Thanks to dead_psycho in the twilight_sucks community on livejournal for posting this.

The following translation is thanks to the user music_is_breath in the buffyfan community on livejournal.

It’s a really interesting article, comparing Twilight with other famous vampire media, such as The Vampire Diaries, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and True Blood.  I haven’t seen much of The Vampire Diaries, but I definitely kind of adore both Buffy and True Blood so it’s refreshing to read something like this. =) 

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Vampires! Everywhere! Since “Twilight” the bloodsucker novels have become better and more colorful. Only the image of women remains plain. An overview over the new vampire series:

Almost 10 years ago, Buffy Summers went dancing: She had just turned 20 and it wasn’t long since she had risen from the death. The young Vampire-Slayer sacrificed herself in order to save the world. Only months after that magic brought her back to life again. It hadn’t been a good year. Her boyfriend was gone, her mother was dead. There were bills to pay lying around everywhere. Also she quit studying. When she dug herself through the graveyard-dust all alone: “Is this hell?” Only the vampire Spike could understand her feelings and her sudden disgust of the world. Buffy had been fighting against him for years. But now they met secretly: He stepped out of the shadow in a club and lifted her skirt. The two of them had silent and joyless sex, high above the dance floor.

A down point for the hero, but a highlight of the series: Buffy and Spike, the vampire and the slayer, this is one of the best images for the dynamic of a bad relationship. Nevertheless, Spike, bleached-blond, sneering and a bit cold, became a romantic hero figure to many fans soon: “Do I have to give myself up in order to love the vampire?” “Am I wrong, because I long for the company of a man who wants to destroy me?” The series resolved these questions with Spike going away, leaving Buffy, repenting and fighting for an own soul to come back and meet her again at eye level. This was a great first step in making the vampire-machos more complex and more intelligent.

Instead of the bloodsuckers becoming more multifarious, the human girls become more brainless since then, though. In 2005 Stephanie Meyer’s series “Twilight” started and plodded through the whole conflict again, by being as pestering but G-rated and wrapped up in much more sugar. During the 4 books the student Bella gushes for the vampire Edward against her rationality.  A whole genre of books followed Meyer’s novels as bestsellers. Those books have some similarities to Buffy’s pop-feminism. But there are also huge differences to find.

These so-called “paranormal romances” have a clear concept: They almost every time are set at the plain land and in the present. The often inexperienced and naïve first-person-narrator meets an ineloquent and typical masculine man. Although the woman is telling the story, the guy is in the spotlight: He is a werewolf or a vampire and had learnt how to suppress the blood thirst and the sexual-atavism with pure will, life-experience and class. The woman is less controlled. She acts without thinking and she doesn’t know what she wants. It is only when she is able to control herself in front of him, that she earns his love: In no other genre there are so many training lessons, tests, exams and Pygmalion-moments. Without the strange man as a mirror and self-insurance, these women neither realize themselves nor are they able to use their potential.

Even when the minority of the narrators are just plain girls in difference to Bella (Many of them are able to read minds, transmute themselves or they have vampires and witches as parents.) still it’s always the lover who teaches them to accept the dark inside of them. Paranormal romances are coming-of-age novels. There are 10 000 scumbags like Spike, but almost no Buffy. Not the vampires have to get their ass up in order to get at eye level; instead it is the weak woman who has to do so.

In “Twilight”, Bella feels that boring and self-conscious next to her beautiful Edward already, that she begs him to bite her. As a story that is fevered and close to the sensitivity-motives, it is in its best moments close to “Wuthering Heights” or “The sorrows of young Werther” by being headless, breathless and overweening. Nevertheless, the character Bella misses all suspense: She remains a wimp, insecure and nervous.

Therefore “Vampire Diaries” which is a series by Dawson-Creek author Kevin Williamson, makes the critics happier. It’s the same story, a school girls desires a vampire from her high school, but the characters, orphan Elaine and the two vampire brothers Stefan (good) and Damon (evil), stick to their own bullhead: cross talks, nice pop songs, jealousy and a small village makes a pretty toothless but solid mixture.

(…)

Spike-Fans should be satisfied with Jeaniene Frost’s erotic “Cat & Bones”-novels: the stupid half-vampire Cat is being trained to be an undercover mistress by an undead headhunter who has the exact same attributes as Spike: bleached-blond, vain, with a British accent and beautiful cheekbones. He teases the naïve narrator until she shivers with desire: “My breasts almost busted my bra!” she gasps. Buffy would have slapped her for that kind of sentences or maybe even staked her.

More emancipated is “True Blood”, the new series of the All-American-Beauty author Alan Ball. “True Blood” is set in deep Louisiana and follows the cute-naïve waitress Sookie who is idealistic. Because she is able to read minds, Sookie saves the life of the sad vampire Bill and therefore is hated by her human friends: prejudices, sex, social criticism and fierce redneck-humor – the women wear the pants in “True Blood”.  Not a masterpiece but a quaffable pleasure.

“Moon called” by Patricia Briggs is the best book in this genre. The main character is Mercedes Thompson who is a car mechanic that can morph into a coyote. Her neighbor is a werewolf, her friend a vampire and in between her down-to-earth and likeable succinct everyday life, Mercedes tries to have her garage and not be included in the power games going on in her pack.

This book has the most confusing cosmology and is still the clearest book, since in contrast to her blindly adoring colleagues, Mercedes has an own voice and a sharp look. She has a character; she is more of a Buffy then a Bella.

In the end, this seems to be the most important factor for a good paranormal romance. Not necessarily how strong the girl’s love for the vampire is but how strong the reader’s love for the narrator is. And there is a lot of unused potential for strong complicated women who get lost in dark relationships. And who then, against all oppositions, find themselves again, instead of disappearing in love stoned fatuity.

Source

Thanks to the Twilight_sucks community on livejournal for reposting this. =)

xD

I think this is a pretty intelligent review by someone neither fan or anti, but mostly confused as to why anyone cares at all about Twilight.  He’s seen the movies and doesn’t seem to like them very much. 

His review is really honest and I like it a lot because I sort of feel the same way about the series in general, even though I’m 1) an antitwilighter, 2) a girl, and 3) not planning on seeing any of the new Twilight movies any time soon.

It’s only audio but worth checking out.