Twi-hard? More Like Try Harder

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.

When compared with franchises such as Harry Potter and Percy Jackson (both of which came out in roughly the same time period), Twilight is the only one that received mockery at such an intense, vitriolic level. It is also, surely coincidentally, the only one not targeted at boys, or both girls and boys. This does not imply that all the criticism received by Twilight was disingenuous, but years of the “it’s problematic” argument now seem like a lazy excuse to hate a universe that teenage girls enjoy, rather than constructive, sincere criticism. Yet, it seems to be common that this is only used as a weapon of criticism when directed towards media or trends largely enjoyed by young girls and women.

Ah yes, the age-old assumption that girls should naturally identify with boys’ lived experiences, perspectives, and stories, but the reverse could never be true.

“The degrading backlash to Twilight was mostly informed by the fact that in order to experience the novel or film, you had to engage with a feminine space.” (Moser)

A major portion of the backlash constituted other teenage girls and women, eager to distance themselves from something so unapologetically feminine. When the lived experience of women, including their concerns, obstacles, and viewpoints, are diluted down to the point of mockery, it is easy for society to shrug them off as superficial or stupid. And if they’re superficial and stupid… no one wants to identify with them.

And thus the ‘Not Like Other Girls’ girl is born. Is she named Bella? Maybe.

Or maybe not. Misogyny doesn’t always come in screaming about how female vampires suck and women are too emotional to lead. It can also creep in, unbeknownst to the poor mortal humans, as socially accepted assumptions and casual reactions to girls’ enjoyment.

Not allowing stories that exist in a feminine space to be presented on neutral terms is detrimental to the development of boys’ empathy and girls’ confidence. On a larger scale, girls’ participation in fandom can be seen as an expression of stereotypical feminine attributes:

“They deliberately use excitement and passion as the foundation for community-building and empathetic development.” (Moss)

Having more of these attributes be praised instead of (at best) taken for granted or (at worst) ridiculed, would benefit society in obvious ways: caring for the community, seeing the world through others’ eyes, making genuine connections with those around us. Perhaps this should be our new normal.