I remember back to when I was in Grade Eight. I was an emo kid, trying to find herself in the world, even though she was still depressed while doing it. And I was absolutely OBSESSED with Twilight. (Well, the premise of it, Bella attracted me as a character I could relate to) A love story with a totally hot vampire and a regular teenage girl … I was on that bandwagon. Or at least I used to be. When first reading through it in Grade 8, I was struck by how BORING the book really was. Strange too – why was Bella such a weak person? What were her reasons? Her trauma didn’t seem to be so emotionally weakening. PLUS Edward was described to such minute perfection, with his beautiful eyes, nose, BREATH, body like a block of marble, blah, blah. I got tired of it. Edward and Bella were supposed to be very deep but I remember thinking that Edward came off as controlling instead of loving to Bella (not that she minded)
But then, it got worse. I’m not going to bother discussing this book by book. These are my points for why Twilight is not a good teenage phenomenon. Teens should NOT be interested in this stuff; not because it’s crap but because it’s making us think it would be great to be in a relationship like Bella and Edward’s. It’s NOT. First of all, Edward should not be one’s ideal boyfriend – vampire or not. He stalks Bella in her sleep. He’s always angry whenever Bella gets herself into dangerous scrapes; talking in a gruff manner, always about to kill somebody. Then, he also asserts his power over Bella by always telling his other fellow vampires that ‘she’s MINE’. Edward is slightly psychotic, no matter how normal he’s depicted to be.
Then, there’s Bella. She’s in love with Edward for all the wrong reasons. She lets him rule her. She’s slightly freaked out when he watches her sleep but then, she gets used to it. She LOVES it when he saves her. In fact, she’s so in love that she’s fine with having Edward hold the thought of sex over her head. Bella is depicted so that she needs strong, powerful males in order for her own existence to survive. This is completely different from the model female today, who is depicted as independent, free-willing and not needing a man to get by.
So, if you think of it like that - Bella and Edward are not the modern couple. They’re an old Victorian couple, because the idea that a weak dame couldn’t possibly live without her strong, masculine partner was dominant back then. That’s what shown in Twilight. What makes it worse is the fact that girls today idolize it. They want to be like Bella, they want an Edward in their lives, and they want to be in that kind of relationship. A relationship where a man is overbearing, a woman is so desperate and where anything goes. Imagine the problems that come out of thinking like this – wanting to be like this. Years and years of feminist ideals down the waste. All that work bridging the gap between men and women slowly becoming undone. We decided to defy the old customs because it wasn’t working in the industrialized era back then, and it certainly won’t work now. So why is there such a big thing for Twilight?