Sophia Network

New Moon out on Friday

Twilight fever is high at the moment with the film New Moon out on Friday and teenage girls apparently in a frenzy over Robert Pattinson who plays Edward in the films.

So a reminder about our Twilight critique and resources written for us by Blythe Toll. She picks out themes in the books that resonate with Christian theology and highlights issues for youth workers to discuss with young people. She has also written a study guide on each of the four books to use with young people, and you can download these from our site.

You can find out more here and download the study guides here. 

We'd love to hear how you've used these, or what issues these films have raised for the young people you work with.

Resource: A critique of the Twilight Saga by Blythe Toll

Blythe Toll offers her critique of the Twilight Saga, a series of books that have captivated the hearts and minds of teens and adults, female and male alike. She picks out some themes that resonate with Christian theology and highlights points to discuss with young people.

I have a confession to make. I have read all four of the Twilight Saga books and seen the first movie twice. But I have another confession to make; I don’t like Twilight. I apologise to all those fans out there but sci-fi /fantasy is not really my thing, or romance novels, or big fat books that come in multiples. But please don’t hold this against me, as I must admit, I am fascinated by Twilight, and perhaps I’m somewhat obsessed with it.

Twilight fever has been sweeping the world. Seventy million copies have been sold worldwide, and the saga spent 102 weeks on the New York Times Best seller list. The first three books are to be made into films (the fourth one pending). Twilight was released last year, and New Moon is due out in November. All this hype leaves someone like me, who is not immediately drawn into the world of Twilight, asking: What am I missing? And what is it about Twilight that is speaking volumes to so many people the world over? 

The Twilight Saga is a series of four books: Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse and Breaking Dawn. The first was written in 2005, and the last was released in 2008. They are the work of Stephanie Meyer, an American mother who is a practicing Mormon. The idea for the saga was birthed out of a dream that Meyer had, of a beautiful sparkling vampire and a young girl who are deep in the throes of love for each other. The story inhabits the fantasy/sci-fi-world of vampires and werewolves. But don’t be mistaken; these books are more teen romance and angst than sci-fi or fantasy. They tell the story of Bella Swan, who moves to Forks, Washington and has her life turned upside down by meeting and falling in love with the vampire Edward Cullen. “About three things I was absolutely positive. First, Edward was a vampire. Second, there was part of him ... that thirsted for my blood. And third, I was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with him.”  [Tw p170/1]

We find in these 2,000 pages almost the whole gamut of human emotions: ecstatic love; desire; passion; temptation, risk; fear; security; pain; angst depression and sorrow. Maybe this is why this book has resonated with some 70 million people worldwide? 

Wading through all these books can be somewhat intimidating. There are many Christian themes: eternal life, sacrifice, true love waits and perhaps even pro-life ideas, that we as youth workers can use and explore. But I think if we scratch beneath the surface we will find just why this saga has resonated deep within people. At the core of the Twilight saga is desire, passion and transcendence.  And I think that Edward and Bella offer us a theology of desire, passion and the transcendent.

Resource: Twilight Study Guides by Blythe Toll

As well as her critique of the Twilight series, Blythe Toll has written a study guide on each of the four books which you can download here to use with young people who are into the series. You will of course want to adapt them to the specific needs of your group, and to check they are age-appropriate, but these are an excellent resource for exploring the themes of passion and desire that are so strong in the books. The character profiles will be useful whichever study guide you decide to use.

Download Twilight study guide

Download New Moon study guide

Download Eclipse study guide

Download Breaking Dawn study guide

Download Character profile

Blythe Toll is an artist based in Melbourne, Australia.  She has been involved in youth work of some description for 10 or so years, and currently works for Urban Seed - a Christian-based organisation working with the homeless and marginalised people in the city of  Melbourne.  There she is involved in the education department,  speaking to some 10,000 students about homelessness and other urban issues.

