'Twilight' was introduced to me by a friend who returned from America a few months back bearing a case filled with books and proclaiming that we in the UK were missing out on the narrative of our lives, the film followed over the Christmas break to immense success. The second widest cinematic independent release of all time (following only Scary Movie 4), every girl I know flocked to see it. The film has grossed nearly $400,000,000 to date, the first book the best seller of 2008. Even the woman at the Odeon counter said she had seen it and loved it, much to her own embarrassment. Even I loved it, much to mine.
For those who aren’t aware of the phenomenon, the story line is as such: girl (Bella) moves to a new town, falls in love with brooding boy (Edward), who turns out to be a vampire. Chaos ensues. Edward Cullen is the Byronic hero of the vampire world, along the same lines as Buffy’s Angel. He is brooding, mysterious, unfathomably attractive both in book and film. Pretty much every girl I know wants to jump into bed with him. But this is where the trouble lies; the book is written by a fanatical Mormon, Stephenie Meyer, a woman who longs to make restraint the new 'promiscuity' (in a world where promiscuity refers to premarital sex) through her writing, described as the ‘erotics of abstinence’.
A very ambivalent message is thrown at us. There are two types of vampires in the realm of ‘Twilight’, the goodies (who don’t eat people) and the baddies (who do). Edward’s family are good, he longs to ‘bite’ Bella, she smells really alluring apparently, he can hardly resist her… but he does, because he knows the repercussions are those of evil, and he loves her more than to inflict that upon her. Pretty obviously, biting becomes the metonymic representation for sex, the vampires the bitten (the non virginal). Vampires have been culturally presented to us as the embodiment of soullessness, antonymous to Christian and therefore moral humanity, repelled by the crucifix. It is no coincidence that Meyer chooses them, rather than ghosts or zombies, as the premise for her fantasy universe. When Bella, at the end of the film, tells Edward that she longs to be bitten so that she can live eternally alongside him, he denies her- because he knows better. To be unbitten is to be pure- it’s a pretty transparent allegory to follow, particularly in the wake of the rising imminence of the American chastity movement. As tempting as it is (and ‘it’ is a whole heap of things), steer clear, because it will be your ruin.
The original cover of the book is an apple, the forbidden fruit, symbolic of the purity of the prelapsarian, the damning of sensory illusion: don’t pick that shiny red apple, don’t have sex, listen to the Jonas Brothers and put your silver rings back on or be condemned to an eternity of fire and brimstone. This is a powerful message that is being presented to teenage girls, a message of abstinence which has been supported by a quarter of a billion dollars by the US government over the past decade. It is a message which is becoming increasingly manipulated to find a place in society and dangerously decreasingly Christianised- a message now mutated to fit into secular society through propaganda in teen culture. Over summer, I laughed when I saw the Jonas Brothers at the MTV Music Video awards; they are a parody of what I imagine the chastity movement to be, unbelievably ‘pure’. Edward Cullen is not, he is sexy. Meyer's plotlines are alluring teen fiction, they are the magic of Harry Potter combined with the aspirationality of Gossip Girl; a lethal combination. The chastity movement has stopped openly preaching choice and has started practicing a bizarre indoctrination of teenage girls across the world and we are becoming at risk of raising a generation of women who see female sexual emancipation as filthy and shameful. We are regressing from the liberation discovered over the past decades under the guise of entertainment at a stunning rate and it is a travesty that will have myriad repercussions if not addressed directly, and quickly.
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I'm in the same boat as you. I enjoyed the series, much to my embarrassment.
I do think it's worth bringing up that once Bella is bitten (and therefore not "pure"), she kicks ass and is a strong character.
Of course, it's also worth mentioning that the consequences of having sex with Edward are utterly absurd (a pregnancy in which the fetus very nearly kills her).
I also really hate how Bella is just generally weak and needs protecting. Grr. As I said, it's just the fact that she kicks ass and takes names once she's bitten that serves as the saving grace for the series.
In general, the message isn't a particularly great one to be spoon-feeding girls... but I like the occasional vapid read as much as the next girl and I figure it's okay for me to read it as long as I keep in mind the anti-feminist sentiments behind the plot. I can't believe I'm admitting this.
*admitting that I read it, not that it's got a questionable message.
She was a Mary-Sue before she was bitten. Now that she's a vampire she's an even bigger Mary-Sue. I don't think sueness can equal to "strong character", because you know, in a world (Meyer's) full of "superficial" females that only want to have babeez and go shopping; and full of "good" males; Bella is like a token female. She is special. She is stronger, smarter, she doesn't have the backlash of being a newborn vampire, she sees/always saw the world in a different manner, she is awesome and ewwwwww ugly people.
No, no, no. As you see, she only got her new powars because of Renesmee. Because she didn't want to abort the baby who was killing her.
I've read the books and disliked them. The idea had potential, but was killed dead by a whole cast of Mary-Sues, sexism, racism, classicism and other isms.
http://twilightsucks.proboards.com/index.cgi?thread=638&page=1&action=display&board=twilight⺧
This explains a lot imo. :)
I'll admit I read the first book. Haven't read the others. I was not impressed with the writing, plot, or characterization. I must admit that it wasn't nearly as sexist as I'd been led to believe, but it definitely portrays some problematic relationships. Bella is just annoying-- oh poor me, I can't walk in a straight line without falling over and nearly dying. The descriptions of her "clumsiness" were so extreme as to go far beyond clumsiness and into "let's take you to the doctor and check what's wrong with your inner ear." And the idea that she got this level of clumsiness from her dad, who is a COP, yeah, I'm sorry but I'm pretty sure you have to be able to, like, walk, to pass police training.
I agreed with much of what you wrote. However, in what way is Stephenie Meyer a "fanatical" Mormon? Are you in some way implying the religion is fanatical, or that she is more zealous than most? I respectfully disagree on both counts.
Samantha: I feel like there is something fanatical about Meyer's desperation to convert young women to Mormonism by means of subterfuge. I am not well versed in Mormonism enough to know if that is a feature of the religion or merely Meyer's personal desire to preach tacit manipulation. I am not sure if it important either way, but I feel that it is prompted by excessive and mistaken enthusiasm to 'save' young women.