Twi-hard? More Like Try Harder by Kaitlin Beranek and Emilie Mussbach
Perhaps one of the most unforeseen events of 2020 was the return of the Twilight franchise. Originally published in 2005, Stephanie Meyer’s vampire romance series was an absolute giant of young adult literature throughout the subsequent decade. The Twilight fever raged: were you Team Edward or Team Jacob? Will Bella ever become a vampire? And for god’s sake, why the hell did Bella name her daughter Renesmee? When a draft of Midnight Sun, a book featuring the events of Twilight retold from Edward’s perspective, leaked online in 2008, Stephenie Meyer stopped the publication dead in its tracks, much to the despair of her fans. With its surprising release earlier this year, Twilight is enjoying a renaissance — but not without the usual backlash.
“It’s by now pretty clear that the not-so-secret reason everyone had so much fun mocking Twilight online 10 years ago is that our culture loves to mock stuff made for teenage girls.” (Grady) Yes, numerous aspects of the story are problematic. Yes, co-dependent, emotionally manipulative, and toxic relationships were romanticised, the Quileute tribe was exploited and Jacob’s infatuation with Renesmee had underpinnings of child predation. But so are shows and movie franchises targeted towards boys and men — the Rambo movies presented white supremacy as the norm, the Indiana Jones franchise was inherently racist, and the Transformers movies justified an adult dating a minor with a Romeo and Juliet reference — that experienced little to no backlash despite being problematic in content. Interestingly, these arguments are almost never mentioned when delving into the reasons to detest Twilight. Instead Bella was labelled a ‘bad role model for teenage girls,’ even though Meyer never intended for that, saying “I don’t think you should be using fictional characters as role models”. Why does one franchise get the moral benefit of not needing to provide strong role models while the other laments over who and what constitutes a morally right one? Furthermore, nobody paid much attention to the moral merits of the Twilight series until it began making millions of dollars. The first movie alone made $35.7 million on its opening day. The entire movie franchise? $3.35 billion. Once the things that girls enjoy become profitable, suddenly society decides it needs to find a reason to condemn it. Twilight? It’s toxic. Make-up? You’re shallow. Tiktok dances? They’re slutty.
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