Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
Smart Bitch Sarah of Smart Bitches, Trashy Books is totally my heroine. (Not the Old Skool Romance Novel Too-Stupid-To-Live heroine, of course.) The fact that she and Candy are out there in the world being snarky, intelligent, and awesome makes my life so much happier. They’re incredibly smart, but not in any way pretentious and are not above making fun of themselves, which makes their reviews and blog entries a joy to read. (Their cover snarks are my favourite, but I’m still waiting for the day we get another bit of LOLPorn.) Her essay on Edward’s appeal from the Twilight saga is incredibly insightful.
The more I think about it, and look back on Edward’s appearances and interactions with Bella in Twilight, the more he reminds me of the same old-same old Alpha romance hero —specifically, the old-school Alpha hero recast in glittery YA paleness. The same Alpha hero characteristics that so many readers find either tiresome or downright terrific are present in Edward, and serve to make him addictive and alluring.
Smart Bitch Sarah, like me, is not a fan of the Old Skool Alpha Hero and her contemplation on Edward’s popularity hit on so many of the points that made me recoil from Twilight (which I finally finished, by the way, during my most recent bout of manic crazy). Edward fulfills many of the criteria, including punishing kisses that cause Bella to faint, as well as possessing mystery, extraordinarily good looks, and wealth. However, this little tidbit made me drop my jaw in shock because it’s quite true:
The biggest characteristic of an Old Skool Alpha Hero is The Rape of the Heroine, which doesn’t literally occur in Twilight, though one could argue that James’ biting Bella could be interpreted as rape, and Edward’s refusal to change her into a vampire as the refusal to do so. Edward does invade Bella’s privacy and home without her permission in order to watch her, and if his commentary is to be believed, to try to resist killing her. That leashed intention to kill, I think, can be interpreted the same as the leashed intent to rape. But in a strange turn, Bella begs for that violation: she wants to be the same as Edward, and she wants him to kill her and change her.
I have a few thoughts on the enduring success of the Alpha Hero trope. Women like a big strong man to take care of them, what can I say? Before the feminists come out of the woodwork and slaughter me, I will stand up and say that I too am a feminist and that I in no way condone that sort of generalisation. Yet. I am a firm believer of gender (not sex) being somewhere between nature and nurture and that these “retro-conservative sexual politics” appear over and over again in women’s fiction because there is some biological remnant within us to long for it and find it appealing. There are many great things the feminist movement(s) have done for women everywhere and that is pushing on the edges of defined societal rules to give women a choice. Unfortunately, as philosophies branched off and evolved, it created a backlash against those women who specifically choose to return back to “retro-conservative” roles and instead of uniting women together, feminism seems to have divided us. My roommate, for instance, does not define herself as a feminist because she wants to get married and have a family one day, defining herself somewhat sheepishly as a “1950s housewife.” But there is nothing wrong with her wanting to have a family. I asked her once, “Do you believe women are equal to men?”
“Yes,” she said, “But–”
“But what?” I asked.
“But I hate this notion that we’re the same.”
The fact that she believes that we are equal to men, in my mind, defines her as a feminist. Like her, I don’t believe that men and women are the same, but I believe we should be offered the same opportunities in life. “Different but equal” has always been my motto. And the fact that she is supportive of my own personal desire not to have a family and to live my life as independently (with Bear) as possible also marks her as a feminist. She has taken many opportunities and decided for herself.
I don’t think young women who read Twilight will look to Bella as a role model, not with the glut of other fantastic heroines in literature. But this backlash against “conservative sexual politics” makes readers and lovers of Edward incredibly defensive. It’s impossible to read books like Twilight without the lens of feminism anymore because we (or at least girls of my generation) have grown up believing that having a choice is par for the course.
My own reaction to the book? I didn’t like it, of course. In fact, I found it inherently disgusting and reprehensible. However, I don’t look down on people who did love it because in many ways it was engaging, but my reaction to Twilight is no different than my reaction to many other Old Skool romance novels. I’m just one of those women who don’t find the Alpha Hero alluring and sparkly. When viewed from a craft perspective, Twilight is decent. The prose isn’t horrible or florid or excessively purple, although it DRAGS ASS. It was readable, but my god, the pacing was strange. We have approximately 4,859,302 pages of Bella moaning and whining and then the sudden appearance of Action!Plot in the last quarter. I found most of it a crashing bore, with the exception of the famous meadow scene.
I found it the most intriguing because it’s the only instance in which Bella fears Edward. Most of the time she has a blasé Oh vampires, meh attitude, but in that section, she is terrified and it was absolutely compelling. Alpha Heroes are dangerous (see aforementioned analysis on The Rape of the Heroine) but fear never seems to play a factor. The meadow scene is the only instance in which Bella seemed like an actual person to me, but unfortunately once Edward reassures her his control of his baser urges is absolute, she goes back to being complacent about her safety, even if she’s completely insecure about his love. As a result, the entire book was dull to me.
No flames please. I don’t judge if you liked the book. I mean, I adored Flowers in the Attic by V.C. Andrews, okay? But this is not “my brand of heroin,” so to speak.
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