Meyer's Law: When Everything is a Twilight Analogy

As an English teacher, I spend a lot of my time sitting around with teenagers discussing books. A good discussion in an English class remains a favorite pastime; it’s enlightening and energizing, a practice that some of the greatest thinkers like Aristotle, Plato, and Socrates thrived on and sought out. But over the last couple of years, I have noticed a distinct change in my class discussion and at first I was furious. I’m talking throw-a-kitten-at-a-ceiling-fan angry (exaggerating obviously, so quit judging me). At least once a week, no matter what literary masterpiece we are discussing, someone in my class compares it to Twilight.

Is Twilight becoming some new type of Godwin’s Law? Godwin argued that if a discussion is allowed to go on long enough, eventually someone will make an analogy to Hitler. His law is specific to online discussions, and we all know virtual-world exchanges tend to be nastier than in the real-world; it’s a lot easier to compare someone and their beliefs to Hitler and the Nazis online than it is in person. Since Hitler remains the trump card for immoralism, a Godwin comparison usually means the discussion (and I feel that I am being too generous when I call it such) has plateaud.

Is it safe to theorize that eventually all arguments can be connected back to the horribly written, adverb riddled, awkwardly modified (thanks to right-click-thesaurus) themes of Twilight? Based on what I’m experiencing in my classes, we need to create some type of Meyer’s Law where all discussions that include at least 5 girls between the ages of 12 and 30 will eventually dissolve in a Twilight analogy. Please don’t think I’m comparing a tweenage-vampire-romance to the holocaust. I am definitely not. I am simply comparing our tendencies to connect the themes of literature and exploration of humanity with other human conditions that we are aware of because of (other) books, films, and history.

Meyer’s Law makes me sad for many reasons. I hate watching 99.9% of the boys in my classes smack their foreheads down on their desks the second a girl says, “It’s kind of like in Twilight when Edward…” It hurts my English teacher soul when a student compares a masterpiece like The Grapes of Wrath to Twilight. A disparate comparison like that is a raping of the literary canon almost as violent as the vampire-baby birth scene in Breaking Dawn, book four of the Twilight series. But the saddest part of all is that usually their comparisons work. This forces me to admit that with all its trite diction, simple syntax, adverbs, adverbs, adverbs, adverbs, and did I mention adverbs? Twilight has literary quality.

Now before I get into the merit of Twilight I have to tell you about my dirty little secret. Like all vices, it eventually takes its toll, a parasitic drain on the host’s weakening body. I keep it hidden as best as I can, but it becomes harder to hide the tell-tell signs of my abuse. My knowledge of watered-down, incorrect vampiric lore, an appreciation for Robert Pattinson’s razor-sharp cheekbones and Kristin Stewart’s disorienting ability to blink 300 times per minute marks me as a junkie. These blemishes are the Scarlet Letter that I must shamefully bear. (Yet it’s a Scarlet Letter that sparkles in the sun). Yes, it is true. I am a Twilight fan. I have been using Twilight for almost 3 years now. And I have become 9% dumber in the process.

I was introduced to Twilight by one of my students. I ran into her over the summer at Barnes and Nobles and she was reading this giant black book, it had to be at least 500 pages. I knew this student was not one of my avid readers, in fact I never would have imagined that I would see her in a bookstore by choice. But there she was, sitting in the floor by the adolescent literature section, hunched over a Bible-sized novel. I was fascinated, and I had to know what she was reading.

Whenever, I look back to that day, the day I became a Twilight fan, all of the warning signs were there. It’s like the beginning of any good dead-end relationship; there are flags, but we ignore them because of our delusional excitement over “something new.” When I approached this young girl, there was a madness, almost rabidity, behind her eyes as she looked up at me from her reading. She was rocking back and forth a little bit and I half expected her to call the book “my precious.” I should have known by her gaunt features and the dark circles under her eyes that this book was dangerous, but I couldn’t help it. I had to know what was so amazing about it that got a non-reading kid to suddenly devour 500 + pages. My intrigue over-powered my better judgment, and I bought the book.

