Why Real Men Probably Shouldn't Read (And Love) Twilight.
I love the premise of NPR's new Guilty Pleasures series in part because I supoprt anything that may help to break down genre-guilt, but I found the recent piece by Brad Meltzer to be very problematic. Unnecessary gender-gauntlet-throwing aside, Metlzer proclaims his love for the Twilight series without actually saying why he does like the books. Fine: however, by doing so, he completely glosses over every reason to legitimatley dislike the books, which have absolutely nothing to do with their being young adult, or gothic fantasy, or any other reasons that often cause the Literati to defend their reading choices ("but it really transcends genre!"). 

Metlzer calls on women to give the Twilight books to their teenaged sons, nephews and husbands, to tell them the books are cool, that they'll like them. The thing is, I wouldn't even want my daughters (or sisters, or nieces) reading them, let alone the men - a common criticism of Bella, the heroine, is that she's a non-person, easily imprintable by the reader (this has been hypothesized as a reason for the series' popularity). She is completely unremarkable, and yet the super-sexy-important-insanely-wealthy vampire Edward falls head over heals in love with her. Or more like obsessed - Edward is controlling and  possessive - he disables Bella's car at one point to keep her from seeing her friends "for her own good."  Bella later becomes so depressed when Edward leaves her (also "for her own good") that she takes up dangerous hobbies (motorcycle riding, cliff-jumping) just so she can hear his voice in her head pleading with her to stop threatening her own safety.

Also in File Under A for Anti-Feminist, Bella doesn't want to get married or have kids, but she definitely wants to have sex with Edward (who won't, because he fears he won't be able to control himself and hurt her). Edward then says he won't have sex with her unless they're married, which of course happens as soon as Belle turns 18: immediately afterwards, she gets pregnant and is thrilled. However, there are serious concerns about her unborn child being a threat to her safety, and she is urged to abort - one character even designs to drug her and terminate the pregnancy against Bella's will. When confronted with anti-feminsit tropes in her books, Meyer responded with a perplexed "but feminism is all about choices!"

Feminist critiques of the series have received a lot of attention, but what about race? Bella dates Jacob Black, a Quileute Indian werewolf (whose legends Meyer may have largely fabricated in the books) while Edward was away-for-her-own good. He makes a perfect foil for the sparkly-whtie European vampire, Edward. The two become rivals, naturally; Is the white king/red pawn book cover of  Breaking Dawn a coincidence? Is it a coincidence that Bella rejects the sub-human Indian wolf-man for the super-human white vampire? Several people have brought up how Stephanie Meyer's Mormonism may have influenced her treatment of sex throughout the books, but her faith may also have directly influenced her treatment of race.

But back to my first point: I live with a 13-year-old who is probably savvy enough to find Bella obnoxious on a superficial level, but if he picked Twilight up on his own I wouldn't prevent him from reading it. Most of what we read as kids is problematic in one way or another, and usually in ways that we won't appreciate until we're adults (if at all). However, I don't want to push Twilight on Ethan largely because I don't want him to get the idea that Edward's behavior is okay (when it's clearly romanticized in the books) - that it's what girls really want. That the power dynamics in  Edward and Bella's relationship is a helathy one, or that it's even realistic, all fantastic elements aside. As a heterosexual male, Ethan is not  as likely to identify with Bella anyway (let alone project on her blank template)-- boys are much less socialized to identify with female main characters than girls are. Which of course leaves Edward.

Sorry, Mr. Meltzer, but I won't be foisting Stephanie Meyer's anti-feminist, raceist pop-fluff on the guys in my life. Instead, I gave Ethan Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games, which features an empowered-but-refreshingly-unspunky heroine, realistic relationship dynamics, and multidimensional characters. I'm sure he'll still grow up to be a Real Man.