Disturbing trend

[dragonjournal]

I've noticed a very disturbing trend among a certain genre.

I'm a reader of romance. I love trashy romance novels. I love curling up with them and just letting them take me out of my shitty life for a while.

However, there's one thing I find disturbing about a newer trend that I've noticed: The heroine keeps getting younger.

Now, if it's historical romance, I'm alright with a sixteen-eighteen year old female protagonist. That's the way it was. Women married young, often to older men, for a variety of reasons.

However, if you're writing contemporary romance, and your heroine is sixteen to eighteen, you're really going to have to sell me on the fact that she's mature enough to even be thinking like this.

I've been a sixteen year old bride. I was divorced for the first time at age 20. I know what those marriages are like, because I've been in one!

I find it disturbing that more people aren't sitting up and taking notice of this. Yes, I know, Twilight. But here's the thing: Meyer was also writing about how her church preaches that it "should" be. It was, in my opinion, a religious agenda that she used Bella to portray.

Which, really, is fine. If that's what people want to write/read, then go ahead and do that.

But dear sweet baby Jeebus bouncing on a pogo stick, please recognize it for what it is!

The majority of sixteen to eighteen year olds are not mature enough to have a lifetime commitment to anyone. Hell, a lot of thirty year olds aren't mature enough for marriage. (I know. Again, I was married to one!)

I don't know if it's merely becoming far more mainstream now than it was, or if it is an actual trend in the selling of romance novels, but I cannot fathom who thought that a good idea.

I'll admit, it not only disturbs me because I was a sixteen year old bride, but also because my eldest daughter is sixteen and if anyone tried to marry her off, I'd take her and hide her and shake some sense into her.

Random rant of the day. Now, I go back to bed.

Comments

[thblackflame]

I completely agree. That is one of my problems with Twilight. I'm sorry, but how is it that a seventeen year girl, after one conversation about he's a vampire (and we are not even going to get on the subject of vampires) and what is essentially about two weeks of actual contact is someone suddenly "irrevocably" in love with another person? I can see her being obsessed, I can see her thinking this, but for it to actually be true? The only thing I can say about it is it is written for a much younger audience who doesn't know their vampire lore. And it is a good thing, because at least it is teaching that younger audience about abstinence. But, still. And really? Sparkles?

[dragonjournal]

See; I didn't see Twilight as teaching about abstinence. It felt far more shaming to me. Especially toward girls.

In fact, the whole point seemed to be about illustrating how noble Edward was and how horrible Bella was for even having such feelings. Edward was perfection because he refused the siren's call of the dirty, dirty, sin-filled girl who wanted nothing more than to drag him down a path of sin and vice....

I might have Issues though.

[thblackflame]

No that makes sense. I'm not good at subtlety until it's pointed out to me. Then again, I didn't see Edward as perfect. I saw him as a very poorly written and completely unresearched character. Ms. Meyers mentions in the book how Edward has an older countenance and speech. I have read things written a hundred years ago, and things written two hundred years ago--so have everyone else who's ever taken a high school American/British lit class. Edward doesn't act or speak any different from anyone else. Then again, let's look at the audience she's writing for. I can't say for any country other than America, but I swear it seems like every generation is getting stupider as the years go by.

[dragonjournal]

Oh, Edward wasn't perfect. He was supposed to be, but that's just one of the many failings of Meyers' writing. (And lets be honest, we could be here all day listing those.)

And I don't think every generation is getting dumber. I think previous generations just keep treating the younger ones as if they are dumber. Look at the trend of abstinence only sex ed, or the helicopter parenting that happens a lot. Also, look at how many children enter university barely knowing how to handle money, or living on their own, or anything else.

Frankly, is it any wonder? Parents are not raising adults. They are raising selfish brats that are very, very in the now, and not looking down the road. I don't know why this trend started, or when, but it did. I find it sad in a way.

[thblackflame]

Very true! I am one of them. I'm 25 and I'm only now starting to learn how to budget. I'm not any good at it, but at least I'm starting to learn. And I think I know when the tend started.

This is a discussion that my grandmother and I have quite often, and the decline in propriety seems to have started after her generation. She said that her generation was intent on making thing easier for their children. So her generation creates spoiled, selfish children, do continue to do the same to their next generation. Children use to go with their parents and do work, be it busy work or actually do something useful. Now they stay home and watch tv when parents are at work. THen they don't teach the children how to fend for themselves when they do that.

Let's take me for example. When my mother finally move away from me because I wasn't going out on my own, I didn't know how to cook, how to clean properly, when things should be cleaned, how they should be cleaned, etc. I had no concept of what a budget was other than an odd word that had to do with money. *shrugs* It's only been in the last year that I have even started learning all this from the other grandmother who actually sat me down and showed me how messed up I was and why things kept going wrong in my life.