Less than 24 hours later, I was back at the same Barnes and Nobles when it opened to buy the 2nd and 3rd book from the series. I had only slept about two hours because I read through the night and then set my alarm so I could wake up and be at the book store when it opened. (If I had remembered that the 24 hour Wal-Mart two blocks from my house had books, I wouldn’t have slept at all). I finished books 2 and 3 within a day and was genuinely upset to discover that book 4 wouldn’t be out for another month. I decided I would spend that time re-reading each book, to look for the deeper meaning.

In any bad relationship, when we take the time to reflect on the substance of our partners and our interactions with them, we start to realize the ugly truth; such was the case with Twilight. There was no deeper meaning. In fact, the relationship was about as deep as one of those 9 dollar kiddie-pools. But the problem was I couldn’t back out. I at least had to read the fourth book to see what happened to Edward and Bella, to see if they would ever actually get to do It and if Bella would become a vampire or not. And I wasn’t sure I wanted to back out. Even if Twilight was shallow, I still genuinely enjoyed the time we spent together. It wasn’t going to change my world view or challenge me, but it entertained me for hours. I still couldn’t shake those feelings of guilt and disappointment in myself for getting mixed up with this cheap, literary crack that kept me up at night. So what did I do? I got some of my friends to read the books, too. (The “hey, everybody else is doing it” mentality works wonders with guilt).

And I did feel better after I brought other intelligent, literary, adult women to the dark side (well, not really dark since vampires sparkle in Stephenie Meyer’s world). Their husbands, fiancés, boyfriends, parents hated me, called me Jim Jones under their breath, demanded that their loved ones throw away any food that I gave them that wasn’t store bought and individually wrapped. As these other women devoured these books with the same fiendish enthusiasm, I felt better, like I was normal. And as Twilight mania grew, I felt even more reassured that my addiction was normal.

So, back to Meyer’s Law. I used to be disgusted when Twilight was brought up in my classes, but as my students continue to make comparisons between Twilight and real books, I continue to be reassured that Twilight is more of a real book than I thought. I guess my anger at being swept away by such a cheap thrill of a novel kept me from appreciating the themes that are actually there. Well, that and the protagonist’s fatalistic beliefs about relationships go completely against everything I value. Bella is a teenage girl that has zero self-worth so when Edward legit stalks her (watches her sleep every night for months, and tinkers with her car's engine when she wants to go somewhere he doesn't approve 0f) she sees it as a sign of endearment and focuses all of her time and energy on him. Then when she finds out that he’s a vampire and that he desperately wants to kill her all the time, she finds him even more attractive (can you say co-dependency much?) Bella’s existence is so wrapped up in Edward’s presence, that when he leaves her in book 2, there are 4 whole months when Bella, the first person narrator, doesn’t have a single thought valuable enough to record. Long story short, Bella changes herself completely to be with the man that she loves; she is willing to sacrifice her family, life, and humanity itself to fulfill the whiney and impulsive needs of her underdeveloped frontal lobe. Despite all of that, Twilight deals with sacrifice and how it relates to love. It brings up the question of immortality and whether or not that would actually be a blessing (every year my students draw a comparison between The Epic of Gilgamesh, a 4500 year old Sumerian epic about a man who searches for immortality to Twilight). It can also be seen as a commentary on power and how it corrupts and changes people because Edward's family, the "good" vampires, choose not to abuse their power. And since it is told in a first person narrative style and is consumed by so many women of all ages, I would even argue it proves despite all of our independent and feministic tendencies, deep down many women have a longing for fatalistic, co-dependent, all-encompassing love stories whether they admit it or not.

Meyer's Law might be a stretch and it might only exists because my female students can recognize my junkie Twilight veins. Either way, it has helped me feel better about liking a book that I should be naturally inclined to hate.