A response to Meredith Cherland’s article “How is the reading of popular fiction implicated in the construction of gender?”

Cherland’s article touches on the influence that literature has on the construction of binaries – in particular gender binaries. She cites the example of Twilight‘s success, which points to a large female fandom that idealizes heterosexuality. The problems with Twilight, I think, stretch beyond this issue of heterosexuality. It has been criticized for perpetuating the weak female figure, who needs her boyfriend to keep her alive, and parts of it are even said to promote rape culture. The following blog has a lot to say about Twilight – everything from syntax to themes:

http://reasoningwithvampires.tumblr.com/archive

And yet, despite all the critiques, Twilight remains such seductive prose to many teenage girls. Would there be a benefit, I wonder, in bringing a passage from Twilight into the classroom? It would be interesting to see why many teenage girls find the novels so wonderful.

Cherland says, “How can English teachers help? My approach is to make the work of troubling the gender binary part of teaching students to read critically, to challenge and to question what they read” (68).

Perhaps bringing this song into the classroom could start some discussion: