In response to my last post, one of my friends linked me to
this very funny blog that has a post about Twilight. I thought I would share it, as it says some stuff that is relevant to my most recent posts about the fantasy appeal of Twilight. Check it out!
Anyway, as I was going through some of the erotica books
taking statistics about names and adjectives and other things (coming soon!), I noticed
another interesting parallel between the fantasy erotica story and Twilight. This one is about the form of
the fantasy text.
Many of the fantasy erotica stories begin with a person who
is bored or tired, or is doing something exaggeratingly regular before sex
comes and changes their routine.
In “Changing My Tune” by Louisa
Harte in “Best Women’s Erotica 2011”, we get this paragraph on the very first
page:
“This job sure isn’t what it’s cracked up to be. When I
signed up, I thought I’d be cruising about in a flash ice-cream van serving up
goodies and treats to crowds of eager customers. Instead, while others in the
fleet get to go to big gigs and fancy festivals, I end up here, on a beach in
the middle of nowhere, next to a building site.”
Then, three stories later, in “Two For One” by Alyssa Turner, we get
this as our first paragraph:
“I rarely have the time to treat myself to anything. Call me
a workaholic, but starting a PR firm from the ground up has left my days
jam-packed with serving the requirements of others. Demanding as they are, I
have to be grateful that my list of clients is rapidly growing, and it’s
looking like my business will actually turn a profit some day. Still, to keep
my sanity I say my daily affirmation: it
will all be worth it when I can hire someone else to put up with all the
bullshit, and then I get my ass on another plane to work my magic on some
new product launch or fundraising breakfast.”
I could continue, but it really is more of the same. People
return home tired from work, people are in a rut with their significant others,
and so on and so forth.
The idea is that one reason people could read erotica is
because they themselves are bored or tired. You wouldn’t read erotica on the train to
work in the morning or while you're doing something fun and exciting, but probably at the end of the day after a long day of
work. The typical erotica reader is tired and bored, and looking for an escape. So it is easy to relate to
someone else who is tired and bored and also looking for an escape. And that, as mentioned in the last post,
is one major reason that erotica is enjoyable. The relatability of the main
character is what makes an erotica story good.
When I went back to read the first chapter of Twilight I noticed the same type of
paragraphs from the ones in the erotica stories:
“In the Olympic Peninsula of northwest Washington State, a
small town named Forks exists under a near-constant cover of clouds. It rains
on this inconsequential town more than any other place in the United States of
America. It was from this town and its gloomy, omnipresent shade that my mother
escaped with me when I was only a few months old. It was in this town that I’d
been compelled to spend a month every summer until I was fourteen (1).”
She continues to complain about the weather throughout the
first chapter, saying things like:
“When I landed in Port Angeles, it was raining. I didn’t see
it as an omen—just unavoidable. I’d already said my goodbyes to the sun (5).”
The complaints about the weather continue, although I won’t
bore you with all the examples. Another thing she likes to complain about is
her school:
“Forks High School had a frightening total of only three
hundred and fifty-seven—now fifty-eight—students; there were more than seven
hundred people in my junior class alone back home. All of the kids here had
grown up together—their grandparents had been toddlers together. I would be the
new girl from the big city, a curiosity, a freak (9-10).”
And, of course, like many teenage girls, she complains about
her appearance:
“Maybe if I looked like a girl from Phoenix should, I could
work this to my advantage. But physically, I’d never fit in anywhere. I should be tan, sporty, blond—a
volley-ball player, or a cheerleader, perhaps—all the things that go with
living in the valley of the sun (10).”
Many people complain about how Bella is too whiney in
these first chapters. One Amazon customer review (the first one on the one-star page, actually. I really had to do very little digging to find support of this claim) says:
But I think that, like the shallowness of the characters,
the complaining is something that actually draws people into the plot of the story. Haven’t
we all been there? First day at a new school and, of course, it’s raining so we’re nervous
about how our hair looks? I certainly have.
And Bella’s trouble with her
parents? What teenage girl hasn’t felt annoyed with her parents for no reason:
"But it was sure to be awkward with Charlie. Neither of us was what anyone would call verbose, and I didn't know what there was to say regardless (5)."
This
is standard teenager stuff!
And when might a teenager want to escape into a fantasy?
Perhaps when she is mad at her parents and needs an escape. Perhaps when she
has recently moved to a new city and switched schools and been forced to make new friends. Bella is relatable in these chapters. Sure, she’s
whiney, but to a teenager, that’s home.
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