So, people who know me know of the distaste I have for Breaking Dawn, the final installment in Stephenie Meyer's Twilight Saga. Look, the first three books were a ridiculous cheese fest, made worse by the terrible movies they were made into, but they were innocent enough and for the most part inoffensive, and I'll confess, I more or less enjoyed them. Breaking Dawn on the other hand takes all the misguided morals of the first three books and turns them into a preachy and gory onslaught. Throughout the first three books Edward is a controlling and manipulative boyfriend and Bella faints at the mere sight of, well, anything un-ladylike, and basically demonstrates that women are more or less incapable of taking care of themselves in any way, shape or form. I have a problem with this message but worse is the fact that Bella is some kind of lady vixen who just wants to sex up Edward, who nobly denies her until they are married. That is, the abstinence message is not necessarily bad in itself but the idea of men as the guards of women's virtue, that men need to protect women from their own sexuality, is not only ridiculously outdated but offensive on every level. Then Breaking Dawn comes along and Bella is finally well and punished for her rampant sexuality. She gets a lovely wedding but having sex with Edward leaves her bruised and battered and worse, pregnant with a baby that quickly begins to destroy her. Yikes. Suddenly things take a turn in the opposite direction though. After a veritable gore fest, Bella has a baby and turns into a vampire! Finally, she gets what she wants, but wait, she has a kid now and she doesn't get to do what she wants because she is busy raising a baby right? Nope! Edward's family gladly takes care of the child while Bella and Edward boink like bunny rabbits. I know that it is just a book but I find all of these things to be ridiculously offensive. It's not the 1700's anymore. I mean, on one hand, the message that unprotected sex (even though they're married, it's okay) will only lead to a baby, either as punishment or because that is the only thing sex is for, is, well I don't think I need to outline the problems in that thinking. But worse, once they have the baby all responsibility gets shifted to the parents. Bella is a spoiled brat who thinks she is better than everyone and even after having a baby she isn't inconvenienced with the burden of caring for her. Uff. The next problem I have with Breaking Dawn is Meyer's handling of the love triangle between Jacob, Bella, and Edward. Frankly, I was never really into this love triangle, it just seemed mean. Bella strings Jacob along for a couple of books at least before finally marrying Edward. And does Jacob tell her to fuck off? No, he loiters around, whining and pining until he finally "imprints" on their daughter. I'm not even going to comment on this because it is a.) lazy writing and b.) gross. And, does anyone think that the whole plot point of the werewolves is a bit, well, racist? The werewolves are Native American, and they are temperamental and moody, fighting amongst themselves, and almost always wrong. Occasionally they come around to aid the white people but ultimately they lose in the Twilight Saga because Jacob doesn't get the girl. Furthermore Bella doesn't just marry a white guy, she marries the whitest guy around and Jacob becomes her son-in-law, a sort of secondary position.
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