Twilight Revisited
I promised a post about guilty pleasure reads, so here we are.
I remember my first Twilight experience vividly. A close friend loaned me the book in 2007 - I had never heard of it before, but I saw the cover and was hooked.
I read Twilight in late Autumn in my parents’ living room, sitting on the wood floor instead of the couch in the odd way kids sometimes do. I remember the mix of fear and intrigue I felt as I read: “About three things I was absolutely positive. First, Edward was a vampire. Second, there was a part of him-and I didn’t know how potent that part might be-that thirsted for my blood. And third, I was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with him.”1
Even at eleven years old, I was enchanted by the idea of sacrificing everything for love. Contrary to what the cynics say, I think most men and women feel this enchantment, though in different ways. Granted, it was clear to me by a few years later that love - and the sacrifices you make for it - is much more quotidian than what one finds in most books.
By 2008, Twilight mania was in full swing, and the stories didn’t feel like mine anymore. I remember enjoying New Moon, but my excitement diminished with each new installment. I loathed Breaking Dawn and I still do, but Eclipse might be more upsetting plot-wise. Still, I always retained a nostalgic affection for Twilight, and I found myself immersed in it again over fifteen years later.
One of the odder experiences I had during pregnancy and postpartum is that I found myself drawn to things I loved in childhood. I started to crave Nesquik and my mother’s forgotten chicken casserole and other concoctions I hadn’t tasted for more than fifteen years. It was like I was excavating a piece of myself from the ruins of time and memory. I even started to remember my childhood more clearly. It was so strange and powerful, but that’s a story for another day.
During postpartum, I felt a strong urge to read the Twilight series again, especially the first two books. I watched the first two movies several times as well, which was nice because I gave birth deep in winter and the familiarity was cozy.
During that time, I read the books and rewatched the movies so frequently that the magic wore off the series for me. The flattering cast of nostalgia fell away and I saw the characters underneath more clearly, which is how I realized I didn’t really like any of them.
When I was a teenager, Bella was skewered often in popular media as boring, traditional, and oppressed. One critic seethed that “Breaking Dawn’s Bella is a throwback to a 1950s housewife, except for the fact that Edward has turned her into a vampire.”2 I remember how much hearing sentiments like this frustrated me then, because I sensed the widespread contempt our culture feels for young women - being a Taylor Swift fan had the same effect. A review of the Twilight movie - published in The New York Times and written by a woman - is shockingly condescending and sexist, and reflects the attitude towards young women at the time:3
“What if I’m the bad guy?” [Edward] asks. (Cue the shrieking virgins.) That may make him catnip to anyone with OJD (obsessive Jonas Brothers disorder), but it also means he’s a bore, it’s only because she suggests that there actually is something worse than death, especially for teenagers: sex.
Another critic sneered that “Stephenie Meyer has claimed her books are feminist because they are about Bella making a choice, an assertion that would be laughable if so many people weren’t nodding in agreement.”4
According to these critics and culture at large, monogamy and young marriage are counter-feminist, and girls who follow a traditional mold are boring, whether the girl in question has traditional views or not. (Bella certainly doesn’t, after all - she’s eager to have premarital sex and adamantly against marriage at first). Much of the criticism of Bella is biased and steeped in an industrial, corporate view of feminism in which commitment and marriage are shackles. But many criticisms of Bella are fair because Bella is not an admirable protagonist. This isn’t because Bella is a young wife and mother, but because she is selfish, fickle, and unkind.
In Twilight, Bella reads as caustic, even mean-spirited. She greets the friendly kids at her new school with sarcasm and rude jokes. When another girl welcomes Bella to her lunch table with her friends, Bella says, “I couldn’t remember her name, so I smiled and nodded as she prattled about teachers and classes. I didn’t try to keep up.”5
Bella also toys with the feelings of her loved ones when it serves her. In New Moon, Bella leaves her father Charlie’s home for Italy, with no word or explanation, while he grieves a close friend at said friend’s funeral. When Charlie objects to Bella’s behavior, Bella manipulates Charlie by threatening to move out if he tries to restrict her relationship with Edward. Bella says to her father, “I love you. I know you’re worried, but you need to trust me on this. And you're going to have to ease up on Edward if you want me to stay. Do you want me to live here or not?”6
Bella is at her worst in the third installment of the saga, Eclipse. She mocks her boyfriend Edward’s desire to wait until marriage to have sex:7
“You’re trying to protect your virtue!” I covered my mouth with my hand to muffle the giggle that followed."
