in defense of Twilight

Now I can't very well run a blog concerned with such themes as psychology and sexuality without touching on the biggest romantic pop culture phenomenon since... I don't even know. They've said the movie is the biggest romance since Titanic, but Titanic didn't have a matching set of record-grossing novels to flesh it out. Twilight would be a phenomenon with or without the accompanying movie.
And Twilight is a phenomenon because of the love story. So let's talk about it.


The parameters for this discussion (yes I want you to join) are:

1.) Every point is only in reference to the book, not the movie. The movie stays true to the plot, but, like all book based movies, it of course misses the multitudes of details and subtleties and inner monologues and subplots that give the full sense of character and motivation.

2.) This "defense" is vaguely in response to the general Twilight backlash, but specifically in response to the Salon.com article by Laura Miller which criticizes the books. I love Salon and almost always agree with their reviews, but I had to beg to differ on this one.

3.) The books are categorized as Young Adult. Young Adult romance. They are therefore written at a teenage level, and the main subject is romance. Any criticism of the books that wishes they were simply written at a higher level or were not so full of romance I consider null and void because that's what they are.

4.) This discussion is led by a fiercely feminist well-read and well-educated degree holding financially independent 25 year old who is very happy in a stable and promising 2 year relationship. I am also not a stranger to pop vampire lore. I have read the original Bram Stoker's Dracula, I have read every Anne Rice book, I own all 7 seasons of Buffy. Adore them all.

5.) I have thus far read the first two books, Twilight and New Moon. I suspect I will finish the last two within the week, but the article mainly references the first two so I can make all the points I need to defending with as much as I have read thus far.

ok, here we go,

Laura Miller's main point seems to be that the books "summon a world in which love is passionate, yet (relatively) chaste, girls need be nothing more than fetchingly vulnerable, and masterful men can be depended upon to protect and worship them for it."

My main points are: yes, their love is passionate, isn't that what we all want? and what exactly is wrong with teenage love being chaste? And no, if you pay attention, Edward falls in love with Bella for many distinct reasons that have nothing to do with being "fetchingly vulnerable". Yes, he protects her, because they live in a magical world with powerful predators, hence the fantasy/adventure element of the book. And yes, he worships her, as much as she worships him. Because they're in love, duh!

So let's pick this apart a little bit deeper.

Miller compares Twilight's narrator, Bella, with Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a teenage human who also falls in love with sexy vampire guys. However, Miller sees Buffy as a much more fitting role model because "Fulfilling her responsibilities as a slayer, loyalty to her friends and family, doing the right thing and cobbling together some semblance of a healthy life were all ultimately as important, if not more important, to her than getting the guy." Buffy's story has a 7 year arc, some of which focuses on her love life, some doesn't. But, again, I am going back to my initial parameter that Twilight is a Romance. A romance that has some vampire/werewolf/fast car action thrown in there. Buffy is an action/adventure, that sometimes has some romance. And are we really going to argue that Buffy's relationships with men are so much more healthy than Bella's? If we were to hear her inner monologue in the same way we hear Bella's during Buffy's fall for Angel, I doubt it would sound much different. Spike was even more of an addiction than Edward, although for different reasons.

But Miller is right, Bella is no Buffy Summers. Nor is she intended to be. Yes, Buffy is a hero and a role model. But, is a Buffy-like role model the only good kind? Because I will never be Buffy. I will never be the chosen one, the one woman who has super powers, who does not have to fear the physical strength of any kind of predator, who has no need of a protector. Unfortunately, I am just a human girl. So is a work of fiction that explores the idea of someone with no more super powers than I, who dates a vampire - someone who is very different, and very super-powered - necessarily anti-feminist? I don't think so. Bella is no Buffy, but she is a lot like Xander. Xander is the one member of the Buffy cast that never developed any super powers, yet somehow still had value. All of his super-power peers still wanted him in their group, much as the Cullens accepted Bella into their family. And Xander's shining moment, at arguably the climax of the series, is when he bravely faces seemingly certain death to save his friend (and the world). By telling her he loves her.

