Recovering Twilight Addict

Because what the internet needs is another Twilight post.

It's still a little weird to me how insanely popular this franchise is. I first came across the books right after New Moon came out. I was just cutting through the BYU bookstore, when I saw this woman signing books. The line only had about 10 or so people, and a quick skim of the book jacket and it's promises of supernatural romance was enough to inspire me to grab the first two books and get in line.

I went home and devoured the books . The first book was all I could hope for. Alright, so the actual plot, or at least the plot that pops up 2/3 of the way through when the author seemingly remembered that books usually have plots, was a bit hackneyed. But the overall feel of the books, the dark sexy hero, the heroine that was so easy to imprint with myself and my insecurities, the sheer tension and drama grabbed firm hold of my inner teenager. The second? Well, I was with it until the end. Just as with the first book it was so easy to get pulled in by the emotions, if not the plot. But while the second book, like the first pulled you in by Bella's larger than life emotions, this one jolted me out by completely invalidating all the excruciatingly detailed pain of the heroine (and by extension me), saying it was all ok, because deep down she knew that Edward loved her? I had been hoping for something a little more apologetic, romantic, or at least mystical. Something that actually resolved all the awfulness, made it ok. Still, I didn't read these books for the brilliant writing, so I just forgave that as a lazy mistake, and moved on to waiting for the 3rd book to arrive that summer.

When the third book finally showed up, Twilight fever was starting to rise up. I was right there with everyone, I got my book the first day it came out, and burrowed away for some escapism. Or at least I tried to. Despite my best efforts, it was hard to not stink, to not be bothered when Edward would kidnap Bella for her own good, berate and disrespect her. When even Bella straightforwardly acknowledges that their relationship is like a cocaine addiction, but somehow that is supposed to be a good thing? I gave it a good try, but I'm only human, and its hard to not think about what is screaming at me from every page.

And just like that my Twilight infatuation was over. I read the fourth book, hoping for something to take me back to the early escapism, I've tried re-reading the early books, I've even seen the movies. Ultimately, once I started thinking and actually looking at what I was reading, I couldn't stop, couldn't unthink a thought.

All the creepiness, the abuse, the control in Bella and Edwards' relationship has been discussed by many others much better than I ever could (see The Bobby Pin for one such post, and some good links to others).  This isn't a post about that.

This is a post about how to deal with thinking about what I watch and what I read.

Because the thing is, as much as thinking about the books completely ruined them for me, it was probably the right thing to do. The negative themes were already in the books. Regardless of whether or not I consciously recognized and analyzed them, in someway I was going to be picking them up anyways. I know that as I read the first two books, more than once I was sighing dreamily and thinking about how romantic it all was, how much I wanted that kind of desperate passion. Once I was forced to look at things a little more clearly, eh, not so much.

It stands to reason that I internalize little messages in pretty much everything I consume. And Twilight is hardly one of the only pieces of entertainment that has some negative themes, most of the others just tend to be a little less egregious.

Still, I tend to pursue the entertainment I do because I want to be entertained. Sure, sometimes I enjoy delving into what I'm watching and over-analyzing things, frankly with some shows you almost have to just to keep up. But not everything is worth thinking about. When I first saw Avatar, I was similarly sucked in by all the pretty pictures. I liked it, it was a fun 3 hours. At least until I heard the first comparison to Fern Gully, and then once again I ruined some perfectly good entertainment by thinking. Only this time, I don't think I gained much from my analysis. Some things are just fine as mindless fluff. They don't need any extra thinking mucking things up.

So, how do I decide when to make more of effort to unpack what I'm being served? Is it worth it to maybe ruin some harmless enjoyment for the sake of  keeping a smart eye on things?

And is that even enough? Plenty of what I watch or read concerns gray people doing gray things, I'm not about to limit myself to things where everyone acts according to my standards. I don't even consistently act in accordance with my standards. Can I just count on my being able to go "Oh, I'm being sent this message right now. I disagree with that. So brain, don't internalize that." and hope to go along my merry way unscathed?

Somehow I doubt it's that simple. Things rarely are. Still, I don't want to ruin everything by overthinking whether or not I should overthink.