Later, despite being engaged to Edward, Bella passionately kisses her best friend Jacob. She claims, “I loved him. Too. I loved him, much more than I should, and yet nowhere near enough. I was in love with him, but it was not enough to change anything; it was only enough to hurt us both more.”8
Even as a tween, I thought Bella’s idea of “love” - and the general concept of “being in love” with two people at the same time - was ridiculous. Love entails commitment and sacrifice and placing the needs of another above your own. Yes, being attracted to multiple people happens, and it’s possible to feel strongly for two people at once. But if you truly love someone, you want to forsake all others.
Despite her two-timing ways, Bella tells Edward in Breaking Dawn: “No one’s ever loved anyone as much as I love you.”9 It’s clear from the text that the audience is supposed to take this seriously, and that Edward’s insistence that he is the only exception to Bella’s statement (because he loves her even more) is romantic. In reality, Bella and Edward are very flawed characters who do not always love each other well. While Bella cheats on Edward, Edward did abandon her to be devoured by evil vampires in the previous book (he claims he didn’t realize she would be in danger). Neither one of them is my idea of a romantic hero.
There lies the primary problem with Twilight - it tries to exemplify perfect, fated love. The fact Meyer alludes to and mentions Romeo and Juliet throughout the series is not an accident, and the near-suicide plot in New Moon is a clear reference to that work. Meyer ostensibly sees Romeo and Juliet as more romantic than tragic, which points to Twilight’s fundamental and flawed premise - that romantic love can be perfect and that it can be enough to satisfy us. This is part of what draws people to the story - the idea that we can find a “soulmate” who completes us without trying very hard.
The series would have been far better if Meyer had not presented Edward and Bella as perfect soulmates, or portrayed Bella as a heroine. Bella is no more wonderful than the classmates to whom she condescends in Twilight. Bella and Edward are teenagers when they meet and marry, and they act like it. This is fine, but it’s not the makings of a “perfect” love story. Often, it’s not even a particularly good one.
Still, I think there is an under-appreciated reason why Twilight still resonates with many today; it’s a story that treats young love seriously. And when you are in love for the first time, it does feel like life or death. This might be part of what keeps drawing me back to the first two books in particular. I don’t like the later books as much, in large part because of the wildly creepy “imprinting” idea that the editors should have nixed in an instant. The first two books are much less self-indulgent than the final two, though, and Bella is more likable.
For all of its flaws, Twilight does at least touch on the importance of eternal commitment. That this speaks to so many young girls makes a lot of people uncomfortable. Why would young girls yearn for stiff courtship, abstinence, and lifelong marriage? It contradicts our modern ideals of sexual freedom, after all.
It seems that teenage girls may know more about love than the adults around them. Our modern paradigm has replaced Edward Cullen-style courtship with Snapchat, “ethical non-monogamy”, divorce parties, and more enmity between the sexes than ever. Is it really any wonder teenage girls are asking for something different? Maybe adults should listen to them.
Stephenie Meyer, Twilight, New York, NY: Little, Brown & Company (2005), Chapter 9.
Prof. Christine Seifert, “Bite me! (Or Don’t)” Bitch Magazine, (2 Jan. 2009), https://ohnotheydidnt.livejournal.com/31060237.html.
Manohla Dargis, “The Love That Dare Not Bare Its Fangs,” The New York Times (20 Nov. 2008), https://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/21/movies/21twil.html.
Time Out, “Twilight Sucks,” (11 Nov. 2009) https://www.timeout.com/film/twilight-sucks.
Stephenie Meyer, Twilight, supra, Chapter 1.
Stephenie Meyer, New Moon, New York, NY: Little, Brown & Company (2006), Chapter 24.
Stephenie Meyer, Eclipse, New York, NY: Little, Brown & Company (2008), Chapter 21.
Id. Chapter 23.
Stephenie Meyer, Breaking Dawn, New York, NY: Little, Brown & Company (2009), Chapter 39.
So glad you wrote this piece-very enjoyable and very much tracked with my experience of Twilight obsession followed by disillusionment, as I realized that the soulmate concept was bunk, and that Edward/Bella weren’t the ideal the book wanted us to believe they were, because they weren’t particularly great individuals. But what attracted me in the first place was much of what you pointed out, the more old fashioned “courtship,” the idea of marriage/commitment (at least on Edward’s end) seen as being the necessary precursor to a physical relationship. Another element I think so many young women, like myself, found compelling was the fact that Bella (our stand in) is positioned as this seemingly average person, only for the absurdly attractive/strong etc hero to fall for her and wax poetic about how very special she actually is, and it’s all based on her “personality”/who she is (rather than purely on her sexuality). When you’re an insecure teenage girl, that is a narrative we want to hear.
I started teaching at an all-girls middle school in 2008. Let’s just say Twilight was a thing🤣
Loved this; thx for sharing