Thursday, November 18, 2010

Twilight: Seperating fantasy from reality

Stephanie Blanton
Ms. Clark
English 101
18 November, 2010

The Twilight Saga was originally a book series written by Stephenie Meyer that is broken up into four books; Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, and Breaking Dawn. After the books’ huge success, they started being made in major motion pictures starting in 2008. The story is a magical, romantic fantasy that can capture the hearts of people at all ages through the telling of Bella and Edward’s intense love for each other. It captivates the thrilling excitement of young love and strong feelings of a first love through Bella’s eyes, allowing the audience to feel as if they are experiencing the excitement in this fantasy love tale themselves. The important thing to remember, though, is that the feelings and admirable characteristics portrayed are just that; a fantasy. Young members of the audience may have their views of the values and practices in relationships negatively impacted because of the Twilight Saga’s representation of male and female gender roles; misrepresentation of the aspects that make up a healthy relationship; and failure to present a balance between maintaining a loving relationship and maintaining values and goals in a life outside of the relationship.
Stereotypical gender roles are quite blatantly used throughout the series, and it results in the portrayal of males being dominant and females being subordinated. The stereotypes of gender roles in society are that, “the man is supposed to be taller, stronger, richer, older, and colder- in short, more powerful. The woman is supposed to be shorter, weaker, … vulnerable, younger, warmer- in short, socially powerless” (Caputi 2008). These stereotypes are clearly demonstrated in the two main characters of the Twilight series, Edward and Bella. Bella is a passive character when it comes to doing what Edward says and allowing herself to be controlled by her boyfriend. She is the clumsy “damsel in distress” that constantly needs to be saved by a strong man, since apparently she is incapable of taking care of herself. Edward is a controlling character and is presented as the perfect fit to society’s stereotype of the superior, dominant male role; rich, white, powerful, superior, strong, and well- educated (Radke 2010). He is protective and the so called “hero” when it comes to Bella’s mishaps.
Edward and Bella have many characteristics of what would be an unhealthy relationship if it occurred in reality. Both characters show their love for each other as an obsession. When Edward leaves Bella because he says he is doing what is best for her personal safety; she quickly goes into a deep depression because she does not want to live without Edward, and she implies that her life is meaningless without him. She closes up and becomes antisocial for about four months until given an ultimatum by her father who is concerned about her well-being. She tries to become more social and hang out with her friends in order to convince her dad not to send her back to her mom’s house. While she goes out with her friends, she puts herself in harm’s way multiple times, such as when she flung herself off of a cliff, because she wants to hear Edward’s protective voice telling her to get away from the dangerous situations. Edward’s obsession is shown in different ways throughout their love story. One of the first things that Edward does that is unhealthy is shown in the first movie or book. Bella wakes up to Edward in her room, and he admits that he has been coming in through her window and watching her sleep for a very long time. He has many incidents like this of him stalking Bella because he feels “very protective” over her. He also prevents her from seeing one of her close friends, Jacob, by taking the engine out of her truck. This could be seen as jealousy and preventing her from having friends outside of his social circle, and it implies that she can only have friends that he approves of.
Bella slowly starts to lose focus on things outside of life with Edward, and her previous values and goals in life start to fade. She places the most importance on life with Edward, and her entire future begins to revolve around her relationship. She continuously lies to her family about where she is going and about Edward and his family. Even though she would have to abandon her family and eventually never see them again, she still wanted to become immortal so she could spend her life with Edward. Even after Jacob helped her through her hard times when Edward left her and was a good friend, as soon as she is back with Edward she leaves him behind as if he means nothing to her. She stops associating with her new group of friends that she hung out with when she arrived at her new school, and spends all of her time with Edward. When Edward left her, she put her physical safety and health in danger numerous times, and continues to do so once they are back together. Bella volunteers to discontinue her education because she wants to become immortal with Edward. Edward tries to convince her to go to college and live a normal life, but she is so insistent and impatient in creating her and Edward’s forever together that she sees no importance in her education. Also, she agrees to marriage with Edward even though she is still young and not ready because she wants to have sex with him and become immortal since Edward had valued her purity and favored abstinence.
Although the series is enjoyed by people of all ages, the general audience of the Twilight Saga is young women between the ages of twelve and seventeen. Since this is usually an unstable stage in a girl’s life in which they are trying to find their identity, develop their values, and understand the world as a whole and its meaning, they are often very impressionable. They may know the differences between fantasy and reality, but “we are shaped by the stories we hear over and over again. Our ideas of appropriate behaviors, our cultural values, our expectations, our wishes, and our fantasies are influenced by the tales we listen to repeatedly” (Bader 2007). Because of this, it is concerning when girls aspire to be in a relationship like Bella and Edward’s. Bella is a weak role model for girls to have because she often displays female regression rather than empowerment, and the relationship between Edward and Bella was unhealthy and had many dangerous aspects if it was a relationship in reality. Also, males could be potentially impacted by this story because new expectations are being put on them to be like the perfect romantic, “Edward” due to the unrealistic ideologies of what love is that are portrayed in the Twilight Saga. Getting carried away in a fantasy is not a bad thing, in fact it is often emotionally liberating, but it is important for upcoming generations to know the differences between the fantasy world and the real world and create high yet realistic expectations.


Works Cited (incomplete)


Caputi, Jane. "A (Bad) Habit of Thinking Challenging and Changing the Pornographic Worldview." Women in Popular Culture. Marian Meyers. Cresskill: Hampton Press, Inc., 2008. Print.

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