It's easy to dismiss the Twilight franchise for entirely spurious reasons, and we certainly do that around here: the films, while well-made, are not tremendously exciting from a plot perspective, certainly not to the point where you can explain the legions of adoring fans lining up to get into midnight screenings or screaming at the actors at red-carpet premieres. Still, rejecting the films simply because they've moved beyond "popular" into legitimate "phenomenon" territory would be to do yourself a disservice. You can indulge in memes or parodies all you like, but doing so seems to be missing the point: these films are not merely bad, but are probably actively harmful.
Re-visiting the first three films for the purpose of our Here's What You Missed last week was an uncomfortable experience; I like to think I'm open-minded enough to admit that things that are popular have to have at least some reason for being so, and the reasoning behind Twilight's popularity is as obvious as it is distressing. We live in a 21st century that is filled with awkward dating rituals and media-driven standards of beauty that are unreachable for most of us even on our best days. Twilight taps into a powerful current in fiction, though, especially fiction targeted towards women: it almost literally doesn't matter who you are or what you do or what you want to do; there's a man out there that is The One. Mr. Right. Edward's obsession with Bella has nothing to do with Bella herself, and in fact the films helpfully leave her as blank a slate as possible, the better to enable wish-fullfilment fantasies on the part of Team Edward fans everywhere. She is a non-person, a hole in the universe waiting to be filled up by the emotions of the men in her life.
As a man, I get targeted with all kinds of wish fulfillment media as well, although the media that's targeted at men often is intent on letting us enact power fantasies, letting us pretend to be an intergalactic warrior-monk or a dapper spy or a tough cop who's three days from retirement. We identify with our heroes and wish to see them act heroically and save the world, because we sure as hell aren't going to do it unless we wind up joining the Green Berets or something. Is it healthy to constantly be living in other worlds where I'm slaying dragons and jumping out of airplanes before they crash? Probably not, but on the other hand, it's clear that these are simply fantasies. Twilight could be considered one as well, but its core isn't the vampire/werewolf mythology it freakishly adapts in hilariously inept ways: it is, at its core, a fable about idealized romance, and that's where it leaves "incompetent" behind and starts venturing into the realm of "offensive."
The affections of Edward towards Bella have famously been compared to a list of signs that you're in an abusive relationship, and come up with multiple matches, when only one is enough to signify that you should probably talk to a relationship councilor. He sneaks into her room at night to watch her sleep, he compares her to heroin, he threatens suicide if anything should ever happen to her, he demands knowledge of her whereabouts, he claims to be the only person that can protect her, etc., etc. It is a fundamentally unbalanced relationship, and one that, perhaps worse, isn't predicated on any kind of real emotional bond. That's perhaps my biggest problem with the films: the relationship is made out to be some kind of grand romance between two equal souls, etc., etc., and that's supported by the language that surrounds it, but Bella as a character is such a non-entity that the notion of a 100-year-old vampire being interested in her is far-fetched, to say the best. She has no stated goals in life, or any kind of real passion for anything except Edward: no favorite authors to talk about, or aptitude for a specific field of schoolwork, or desire to go to college to study something. She is the kind of empty-headed, disposable person that many Twilight fans probably love to hate when they appear on reality television.
Her emptiness is, again, important in that it allows the fans of Twilight to use her as an avatar of idealized romance: the wearisome fanaticism with which audiences divide themselves up between Edward and Jacob should probably speak to that fact more plainly than any psychological explanation could. But the message sent is a fairly terrifying one: don't even bother being interesting, these movies say. Just sit back and eventually hunks will be fighting over you, despite the fact that you can barely function as a person in society. It is an ancient way of looking at relationships and marriage, with a woman to be fought over, a prize to be won, her primary virtues being her pleasing features and submissive tendencies.
