Media Obsessions That Fuel Domestic Violence: Twilight

Media Mediation Number 4

Everywhere I turn, there it is:

Twilight. Turn on the T.V. and there are interviews with the unusually attractive male lead, Edward or his female counterpart, Bella. Talk to any female of novel reading age, and Twilight seems to be the only subject their mind can ponder. What is up with this sudden and complete obsession? What is the attraction to the already-told eternal love/vampire story? And, is this novel and film being social responsible in the gender rolls and relationship standards that it has applied to its characters, which have now become roll models for millions of young girls?

Let’s first get a little synopsis on the novels, and a breakdown of the main characters. The female lead, Bella, is played by the young actress Kristen Stewart. Bella moves to Forks Washington, where at her new school she meets Edward Cullen, played by Robert Pattison. Edward ends up saving Bella’s life, and then endangering it, by involving her in a vampire power-scandal, where Edward and his family are fighting another vampire clan. In the end, the two fall in love, and Bella decides she wants to become a vampire as well. Of course, she Edward doesn’t want her to do that, and because of their differences they cannot be together. The movie and book series plays heavily on the reptilian brain, with a very large portion of the plot revolving around sexual relationships, and of course, vampires. For the teens watching/reading this love story, its a total attack on the limbic brain, playing heavily on their emotional centers.

So what’s so special about this story? To me it sounds like a recycling of Romeo and Juliet (or any other forbidden love story) with sexy vampires inserted in to catch the eye of the younger generation. And it has done just that. There are millions of young girls obsessed with this love story, idolizing the female lead and fantasizing about being with the male lead.

What’s the big deal? Little girls always choose role models to aim to be like. As a young girl I wanted to be just like Gwen Stefani (when she had sick blue hair and wasn’t a total sell-out) and dreamed of having a romantic relationship with Leonardo DiCaprio (come on, who didn’t?). But Bella and Edward are not characters I would be letting my children look up to. Beyond their obviously unrealistic physical appearance, their relationship also gives young readers a model on how to have a completely dysfunctional romance.

Media and Culture makes great point, saying "movies tell communal stories that evoke and symbolize our most enduring values and our secret desires" (213). So what does Twilight say about our "values and desires?

Bella and Edwards romance is based almost completely on fear. Edward could, and it is suggested would, kill Bella is they ever took their relationship to the next step--the most avoided topic in the saga: sex. Uconn professor, Gina Barreca, said "The big thing that really makes 'Twilight' a really bad book is that fear should never be an aphrodisiac. The idea that you fear your lover should not make him sexier and that is a big part of these books. ... It distresses me to see that in any form, whether or not it's supernatural,” in the Hartford Currant article on the pitfalls of Twilight, and the other books/movies in the series. What are the value messages that are infused in this series? What are we really telling the young, impressionable Twilight readership?

Beyond the fact that fear fuels their relationship, Bella also seems to be completely void of meaning when she is not with her vampire lover, Edward. In the novel, when Edward leaves her, her emptiness is conveyed by blank pages with chapter titles of months having gone by. This is suggesting that Bella has nothing else on her mind, and her life and value, is completely determined by her relationship with Edward.

Bella even gives up going to Dartmouth to stay with Edward, even though their relationship is obviously more trouble then it’s worth. What message is this sending to young girls? Romantic relationships, even dysfunctional ones, are more rewarding than furthering your education?

And the fans that obsess over the series are just eating this relationship up. "Girls say they're turning away from Harry Potter to Edward Cullen because they think it's a more 'realistic' relationship – and he's a vampire! It's baffling." Are relationships that involve stalking, power struggles, and capitalizing on fear more real than those that involve equal power between both male and female (Harry and Hermoine), and encourage teamwork and problem solving? Oh, I wasn’t aware.

Maybe the girls think that the relationship is more realistic because the two actors involved in it, have forged a "real life" relationship, which is all over the tabloids. A wonderful example the heavy hand PR has in constructing reality.

Bella and Edward are not the only dysfunctional couple in the series. There is a werewolf, Sam, who attacks and mauls his love interest in a fit of rage. Later on, the girl forgives him, and the couple gets back together. “Mitru Ciarlante, the youth initiative director for the National Center for Victims of Crimes in Washington, D.C.” had this to say, "This pattern of 'the werewolf' losing control sounds like a dynamic we've heard in abusive relationships,"… Stalking is also "very much an element in teen relationship abuse and a pre-cursor to sexual violence.""

The most scary thing for me is that it’s not only the teen girls—very impressionable teen girls—that are powering this media conglomeration known as the Twilight series. There is a huge older following, mostly women, who are encouraging their young daughters, sisters, friends, nieces ect. to read the series, and bond over them. Of course it is a matter of individual meaning when it comes to these older women endorsing the novel. Many think that the books and movies have harmless messages about young love, and romantic relationships. These women are nostalgic for their younger days, when they felt "romance" like Edward and Bella.

The adult Twi-obsessesors, also known as Twi-mom’s, should be more aware of the flagrant misrepresentation of romance in the novels, but it seems that they choose to ignore it. “...as an adult who has faced reality, it's escapism of a different kind, remembering those first twitches of falling in love and reliving it through Bella." And what an unhealthy escapism it is. The relationship standards the novel endorses, even if we remove all the weird aspects like stalking, power struggles, ect. are so unrealistic. Edward is completely devoted to Bella, as well as sickeningly romantic. "The adults compare him to their own partners, who obviously can't match up." We wonder why there is such as high divorce rate, when women are comparing their average-Joe husbands to the likes of super-sexual (and sexy) teenage vampires. Their interpretation of the Edward/Bella relationship makes the series use the persuasion technique big lie. These women believe that this is the perfect union between two people, but it is in fact quite a dysfunctional one.

USA Today's article had a great explanation of connection between fantasy and expectations. “Relationship expert Valerie Gibson, who hosts a call-in TV show in Ontario, says multi-generational mania for Twilight may be a testament to the emptiness of contemporary relationships. ‘There’s a loss of romance, of mystery, of the holding back of desire and cherishing of a woman,’ she says. ‘Young girls can't find swains who will adore them and worship them. It only happens in books. They long to live in an erotically charged fantasy. Older women know it doesn't happen.’ But they sure like to read about it.” The emotional transfer that happens within these novels and movies is an unrealistic one. Women, and young girls, believe that they can achieve this fantasized relationship, when in reality it may be only one in a million couples that experience a fairytale relationship.

The amount of adult followers for this novel and movie simply astound me. There are so many fan sites devoted only to fans older than teenage years, such as Twilightmoms.com, Twitarded (offensive much?) and Twilight Anonymous, which features a write up on a seventy year old fan.

Will this media saga have an impact on the future of the relationship? I guess we'll have to wait and see. Maybe, hopefully, the follow up books in the series will take a more socially responsible roll in representing relationships now that it is known how explosive the series is. Personally, I see Twilight as a future case study in Media Effects Research, (which "attempts to understand, explain and predict the efects of mass media on individuals in society" (469)) on domestic violence.