The twilight saga has become a pop culture phenomenon. Since its release in 2005 millions of young women from around the world have fell in love with the love story of Edward and Bella. Twilight centres around a teenage girl named Bella, who after moving to Forks with her father, falls in love with a vampire and has to overcome many obstacles including rival vampires and werewolves. I remember the first time I read the novel in year 10, I feel in love with the story that was Edward and Bella, after my initial reading I read the novels 5 times over, and watched the movie many, many times as well, I even went to see each of the films at the midnight screening despite tests the next day. However as much as I like the story, the portrayal of the women in the novel is its downfall. I remember reading it and being annoyed with how whiny Bella always sounded and how plain and boring she was created to be. I ask myself, although she has something that nearly every teen wants; Edward Cullen. Is Bella yet another story book princess waiting for her white knight to save her?
Bella is presented as a submissive female, who practically incapable of taking care of herself. Bella is portrayed to be clumsy, she constantly falling over and hurting herself, waiting for one of her love interests to step in and save the day. Bella is completely passive to Edwards’s actions, she accepts everything Edward does. Edward is obsessively overprotective and jealous. He even at one point removes the engine from Bella’s car so she can’t spend time with her best. Edward also resorts to bribing his sisters to kidnap her for a night to watch her. Bella’s willingness to accept Edwards’s possessive actions without any confrontation send the message to its fans that woman should act as passive as an object, never questioning the actions of the male superior.
In the first book Bella nearly passes out from the sight of blood in class, and a boy has to save her and take her out of the class before she loses consciousness. Later she is almost crushed by a truck and who should Bella; Edward. Edward saves her once again when she is attacked by a mob of shady-looking men, one night, after he had been following her. When she is being surrounded Bella does nothing to fend off her attackers see stands their waiting to be saved yet again. All these events occur in the first book quite close together, which emphasises how hopeless her character is, when she needs to be rescued this many times in such a short period.
New moon, in particular sets Bella up to be a helpless female, lost without the guidance of a man. The story begins with Edward leaving Bella, she is left in the woods wandering aimlessly, and she curls into a ball and breaks down in tears, she doesn’t know what else to do. She is then rescued from the woods by yet another male; Sam, who is a werewolf. Bella is left in a zombie state, she stops eating, socialising and loses a lot of sleep from her screaming episodes. Bella become severely depressed and goes into a coma state for 3 months; her life stops because she doesn’t have a man. Bella even tries to kill herself because she can’t bear the thought of living without Edward. The fans of the franchise are of around the same age as Bella, this is very impressionable on the audience because of the close age gap. Bella continues in this mindless state until she begins to hang out with Jacob. Her life is miraculously recovered by yet another male. Portraying the idea that women need men in order to be happy. At the end of new moon, Bella shows how weak-willed she is by taking Edward back, no questions asked. Bella completely forgets that Edward had left her and had caused her so much pain; she stays with him despite his mistreatment. To me Bella sounds pathetic; women shouldn’t reunite with someone as easily as Bella did because they aren’t showing much self-respect.
When Bella and Edward begin their relationship, Bella’s whole life begins to revolve around him. She distances herself from her friends and family and all of her thoughts and actions revolve Edward, a boy she’d known for like a week, she is even willing to give up her life for Edward. Bella also seems to convey that it’s alright for boyfriends to stalk you; watch you sleep, listening to your conversations, read your friend’s minds and dictate who you can and can’t talk to. Bella seems to neglect Edwards’s violation of privacy; she surrenders control over to Edward. In the real world women shouldn’t have to put up with a possessive boyfriend, because you don’t want someone telling you how to live your life.
The physical descriptions of the characters also portray the idea that men are more superior than women. Edward is described to be the most beautiful and handsome creature that ever walked the planet; he sparkles, has a flawless complexion and is constantly described using adjectives such as dazzling and god-like. Bella on the other hand is described to be plain, she has straight brown hair and brown eyes, and throughout most of the novels Bella is complaining about having dull brown eyes and comparing herself to Edward. Although readers can relate better to this normal character, it shows the hidden idea of girls being inferior to their boyfriends and the male population. This shows Bella’s self esteem issues, which are conveyed to the fans and they see this as a desirable trait. Bella is constantly telling Edward that she is not good enough for him, but of course Edward tells her that she is beautiful and everything is alright, sending the message women need the approval of men.
The twilight saga reinforces the idea that women are nothing without men, its essential anti-feminist. Although the novel has anti-feminist values, I don’t believe that was the intended purpose of the text. In some ways the series portrays women as individual capable of thinking, for example in the last novel, Breaking dawn, when Bella falls pregnant and decides to keep the baby despite Edward telling her not to. Many fans idolise the relationship between Bella and Edward, however it is not a healthy relationship, Edward tends to dictate the relationship and Bella goes along with it, because she loves him. Bella is essentially just another love struck women willing to do whatever her boyfriend wants. Twilight is an example of how modern literature still incorporates traditional ideologies. This opened my eyes to the amount of times in modern literature women are actually portrayed negatively and I can see that idolising fictional women is in no way healthy as they tend to not be healthy themselves. Although I still like the films and books, I understand that the gender representations are not positive ones which should not be followed by the young fans.
No comments:
Post a Comment