Twilight has been called emotional porn, and the relationship between it and actual pornography is probably closer than anyone would like to think: both consist of highly attractive people interacting in highly idealized ways. Porn and Twilight can be enjoyed healthily, but then, they can also become a destructive force in the hands (so to speak) of someone who's not ready to separate the fantasy from their everyday lives. If I had kids, I would certainly acknowledge the inevitability that my son would find some way to look at porn despite my best efforts, as would a daughter find a way to read Twilight, so I'd do my best to ensure that they knew where the dividing line was between reality and the somewhat depressing fantasy world that they were getting into.
I don't hate Twilight; I find it more disturbing than worthy of strong emotion. Everyone worries about movies that send poor messages, and many films do so, but the widespread acceptance of Twilight as an entertainment seems to me to be something to be mourned. I haven't read any of the books, and perhaps they come off as somewhat less damning that the films do. Are any of you Twilight scholars? Do you want to make a defense of the series, or are we mostly on the money here?
Mouth Breather
If anything, the books are probably more full of this crypto-Mormon garbage than the movies, but that's probably a product of them being longer more than anything else. There are definitely no redeeming qualities there that you're not seeing if you watch the movies.
I haven't read every word of the series, but I've read enough of the copies I've borrowed from friends to feel vindicated in talking shit to them about it.
I was thinking about this exact topic recently and disagree completely or at least that its sending a bad message. Sure I think that the characters in the show are far too emotional and make horrible life decisions but that's just the thing they are characters in a movie, to be fair there are probably people who live lives like Bella and have guys flocking over them, yes its sad but that dose not mean the the movie is saying its good to be this way.
An argument to be made is think about the role switched around with a boy who lives a care free life and girls flock to him and when one dumps him he becomes emotionally destroyed and depressed, i think there are a lot of movies like that such as 500 days of summer. But you don't see girls saying that 500 days of summer is a damaging movie to guys,
Yes i do think the people to take this movie literally as a way to live their lives are idiots and that is sad but there are people who probably do aspire to be Bella, but its not the movies fault its everyone else's.
Having never read the books and taken all knowledge about the plot and the characters second-hand, I'd say you're on the money. I'm not the target audience for this schlock, but I do indulge in fantasies (be it through movies, games, books, etc) that might not work for women. Still, it doesn't mean I take in every piece of entertainment indiscriminately, which kinda makes me sad that people would be so into a series that has such a horrible view of romance.
With that said, I kind of love the unironic, totally serious, barely hidden subtext in the series. It goes from anti-premarital sex allegory to a strong anti-abortion allegory in the fourth movie/book. It's laughable as long as you can step away and peel back the layers of what's really going on.
I think this stuff goes over the audience's head at times though.
@mattman734 said:
500 Days of Summer is about picking yourself up and moving on with your life. Not staying your sad pathetic self waiting around for your "true love" to come back to you after they just used you like trash. Comparing twilight to 500 days of summer is a bad comparison. Mostly because 500 Days of Summer is actually a good movie.
To sum extent i agree with your article Rorie. Having seen the first two films my biggest problem was not so much the message behind the movies,if there even is one, which i believe is debatable, but that they were just truly awful movies. And that a large sum of people defend these movies as being great movies, is for me the must worrying part. Hopefully, and most likely with all pop fads, all this will eventually end in a fiery disco vampire explosion.
@mattman734 said:
I think you missed the point of Rorie's argument. Using 500 Days of Summer as an example: both characters have jobs, passions, dreams, an equal emotional bond, things that define them as individuals outside of their relationship. Whereas Twilight stars a blank slate whose existence and everyone in it is based on her relationship to the men that "love" her. In a lot of ways it's about as classically anti-feminist as you can get (as much as I dislike throwing around the f-word).
What Rorie summed up has always been my problem with the series, though I'm glad he wrote this because I certainly don't have the motivation to do more than comment on the internet about it. I think Rorie's point of what's at the core of the series is important. I disagree with Rorie's last sentiment in that I think most young girls can distinguish Twilight as fantasy - even the romance part, it's just escapism. But I do think we need to point out why the romance, gender roles/dynamics, etc are so fucked up so it's obvious that Twilight is just fantasy.