So Bella can't kickbox like Buffy can. Well neither can I. But Bella does repeatedly risk her life in order to save others, at the climax of each of the first two books. What is so wrong with having a protagonist that is not an action hero? Do females have nothing of value if they can't perfectly imitate traditionally masculine skills like Buffy and Xena? Is there no other way to be an equal with someone other than to be able to take them in a fight? (Because, for most of us, hand to hand combat skills will never be relevant.)


Miller next criticises Bella's reaction to Edward leaving her, highlighting Bella's weakness in taking the loss so hard, feeling empty and seeking out risky behavior for the adrenaline rush and the hallucination's of Edward's voice. So maybe that's not what Psychology Today would recommend. But that's sure as hell how I handle devastating breakups, of which I have had a few. The narration of that period of Bella's life is so engaging because that's how it feels. Meyer's goal isn't to show how Bella is amazing and perfect, her goal is to illustrate a realistic 18 year old girl who just had her heart ripped out. And how did Buffy handle it after she had to kill Angel? Oh yeah, she left all of her friends and family for three months with absolutely no word of where she went or when she is coming back, waitressing in the inner city, having taken up a different name and living as a depressed shell of herself. That's so much better than Bella wanting to ride a big bad motorcycle.
And Edward is the first to admit that he couldn't function even as well as she could when they were apart, he had an even harder time maintaining the will to live. Because, as Stephenie Meyer freely states, New Moon is based on Romeo & Juliet. Passionate teenagers in love who would rather die than live without each other. So if you have a problem with Edward and Bella's way of handling their relationship, take it up with Shakespeare.


Miller's next criticism I think comes from an inaccurate analysis of the narrative style: "Otherwise directionless and unsure of herself, Bella's only distinguishing trait is her clumsiness, about which she makes frequent self-deprecating jokes. But Bella is not really the point of the Twilight series; she's more of a place holder than a character. She is purposely made as featureless and ordinary as possible in order to render her a vacant, flexible skin into which the reader can insert herself and thereby vicariously enjoy Edward's chilly charms."

I disagree. The reader is not bombarded by Bella's positive attributes because Bella is the narrator. She is a somewhat insecure 17/18 year old girl. Hate to break it to you, but a lot of us girls at that age do feel like we're the clumsiest person ever, who no gorgeous boy would ever want and we are not quick to pick up on exactly why other people value us. So the author succeeds at getting you inside Bella's head, and you see the world as Bella sees it, but not necessarily as it is, as the careful reader will notice. Edward does in fact shed light on what he loves about Bella, none of which makes any mention of her being merely "fetchingly vulnerable".

The things "the careful reader" (you know, myself) notices that Edward loves about Bella (not in any order):

1.) The fact that he can't read her mind. In fact, Bella does have a superpower. It is her immunity to all vampire superpowers. Edward can read everyone's mind but hers. The big scary vampires in Europe also are unable to work their mojo on her.
And, as you may guess, it would be kinda hard to engage in a romantic relationship where one person can read the mind of another. That is, in my opinion, a big part of why Edward hasn't had any romance in his 80ish years pre-Bella. She is, in a lot of ways, the only one that can be his equal because of this.

2.) Yet it's like they can read each other's mind anyway. They have chemistry, they are in tune with each other, they read each other's body language and understand each other. They can have a conversation and feel like they are on the same page, when they are surrounded by a world where it feels like no one else is. One of his telling statements was, "I love you because you see through my pretenses." This is what we all want, someone to see through our bullshit to what we really mean and respond how we need underneath it all. She does that for him.

3.) She is, although unnoticed by Laura Miller, kinda fucking smart. The books make frequent reference to how easy school is to her, how in Biology class Edward is impressed by how she breezes through the labs, and she can maintain straight A's even during her months of heartbroken torment. The building climax of Twilight is a bunch of frantic Cullens trying to figure out how to keep Bella and her father safe from the bad vampire, James. But despite their supposed experience and expertise in dealing with vampires, it is Bella's plan that they decide to go with again and again, as they each state, "wow, what a good idea."


Other signs that Bella's self-depricating narrative does not always paint the most accurate picture of what is really going on in Twilight-land are other character's views of her. Most memorably is Edward's brother Emmett's assurance that he knows that Bella is in fact worth all of the trouble and danger the family is risking to protect her. She doesn't think she's worth it. "I know you don't see it, but you are," he says with confidence after only knowing her for a few days, but already understanding what she means to his brother.