Resource: CPR on Gender by Lori Passmore

Download a pdf version of the CPR on gender 

CPR is an issue-based youth work resource tool, created to enable the youth worker to explore a specific issue with the young people they work with, no matter what level of relationship they have with them.
The resource is split into three different levels, rather like the terms: beginner, intermediate and advanced. Contact, Progress and Risk (CPR) was created, representing the three basic levels of relationship between youth worker and young people.

These ideas are further spread across four categories: Actions, Reflections, Groups and Individuals, so that a range of ideas and learning styles can be engaged with. Use these ‘bite size’ ideas as a starting point to develop your own ideas or use two or three ideas to fill a whole session, you can adapt the ideas if you want making them easier/riskier or just use them as is.

Gender will always be an issue, whether it be through injustice and discrimination, attitude or behaviour.  This CPR explores how we can help the young people we work with approach the issue of gender in an informed and sensitive way.  As this CPR deals with issues of gender and discrimination ensure that the young people are aware that they can discuss issues in confidentiality with you or your fellow youth workers (subject to child protection).  Some ideas are orientated towards single sex groups, but ideas can be used for mixed or single sex groups as you feel appropriate to your group.

This CPR has been exclusively developed and adapted for The Sophia Network by Lori Passmore, co-creator and writer of CPR. CPR is published every month in Youthwork magazine and back copies of CPR and more information about the resource can be found at www.cpr4youthwork.co.uk

Resources on body image

Many young women compare themselves unfavourably to pictures of celebrities in magazines, forgetting that those images have had hours of retouching to portray someone's ideal of perfection. Swedish ad agency Forsman and Bodenfors created a campaign called Girlpower for the ministry of health and social affairs to highlight the truth behind the images. You can see their interactive Retouch campaign here which could be useful for using with young women.

There are similar images from Greg Apodaca, a digital retoucher, here and here. The difference between the before and after shots is quite dramatic. I must confess that I found myself thinking 'she's not very pretty', when I saw the before shot because I'm so used to seeing the airbrushed images. But then I had to remind myself of what I might look like that close-up!

The Dove Campaign for Real Beautyis also worth looking at in terms of resources to use on body image. I love the strapline of their Onslaught film - talk to your daughter before the beauty industry does. As it's a global campaign it's worth looking at Dove websites from other countries. For example the Canadian website has an award winning film called Evolution which shows the transformation a model goes through.Remember, though, that this is all about advertising and the ultimate aim is to sell you more soap. Other products made by Dove's parent company have very unhelpful gender stereotypes in their adverts.

Ten films to help you talk about gender

We all grow up with cultural expectations of what girls and boys should do in life and what they should be like. And we’re mostly blind to those expectations until we’re confronted with different models. A film can be a great tool to widen our perspective and to get us to think in new ways. These films address different aspects of gender and culture, and could be the basis for some great discussions. You’ll want to watch them first, of course, and decide whether they’re appropriate for your group.

Whale Rider
In New Zealand, Koro, the leader of a Maori tribe, is eagerly awaiting the birth of his grandchild. He wants to train up a new leader of the tribe but his own two sons have proved unsuitable and all his hope is resting on the next generation. His daughter-in-law gives birth to twins, but he is devastated when the boy baby dies, leaving only a girl, Pai. When the mother dies too, her husband, Pai’s father, cannot cope and he leaves Pai, played by Keisha Castle-Hughes, to be brought up by her grandparents. Pai adores Koro, but he can’t see beyond her gender to recognise the gifts and potential that she has. Rejected again and again by Koro because she is a girl, she somehow finds the inner strength to persevere in trying to win his love. Eventually Koro realises that the leader he was searching for has been living in his house all the time, and he acknowledges Pai’s calling to lead the tribe. I cry every time I see this film, probably because the themes are very close to home! There’s a lot here about reshaping tradition, of reimagining leadership while staying connected to our roots. Damaris has a study guide to this film on their Culturewatch website www.damaris.org/cw