@mattman734: 500 Days of Summer has a message that Tom's behavior is wrong. 500DOS has a message that obsessing over someone and treating them as an object of desire is unhealthy, and in the end he gets over it and realizes that Summer is just a girl. A relationship ends and life goes on. It's the anti-Twilight.
From what I've read and seen, Matt, I have to agree with you on most counts. However, I do wonder why it is a big deal that this one movie in particular has bad messages when so many other films too have negative messages and nobody says a thing.
This heat map tells us something:
Well stated Matt, glad to read a strong backup to ones opinion rather then just someone spewing a hate because its the cool thing to do
Nice post Rorie, really well-said. Voiced a lot of the concerns I've been seeing in the franchise. Hopefully once the final flick is out, my little sister will move on to something healthier. I wonder where Disney is on that adaptation of the Runaways comics...
The thing is, for as utterly retarded as these books are, pretending that they are super damaging is fallacious by nature. I have several female friends who loved the books when they were 14 (big surprise), but they now fully accept how stupid they are and go to the midnight premieres for irony and to hang out more than anything else.
Are we going to give these (vapid, poorly written) books the same treatment as politicians give video games, a threat to society? No. People grow up. The audience for these books consists of 14 year old girls, who are dumb and make poor decisions regarding their personal relationships anyways. And even if someone were to have the unfortunate tendency to like these books, that does not imply that they necessarily take anything from them. Honestly, Twilight hate is one of the things that I consider played out, along with zombies and modern military first person shooters. It exists. It's dumb. Move on internet.
I always questioned why a 100 year old vampire would be attracted to an immature 16 year old girl or why this idea didn't bother anyone. If there was a movie about an older man having a relationship with a teen girl parents and the media would go bat shit crazy. Oh, there is - its called Lolita.
If you want compelling story about the kind of relationship an ancient vampire (in a small girls body) would have with an outcast, star-struck male admirer go see "Let The Right One In"...the original. No sparkling, no vegetarianism and no babies. It plays by the vampire rules right down to the fact she has no valid 'girl parts'.
I completely agree with this article.
I've witnessed firsthand the damage these movies can cause. I lost a friend to this crap, man!
@Derekh1029 said:
And i agree i liked 500 days of summer and in the end it dose have a good message, but im using that as a point that movie is in no way damaging, and yes the people in twlight are in no way good people like they are in 500 days but its a similar situation where someone falls in love and is devastated when they break up with them like he loses his job and sit around his house for a month doing nothing. But yes in the end unlike twlight (or i guess i dont know the end of twilight it might have the same message) he learns that one person should not define you and he moves on.
But that was the point i was trying to make is that its not what twilight is saying or doing that is bad its that is just not a good movie or story with one denominational characters, its people that chose to be influenced by it for no reason.
I've read the books. They're not terrible-ish. In the first book, Bella does have a tiniest little bit of character development. Her favourite author is Emily Brontë (inferred from her repeated reading of Wuthering Heights) and she like Debussy. The relationships with her human friends gets developed a little bit. As well as with her father.
However the next 3 books become blatant perpetuation of Mormon beliefs and any character development goes straight out the window, replaced with vapid Jacob/Edward pining.
The end of the fourth book is super weird.
Except one of the problems there is that it isn't just young females. Go ahead and look up "twilight tattoos" on google or something like Dorkly and you can see some body parts that obviously don't belong to 14 year old girls. These are permanent marks on older women who have embraced the fantasy and fiction enough to permanently mark their skin. So people are probably taking something extremely personal from these stories.
Now yes you can make the argument that those women are probably damaged in some way and are special cases. Except that there seem to be quite of a few "special cases" out there. So the view of it's just a young females fantasy while they are going through hormonal changes and grow out of it doesn't really work. Of course people also do that with Harry Potter and other forms of devotion to sports teams can be equally perplexing but the argument if about Twilight for now.