tracyrusso

But when a saga popular with pre-adolescent girls peaks romantically on a night that leaves the heroine to wake up covered with bruises in the shape of her husband’s hands — and when that heroine then spends the morning explaining to her husband that she’s incredibly happy even though he injured her, and that it’s not his fault because she understands he couldn’t help it in light of the depth of his passion — that’s profoundly irresponsible.

Yes, we’re all having a good yuk over the unhinged quality of it all. And yes, it’s a movie with a monster baby. (And an angry argument among a pack of wolves that’s about as menacing as an outtake from Oliver & Company.)

But romanticizing an intimate relationship that leaves bruises and scars is a particularly terrible idea in a film aimed at girls. Talking about this is tiresome, but then so is putting it in the movie. From depicting the loss of virginity as a naturally violent, frightening, physically dangerous experience to making Bella a woman with no life at all outside of her literally all-consuming pregnancy, the narrative sledgehammers are all as distasteful as they are inelegant.