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Once upon I time I loved Twilight. Aged 12-15 I thought it was a beautiful love story. Edward was sooo perfect, and I was Team Jacob all the way cos of Taylor Lautner’s sexy abs.
A few years later, aged 18, I re-read Twilight, New Moon and the beginning of Eclipse and realised what utter crap it is. Badly written; it uses clichés and tired phrases that you would use in year 9 English. But my problem with Twilight is more in the content, not the form.
Let’s look at Bella, the heroine of the stories. She’s boring, bland, has very low self esteem and is a terrible character. People say that Kristen Stewart is a bad actress. I disagree; she played Bella perfectly. No one could have possibly made her interesting. However, she is relatable. To the demographic Twilight appeals to – insecure girls in their tweens and early teens – the character of Bella who goes crazy over this ‘perfect’ boy is very realistic. Its appealing to think a way-out-of-your-league guy could pine for you. I don’t hate Bella like a lot of people do – I feel kind of sorry for her, and I sympathise with her on some levels, but the blandness of her character is a pain to read.
But here’s my second and even bigger problem with Twilight: Edward Cullen. The heart throb of the story; he and Bella are supposed to emulate the perfect couple. I find this disturbing. Edward is a
cold, controlling, manipulative, emotionally abusive character who stalks Bella. He spends the entire time telling her how dangerous he is and that he could kill her any minute. He stalks her and watches her sleep. He buys her gifts she doesn’t want. He isolates her from her friends and family, making him and his family the most (and only) important thing in her life. He forces her into marriage when she’s clearly not ready. He controls what they do (or don’t do) sexually. He threatens to kill himself if she’s not in his life. Edward is not a loving character. He is a nasty sociopath. Naturally he’s also good-looking, charming and plays the piano. I guess a part of him does care for her and cares for his family. But what’s disturbing is that this awful guy is supposed to be the model man, the epitome of how a guy should treat a girl. Filling young impressionable girls’ head with this nonsense is terrible. You don’t need to be a genius to see how unhealthy Edward and Bella’s relationship is.
What’s even more piss-taking is that the nice guy, the guy who actually treats Bella well and isn’t an arsehole, gets ‘friendzoned.’ Yay! Stephanie idiot Meyer really stuck it to young boys with that one. Jacob has more than just great abs; he’s the most likeable and well-rounded character in the whole series. The whole time I was re-reading New Moon I was begging for Bella to forget that cunt Edward and gets with this guy who makes her happy and treats her well. Sadly Meyer later ruins the niceness of Jacob by turning him into a paedophile; in Breaking Dawn he ‘imprints’ on Bella’s unborn daughter. What this means is that he falls madly in love with her, and decides that he needs her to survive and she is the love of his life. It’s pretty sick; a grown man in love with a foetus. There’s a lot of stuff about forever and true love and happily-ever-after in these books, but it’s all done in a cringey way, not a happy Disney-like way.
The successor of Twilight; Fifty Shades of Grey, isn’t much better. I haven’t actually read it or seen it – read articles on it, skimmed through it, read the plot, seen the trailer. The story started off as Twilight fan-fiction anyway. It’s pretty much the same story, but with sex. Sadly even that is done wrong – the BDSM community were outraged at how E.L James portrayed BDSM. BDSM is supposed to be based on consent and trust, and instead Christian Grey (another sexy, piano-playing charmer) doesn’t use the safe word, hurts Anna, manipulates her, takes advantage of her lack of experience – the usual crap.
Whatever the ‘ideal’ relationship is, I’m sure it’s not the ones that Bella and Edward or Christian and Anna have.
Twilight and Fifty Shades of Grey are the sort of entertaining guilty-pleasure books you might read just for fun. If you’re gonna read them, take them lightly and don’t buy into the fairytale bullshit because these are not fairy tales in the slightest.
Additional articles:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/snow-white-doesnt-live-here-anymore/201510/why-twilight-is-worse-just-bad-book
