Five Reasons You Should Encourage Your Daughter* To Read/See Twilight

So there's this vampire movie? And it's opening tomorrow? And, like, it's based on this book that's like part of a four-book series and it's about this vampire? Who's like a nice vampire? And he falls in love with this girl and she falls in love with him and it's, like, SO AWESOME.

Seriously.

I'm not going to claim to anybody that the Twilight series is high literature. It's not high literature, by any stretch, unless you happen to consider the works of Dan Brown as high literature, in which case you've probably already read Twilight sixteen times and made notes in the margins with your National Treasure commemorative ballpoint pen, and, also, could I interest you in a library of leather-bound works by Ken Follet?

What Twilight is is excellent storytelling that taps into the human-all-too-human desire to experience love epically, in that awe-inspiring way that inspires, well, love stories. It's storytelling of the variety that one might expect if the gods gathered up Judy Blume, Jane Austen, the Sweet Valley High writers, the writers behind Buffy the Vampire Slayer and also, maybe, Mary Shelley and the Brothers Grimm and wrung them all together to make word soup. (Not Shakespeare. I've never understood the Shakespeare comparisons. Edward and Bella are not Romeo and Juliet. They're not kept apart by interfamilial tension. They're kept apart by species difference, and maybe a little class distance, which is another story for another time. Sure, people die - people start out dead - and suicide is threatened at one or two points, but really. NOT SHAKESPEARE.)

Twilight is good shit, and not just because it's entertaining (although it is that). It's also good for you, and good for your kids. You should encourage them to read it/see it. And if you don't have kids, you should read it/see it for yourself. Here's why:

1) Bella is a good role model.

When Breaking Dawn was released this summer, a flurry of articles hit the Internet about how Bella was a poor feminist role model, what with her mooning over Edward and her inability to kick ass like Buffy and all. Those arguments are bogus. It's not anti- or un-feminist to fall in love (more on this below), nor is it anti- or un-feminist to not be able to drop kick the undead. Bella is a strong female character precisely because of her vulnerabilities: she's Everygirl. She's clumsy and an unremarkable student; she's angsty and stubborn and prone to whining about bullshitty things like rain and unwelcome attention from douchey boys. Which is to say: she is just like most girls. The thing is, none of these things make her any less compelling. She's not a superstar, but she shines as a character because she's smart and loving and loyal and kind and determined and independent-minded and has great taste in trucks. She does her own thing, follows her own lights, and is all the better for it. She proves that you don't have to be The Chosen One to be remarkable. Who wouldn't want their daughters (or their sons for that matter) to follow that example?

2) The story characterizes love as empowering.

Love makes both Bella and Edward better people. It strengthens Edward's resolve to be a 'good' vampire and encourages him in his restraint. It encourages Bella, in the literal sense that it gives her courage: it makes her brave and daring in ways that it seems she wouldn't be otherwise. It compels both of them to look beyond their own, self-limiting worlds and reach outward. It teaches both of them the rewards of self-sacrifice (in sometimes excessive ways, sure, but this is fiction.) They are both made better through loving each other, which is exactly the kind of love that I want my children to aim for.

(Okay, maybe I don't want them to consider becoming undead for love, nor do I want them to battle - as Bella does - homicidal monsters on my behalf, but still. The intent is good.)

Sure, love makes Bella a little moony and Edward a little emo - okay, a lot moony and a lot emo - but hello? Were you ever a teenager? THAT'S WHAT LOVE DOES TO TEENAGERS. It's scientific fact. Even Buffy and Angel made moon-eyes at each other and got all angsty. And after all is said and done, Edward and Bella move beyond making CDs for each other and get down to the business of saving each other's lives and encouraging each other to transcend their limitations and all sorts of other stuff that rinses the taste of Spencer and Heidi right out of your pop-culture-coated mouth and allows you to believe, for a moment, in the transformative power of young love.

3) Further to #2: the story sets the bar really freaking high for choosing romantic partners, in a good way.

Much has been said about the fact that Edward is an impossibly perfect guy, that there's something problematic in the fact that he defies reality in his awesomeness, inasmuch as no girl (or boy) is ever, in real life, going to find someone like that to fall in love with. A related argument holds that the story perpetuates the insidious idea that we should only fall in love with amazing people. Here's a news flash: I want my kids to hold out for amazing people. Obviously, there aren't a lot of sparkly, do-gooding vampires out there, so odds are slim that my kids will ever find some perfect, Edward-like creature (nor would I necessarily want them too. After all, vampire), but still: they can hold out for someone who is unswervingly loyal, someone who is kind, someone who strives to be good, someone who treats them with respect, someone who wants the best for them, someone who loves them dearly and passionately. (Maybe not someone who floats outside their bedroom window at night, but I could maybe live with that if that person floated nicely and didn't slobber on the windows.)

Someone like Edward. Or Jacob (*cough*). You know, if they weren't, respectively, a vampire and a werewolf.

4) The story underscores the idea that love (and friendship) can transcend difference and that, yes, we can just all get along.

Edward is a vampire. Bella is not. As Jacob reminds Bella constantly (and somewhat hypocritically) Edward is pretty much a different species. He's a MONSTER. And to those people who don't know that he's a monster, he's still different enough that everybody keeps their distance from and his family and look upon them with suspicion. But Bella doesn't: she looks past his monsterness and ignores the differences that seem to divide them and falls in love, and, at the end of the day (at the end of the books) even the most dramatic differences are overcome and (spoiler alert) everyone lives in a sort of inter-species harmony. That's a good lesson, no?

Just because someone is a monster doesn't make them bad. Grover and Cookie Monster taught me that. Edward and his family just underscore the lesson, and it's a lesson worth teaching.

5) The story demonstrates, convincingly, that love is not just about sex, and that abstinence can be erotic.

Holy shit is abstinence ever freaking erotic in these books. You ever want to convince your kids that they do not need to have sex to be turned on and/or to bond physically with another human being, you just hand them these books. SERIOUSLY. WAITING IS HOT.

6) EDWARD NOM NOM NOM.

That was a bonus reason.

Now go see that movie.

*Or your son, if he's into it.