The 'Vampire' Romance phenonemon - the effects?

[acousticeagle]

I'm fairly certain that this fiction/movie interest in the vampire/romance genre will run its course in pop culture, as things do. I'm a writer myself, and, looking at the publishing/marketing industry overall, it seems to me that a genre popularity begins with a couple of best-sellers and other authors get on the bandwagon with publishing more in the same genre. This is all good for the publishing industry, of course, and it makes them a lot of money.

It seems that, today, everything is justified by the turnover of money - what's popular is promoted as it makes the most amount for those who are selling.

But what of the content of these books?

I've read three novels in the Twilight series and found the writing quite ordinary. It's a vampire-romance 'soap opera' and the corresponding movies are very well made. Late last year I read another one of these paranormal romances that seems to go a step further into the romance-with-paranormal-ghouls scenario. The novel is called "Fallen" by author Lauren Kate. In this scenario, the romance of the teen girl with the 'angel' has to do with the fate of all mankind!! Good grief!

Of course, books like this are rubbish and a mere entertainment diversion!

But there's something in this psychologically and I'm curious to what others think of teen girls ideas of romance/true love and how those strong emotional feelings that teen girls can have are exploited in these novels. It could well be possible that when a girl with an influencial mind is obsessed with entertaining fantasy thoughts of love with the 'unattainable' boy (ie the vampire - bad boy) they may well think that when they cannot fulfill romantic fantasy, as these books exploit, they might be left with a longing that ordinary boys in their normal (outside of fiction and fantasy) lives couldn't provide.

Do you think these books and movies are potentially psychologically harmful to teen girls? Should there be more adult supervision in regards to their content, especially in the area of emotional fantasy and romantic expectation?

[pert -5]

Do you think these books and movies are potentially psychologically harmful to teen girls? Should there be more adult supervision in regards to their content, especially in the area of emotional fantasy and romantic expectation?

Yes, these fiction works are quite pernicious to teen girls, if only because they take it to be reality!  They do!  Like Movies and Hollywood.

[Enigma]

No doubt the media has fucked up peoples' perceptions of love.  Looking at you Disney.

[Voix_Celeste]

I've read three novels in the Twilight series and found the writing quite ordinary. It's a vampire-romance 'soap opera' and the corresponding movies are very well made. Late last year I read another one of these paranormal romances that seems to go a step further into the romance-with-paranormal-ghouls scenario. The novel is called "Fallen" by author Lauren Kate. In this scenario, the romance of the teen girl with the 'angel' has to do with the fate of all mankind!! Good grief!

Now that you say it, we have yet to see a film folllowing closely the novel "Carmilla". But that would be probably for adults only.

Do you think these books and movies are potentially psychologically harmful to teen girls? Should there be more adult supervision in regards to their content, especially in the area of emotional fantasy and romantic expectation?

Although I cannot boil it down, I think adult supervision is needed in this domain. Expectations about affection and emotions should be kept within reality in this age and not only for the girls.

[Nicki]

I agree that adult supervision should be used when regarding these types of things. However, like everything else, teen girls (if they truly want it) will get around this supervision to get it. But maybe it's just a phase? These girls will realize that Vampires, Werewolves, etc. aren't real and these fantasies that they had will go away and they can live normal lives. Well atleast we could hope so.