While it seems to be a pervasive social text among millennials, this week was my first real exposure to Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight series. In all honesty the movie was better than the book, which I found really unenjoyable. The thing that struck me most about Twilight was its reinforcement was traditional gender roles and the millennial context. Although, as McGeough points out, the abstinent male Edward and the sexually desiring female Bella is an inversion of commonly held perceptions about sexuality their relationship very much supports traditional notions of gendered power. He is depicted as the strong and beautiful decision maker, while she is uncomfortable in her body, thinks herself plain-looking, and is dependent on him. The problematizing of menstruation is also very interesting and, in my view, almost deplorable. While it makes sense in the context of Meyer’s desired audience to not have vampires feed on nutrient-rich period blood (because if a papercut set the vampires off, this certainly would do so as well), but for her to describe it as ‘dead blood’ just perpetuates the disrespect of the female body and its natural processes. This is furthered by the fact that vampires, who are very physically idealized, are without this function. Also fitting in with this message is the fact that it is not until Bella becomes a vampire by Edward’s agency that she feels comfortable and secure in her own body. She needs a man in order to fully realize her own identity. These messages are interesting in the millennial context because ABC Family, one of the driving cultural forces of millennial media, brands itself as ‘a new kind of family’, while family as portrayed in Twilight is very much a traditional one. It seems to be at odds with the millennial generation’s socially liberal mindset.