I’m new to this whole Twilight phenomenon. I guess I’m just to connected to Harry Potter to venture out into another series. Plus, the idea of vampires as a central feature of the series just never seemed to draw me in. In all honesty, what is the appeal of vampires? As a film student, the kind of vampires I know are the ones that have been portrayed over the years as old and dead and grotesque. I think of Bela Lugosi and Lon Cheney Junior . I think of Halloween and horror. But I never think of attraction. But Twilight seems to have changed that, and has introduced a new face to vampires and “supernatural” beings alike. Stephanie Meyer has crafted a beautiful aesthetic about them, and then the film adaptations have reinforced the attraction. Meyer updated her vampires and gave them beauty, strength and superspeed and mindreading. As if challenging our millennial knowledge and evoking our accepting nature. Twilight fans have done that with no questions asked. Vampires are attractive I guess?

There are subtle millennial themes that we’ve seen running threads through other millennial stories. The most prominent aspect is Bella’s family dynamic: the mother and father are divorced, as if to embody the “ new kind of family”. The effects of divorce are common among our generation whether we like it or not. Bella’s dynamic with her mom evokes the equality that Gilmore Girls evokes, and the awkward air with her father just seems natural with the distance that was created in the past. They awkwardly skirt around the issue of boys, but he encourages her to go out and do her own thing. Very different from the controlling father in the Secret Life of the American Teen. The mom askes over the phone “ are you being safe?” Do we take it as a joke? I understand how many people can connect with Bella’s life in this way. Another millennial aspect is the amount Bella is plugged into her ipod. Or the fact that Edward looks 17 though is 104 and seems to get along with the millennial technology very well, as expressed in the giant flatscreen in his room.

The Cullen family of vampires serves as the beautiful and rich in Forks- those are the people that are wondered about and dreamed about, and they become Bella’s obsession. The film draws out this political divide within the town more than the book does, But why use vampires to create this separation of us and them? What is Meyer trying to evoke? Because for me there is a legacy of horror that comes with vampire/werewolf territory and romance never seems to work. But perhaps, she means to take a new spin on age-old romance. The kind of romance Ovid and even Shakespeare evoked when they wrote the romance of Pyramus and Thisbe, the two lovers destined to be together but always banned because of social restrictions. Vampires add to this social distinction, and they polarize where Bella is concerned. She’s the new, and seemingly very plain and far from stunning girl. As a millennial it feels like a typical teen romance script. Except when he starts stalking her and creeping into her room while shes sleeping. Why isn’t that seen as creepy? Especially when he says shes is his own brand of heroin. Yikes! If Bella stalked him or said that it would seem outrageous. In a sense it seems a double standard among the gender roles emerges within the Twilight narrative. Bella is always a damsel in distress, and always needs to be saved by Edward. In the book Bella describes her physical appearance with resentment, wheras Edward is a god. Her self esteem is dangerously low. Edward doesn’t age, but remains attractive his entire life. He is merely flawless. Even when he steps into the sunlight her sparkles “like diamonds”, and she says “ you’re beautiful”. She refuses to believe he is a killer, as if the diamonds blind her. And when Edward repeatedly saves Bella, it seems to reinforce this double standard. When he confesses to her that he can read minds but not hers she immediately thinks something is wrong with her. The scene at the end with prom is another imbalances while she has a broken leg and just looks awkward, and  Edward just looks perfect. She is fixated, and obsessed. Her fear is losing him. As in the Toscana essay, Edward regulates not only her sexuality, but everything about her. She is “unconditionally in love with him”. She surrenders to nearly everything he says. When they have their first kiss he tells her to stay very still as he kisses her. She tries to push it further and he says “stop”. As if its only on his terms. As McGeough states, Bella’s “adolescent body loses control both physically and rationally “. When Bella is bitten, she doesn’t even have the choice if she wants to become a vampire or not ( yet). Edward makes the choice for her. He controls her pain and he takes it away. She doesn’t remember things that happen to her body, they just happen.

As a female viewer, I am kind of horrified at her behavior. She is not the kind of independent role model young girls should strive to be. Yes as the Toscana essay poses, free will is present all over the place, but the only thing she chooses is Edward. When she tells him she can’t dance and feels very self-conscious he says, “well I can make you”. Elements of the McGeough essay certainly emerge if you view it in Bella’s favor. You can understand the negativity to which McGeough holds to Twilight. Yet in opposition to McGeough, Bella’s behavior actually objectifies the men in the series, not the other way around. Bella introduces a kind of obession that seems to explain “rabid fan” behavior. For example: the hype of Edward and Jacob. They’re completely objectified sexually both by the students of the town of Forks, Bella and of viewers alike. The whole Team Edward versus team Jacob is a complete objectification of the males in the series as the fans participate with the Twilight fandom focus specifically on gender values. They vote on who they think is “hotter”, and even make T-Shirts and ad campaigns for the cause. Because the two males are in competition for Bella’s love. But why the need when it’s Meyer who decides the plot? What is it about these characters that drives such a sentiment? Sex appeal is huge, and their characters serve as an idealized romantic figure. They’re attractive AND they do the right thing. Viewers use these figures to engage a hypothetical “relationship”, as if putting themselves in Bella’s place; in this way Twilight is able to join love and sex without being explicit.

On another note, perhaps the English major in me found something very overtly sexual about the biting scene at the end? Senses are “sensual” no matter what you do with them. Taste is not excluded from that list and is central to vampire culture. From this view, Twilight suppresses the actual act of sex, and leaves the senses to imply sexuality.