just ignore death and the dead, and when it does happen that way we feel like something is very wrong. Life matters. Death is real. Pausing helps. Traditions can be supportive & healthy. These kinds of rituals and observances always make me feel the fundamental beauty and sacredness of mourning & remembrance.
©2009 Mindy Danylak
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Flying & Blogging
My flight from Denver was delayed an hour and a half and way oversold. When the gate agent finally handed me a boarding pass, I took a deep breath and walked out to the waiting plane. Row 14. Seat B. Right in the middle. Our 10:30 take-off was smooth. I slept for a bit, watched the end of "Lyrics and Words" and read the in-flight magazine. We arrived in Seattle to light drizzle and mid 40s. The train wound around underground to the main terminal and I made my way to baggage claim. I walked out into the cold air to wait for my husband. It's illegal to smoke so close to public buildings in Washington, but cigarette butts littered the sidewalk and the damp air was permeated with the scent of stale smoke. For all its unhealthfulness, there is something oddly homey about it. I watched cars dance their way through traffic on the arrivals drive, the flashing lights and occasional sirens from Port of Seattle police cars impatiently commanding drivers to keep moving, no parking allowed. I was asleep moments after hitting the pillow.
I hate flying and travel stresses me but I love it & cannot live life without it. Something about flying reminds me of blogging. Millions of people move through common space in relative anonymity. Polite nods to the people in Seats A and C, maybe a bit of chit chat, the flight attendant moves the details to the overhead bin. Each passenger with their own life and story, possibly talked about but rarely for the sake of forming real relationships. Anonymity with a name - maybe real, maybe not. It's a curious thing.
©2009 Mindy Danylak
I hate flying and travel stresses me but I love it & cannot live life without it. Something about flying reminds me of blogging. Millions of people move through common space in relative anonymity. Polite nods to the people in Seats A and C, maybe a bit of chit chat, the flight attendant moves the details to the overhead bin. Each passenger with their own life and story, possibly talked about but rarely for the sake of forming real relationships. Anonymity with a name - maybe real, maybe not. It's a curious thing.
©2009 Mindy Danylak
Borderlands
there is a place
beyond the border
where love grows
and where peace
is not the frozen silence . . .
to get to that place you have to
go or be pushed out
beyond the borders,
to where it is lonely, fearful,
threatening, unknown.
only after you have wandered
for a long time in the dark
do you begin to bump into others
also branded, exiled,
border crossers,
and find you walk on
common ground.
it is not an easy place to be,
this place beyond the borders.
but it is a good place to be.
Kathy Galloway
(the above is an extraction - see first comment below for the full piece)
beyond the border
where love grows
and where peace
is not the frozen silence . . .
to get to that place you have to
go or be pushed out
beyond the borders,
to where it is lonely, fearful,
threatening, unknown.
only after you have wandered
for a long time in the dark
do you begin to bump into others
also branded, exiled,
border crossers,
and find you walk on
common ground.
it is not an easy place to be,
this place beyond the borders.
but it is a good place to be.
Kathy Galloway
(the above is an extraction - see first comment below for the full piece)
I and You
Yes, I come from another country,
To your world I can never belong.
Tinkling guitars cannot please me,
I want a wild desolate song.
I do not read my verses in drawing-rooms
To black-coats and dresses like shrouds.
I read my verses to dragons,
To the waterfalls and to the clouds.
I love like an Arab in the desert
Who flings himself on water and drinks,
Not like a knight in a picture
Who looks at the stars and thinks.
I shall not die in a bedroom
With a priest and a lawyer beside me.
I shall perish in a terrible ravine
With a mass of wild ivy to hide me.
I shall not go to a Protestant heaven,
Open to all in tidy blue skies,
But to a place where thief and publican
And harlot will cry: 'Friend, arise!'
Nikolai Gumilev
(Translated by V. De S. Pinto)
To your world I can never belong.
Tinkling guitars cannot please me,
I want a wild desolate song.
I do not read my verses in drawing-rooms
To black-coats and dresses like shrouds.
I read my verses to dragons,
To the waterfalls and to the clouds.
I love like an Arab in the desert
Who flings himself on water and drinks,
Not like a knight in a picture
Who looks at the stars and thinks.
I shall not die in a bedroom
With a priest and a lawyer beside me.
I shall perish in a terrible ravine
With a mass of wild ivy to hide me.
I shall not go to a Protestant heaven,
Open to all in tidy blue skies,
But to a place where thief and publican
And harlot will cry: 'Friend, arise!'
Nikolai Gumilev
(Translated by V. De S. Pinto)
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