A Feminist “Twilight” Hot-Take
There are few things that have brought me more shame in my life than my adoration for Stephenie Meyer’s infamous Twilight novels. The story- a documentation of a young woman’s romance with a 109 year old vampire- is not only one of the biggest pop culture phenomena of the last twenty years, but one of the most hated. Much of the criticism, I will concede, is warranted. Yes, it’s sketchy that such an old man, even if he looks 17, would be into a teenager. And yes, Meyer’s portrayal of the Quileute Native American tribe was incredibly racist, stereotypical and harmful- this cannot be overlooked! And YES, it was mega messed up when Jacob, the werewolf, essentially falls in love with a baby in Breaking Dawn, the franchise’s last installment. To my fellow twihards- don’t come for me on this one. It’s gross no matter how you try to spin it.
But there is one critique that has never sat quite right with me- this idea that Twilight is just so bad that it deserves its hatred. This idea that the quality is just so low that its mere existence is a disgrace to cinema and literature is touted all over the internet- some even regarding the Twilight series as the worst movies EVER. That’s right, you heard me. EVER. At times, people will back this rhetoric up with feminism, saying Twilight is bad for women. However- I would argue that Twilight is strong in just the opposite way- it depicts the desires of many women and asserts their validity.
Although Twilight may not have the best writing or the most sensical plot arc, it does possess profundity in one crucial way. Twilight taps into the female fantasy and validates it. It tells young girls that they are valid in all of their hopes, and that such hopes are completely normal. The novels explore what a woman wants and why she wants it. Not much attention has been called to this in the discourse surrounding it, but Twilight also is strong in that it holds an autonomous heroine. Bella, the young human girl at the center of the whirlwind romance, is not as helpless as the films or the parodies may make her seem. No- she chooses her fate and all that happens to her. Sometimes, she makes choices that assert her independence! But other times, she chooses the traditional route- and in those decisions, there is sometimes more power than the independent assertions. What is important and crucial is that she has choice. Bella simply does what she wants, regardless of how it is societally perceived or stereotyped (and that is true feminist intellectualism!)
And so in this vein, I would argue that much of Twilight’s extreme backlash comes from a sort of pervasive cultural misogyny. At the very worst, Twilight is silly. But there are silly things made for guys, too! Fast and Furious? Transformers? Anything Michael Bay has directed? These have not received even a fraction of the backlash afforded to Twilight.
So why do we, culturally, hate Twilight so much? Unfortunately, it is because we particularly hate teenage girls. The combination of their youth and their unbridled ability to embrace the feminine things that they love is viewed as a virus that must be squashed. And culturally, we DO squash it out, to the point where women feel they must relinquish all that is feminine in order to be accepted as an intellectual. This unabashed femaleness often doesn’t last past the teenage years when a woman wants to be taken seriously.
But I say, like what you like! You read your Star Wars novelizations, and I’ll keep reading Twilight. Although it is important to examine the problematic elements of the media we consume, it is also important to examine the lens through which we evaluate.
And so, I am now making in effort, into my adulthood, to not be so ashamed of my Twilight love. New Twilight book in 2020? Here I come!