Miller misunderstands Bella's own self-doubting view of the world to be the absolute truth to the Twilight universe, instead of a known bias that the reader understandably filters the information through to know that Bella does have worth to all of these characters, and it is not because she is fetchingly vulnerable.


Miller then moves on to her distaste with Bella's repeated adoration of Edward, especially his physical form, to which I reply again: it's a romance!! That is in fact how it feels to be in love, that sometimes you just feel giddy and/or drunk looking at your gorgeous lover.

She also insists that no man would ever profess his love to a woman the way Edward does to Bella unless he were trying to manipulate her into having sex with him. And I must disagree. While I can't claim to have had experience with quite that level of Romeo-and-Juliet-suicidal love - yeah, when a man is really in love, he will say things like that. When he is with a woman he knows he wants to build a life with, who he is hopelessly attracted to, he will tell her so. In private. And not out of coercion. Perhaps Ms. Miller has yet to experience this, or perhaps her lovers just express themselves in different ways.
Given, that for a man to feel that way is rare. It doesn't happen on a first date, and it doesn't happen in ways that others can always pick up on.
But I will say this: So Edward is the fantasy, the perfect boyfriend. His character doesn't make me feel like I will always be disappointed in men because they can't be like him. He makes me realize that my boyfriend makes me feel the same way Edward makes Bella feel. My life doesn't involve frequent life-or-death situations like Bella's, so I don't need quite such an adventure-flavored brand of lover. But I have everything that I do need. I have a lover just as attentive, who makes me feel just as wanted and just as secure. So if women and girls are reading Twilight and wanting that kind of a relationship, I am not going to stomp my feminist boots all over those standards.


Now onto Miller's criticism of the sex, and lack thereof. "Edward he refuses to consummate his love for Bella because he's afraid he might accidentally harm her. As a result, their time together is spent in protracted courtship: make-out sessions and sweet nothings galore, every shy girl's dream." Now it's no secret that the author is Mormon, and we all easily connect her traditional faith to the fact that her characters aren't having all kinds of irresponsible sex. And what the hell is wrong with that? So yes, let's interprit Edward's extreme self-control to not only not drink Bella's blood, but to not have sex with her because his crazy inhuman strength might get out of control in the heat of the moment as a thinly veiled metaphor for how a normal man could have self control to not try to have sex with a girl because hey, in real life there are probably sucky consequences in store for her with regular sex as well. And what is so wrong with that? Is it something to make fun of that women might be attracted to a character that shows restraint to not give into his physical urges while around his girlfriend because he is keeping her best interests in mind?
And then Miller mistakenly presumes that this is just what Bella wants, "every shy girl's dream," when in fact Bella is frustrated by the situation, and gets caught up in her own passion when she kisses him and does not especially love it when he stops her.

And yes, the Twilight books are addicting. But it's not the only book I've felt that way about. And lots of other things are addicting. TV is addicting, internet is addicting, porn is addicting. I don't take that as a valid criticism.

Miller brings up again and again that one of Bella's main attractions to Edward must be the fact that he is rich, again highlighting how they are not equals. While yes, Bella appreciates the quality of the Cullen's fine things, their house and cars and clothing, she does not linger on them. She notices their beauty as any of us would. But she refuses to let Edward spend money on her. He repeatedly offers to buy her a car, pay for her college tuition, and she refuses it all. She works at a local sporting goods store, makes her own money, handles it well enough to have a decent savings that she has to pull out from time to time. She does not want him for his money.

So the Cullens are beautiful and rich. That is Vampire lore. So was Angel, so was Lestat, so was Dracula (in some of his incarnations). It is a given with that much power and that much time, all vampires can accumulate as much wealth as they would need. It is part of why the legend keeps on circulating. It does not therefore render Bella a shallow person because she has happened to find a connection with one of them.


Twilight is a young adult romance. It's a fantasy. We wish we were Bella. And the boys who read fantasy wish they were Aragorn. But the modern capable feminist women would not suddenly hate ourselves if we became Bella and had her life. We would find a character a lot stronger, smarter, more capable and evenly matched to her lover than one can always tell from a first person account. The fans of the books know this and we do not put ourselves down or contradict our feminist ideals by enjoying the books. We enjoy the love story, and we are still happy with our boyfriends when we put it down.