Thursday, December 12, 2013

Young Adult

Neat.
Just finished watching "Young Adult" with Charlize Theron, who plays a once popular high school girl who know writes sad Young Adult fiction.  So there's a good movie that will take you back to your high school days, such as they were.
I do recommend watching "Young Adult".  There's a lot of pressure when you're in high school, and it's funny when you think about its  importance and how either great or miserable it can be for people.  
Speaking of low self esteem and daddy issues: the movie I was recently an extra on centred around a girl just out of high school who is still a virgin and who embarks on a rather sordid sexual relationship with a very wealthy and dominating man.
It reminded me of the supremely shitty Twilight series: the main character is a simpering idiot who cannot make a single life decision without either whinging over what her beloved thinks/or being literally told what to do by the man in her life.
I read the first book in each of the above mentioned series.  The sexy one was erotic and Michael was happy while I was reading it.  I'm also an adult in my thirties with some fundamental grasp of psychology and so the non-sexy aspects of it raised a lot of questions for me.
Surely I've blogged about my utter disdain for Twilight and how if I did have a daughter and she (for some reason) wanted to read this drivel instead of a biography on Amelia Earhart, that we would sit down and discuss how emasculating this book is for women on so many levels.
And now this latest series has come to capture the hearts and loins of women in their twenties and thirties and forties everywhere.
Ladies: just buy a Penthouse.  There're some pretty good "letters" in there.  Check out some erotica.  Write your own.  Whatever.  Buying what Stephanie Meyer and her adult lit counterpart are selling is basically saying that you want a man to take care of you, and make your decisions for you both sexually and within your relationship.
But, as Michael pointed out: this shit is selling like hotcakes. 
This is disappointing to me on so many levels: these books are written at a Grade Five reading level; both series paint the leading women as weak, tormented shit-sippers; the (cough) heroines don't do anything for themselves and instead rely on their men to fill up and fix their lives; and essentially these epic tomes of shite are taking us back in time to where women weren't equal in relationships.
I don't understand the allure of a series of books that take us back to the '50s and beyond.  What is so alluring about not having to exhibit any sort of thought process in any aspect of your life, in exchange for sex and adoration?  The last time I checked - because I have a heartbeat and a vagina - I can have sex at any time, anywhere.
Additionally: adoration is for adolescents.  The gist of these books basically encapsulates the giddiness - the adoration - that exists for the first six months of any relationship.  Do you still adore your husband?  Your wife?  No: you love them.  You would step in front of a moving car for them.  You would give them one of your bodily organs.  But after three, or ten, or twenty five years you are not gazing longingly into their eyes across a candle strewn dinner table.
And yes: I get that it is "escapism", but I don't get why two of the best selling series directed at women showcases women performing terribly within their own lives.  Why do so many women want to escape into a book where the heroine throws herself off a cliff because she can't bear the thought of life without her immortal beloved; or where the hero buys her an Audi because he's worried about her safety in her current car, and in exchange he gets to fuck her in the ass?
If you really want to dig down into the fundamental foundation of both of these series, you'll find that they are both based (to varying degrees) on prostitution.  You can give up yourself and your very mortality in exchange for a relationship.  You can be told what to eat, what to wear, how much to work out and then engage in a series of sexual acts so you can get some more clothes, some nice meals and a car.
The concept of escapism isn't enough to help me understand why grown women are deliberately paying for - and then reading on purpose - books that oppress women, unless this means that the flocks of women that are buying these books are in situations so horrible, that this is literally their only means of escape.
Man up, ladies. 

2 comments:

  1. LOL, I love your reviews of books too! I've never watched the vampire movies... I'm not into vampires. I never had the desire to read the gray books either, but congratulations on your part in the movie. At our house we call those kinds of books 'hip thrusters' or 'bodice rippers', you know... in those historical hip thrusters they all get their bodice ripped before they are "touched to their very womb" (yeah, I actually read that in one of those types of books.) Spoiler alert! when you've been married for 32+ years you are lucky if your spouse brushes against you in the hallway or mumbles something while he's eating. It could be "mmm, this is good" or "mmm, this will either make one or push one." I'm currently deeply engrossed in a knitting book. Where did I put those bullets?

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  2. LOL. I wouldn't throw the first book under the bus entirely... Michael and I did seem have a lot of action during that time.
    So more of a fluffy, saucy book to read before bed than anything else.
    ;)

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