I am absolutely in love with the movie Twilight.
Despite all my experience, my activism, my feminism, I am hopelessly and reluctantly in love with this movie. It’s weird. I’ve watched the movie 4 times now in less than a week’s time, and every time I watch it I think to myself, “What the hell am I doing?”
Twilight has all the things in it that I hate: a weird stalker boyfriend, the recently adored Edward Cullen, who make jokes about killing his girlfriend, the pale beauty, Bella; non-consensual sexual interaction, pushing, and shoving; high school clicks and gender stereotypes; de-humanization of Natives (poor Jacob, he’s so cute!); and terrible acting.
As I watch the movie I remind myself of these things: the same things that steer me clear of most atrocities Hollywood gives birth to. And then the camera zooms in on Edward’s pale, tortured face as he exclaims, “I don’t want to be a monster,” and I fall in love again.
What the hell?!
So what’s to like about this movie anyway? I would never recommend this film to anyone with the slightest hint of intelligence. And I’m watching it alone, curled up in a ball on my bed, trying hard not to cry when Bella is forced to cut off a relationship with her father when she becomes the target in a sadistic game of let’s-hunt-Bella.
I do like vampires. When I was 14 years old, I was reading Kim Harrison’s steamy novels about vampires, witches, and demons. However, these books had much more sex in them – which honestly isn’t saying much in comparison to Twilight, because these books didn’t have much sex either. There was A LOT of sexual tension though. Maybe that’s it: the whole movie is one long foreplay session. Just like the rest of Twilight’s fans last August, my behind-all-the-most-recent-fads-self is now dying to know when and how Edward and Bella will satiate their murderous desires to fuck.
I read a review of the Twilight series in Bitch magazine a few months ago that describes the books as “abstinence porn.” The movie is about Edward’s struggle to refrain from “biting” Bella, and I know that he finally does when they get married. (Way to wait until married, Big Guy.) Also, Edward has the power of all sexuality in this movie. Unbeknownst to Bella, he barges into her room and tells her he wants to try something and that she must not move. Painfully, he slowly moves in to kiss her and she becomes extremely aroused. Edward stops the whole thing and then prides himself on his ability to refrain, while Bella chastises herself, “I wish I could say the same.” Edward can either give the affirmative or the negative. All Bella can do is wait, and she seems happy with that. We even see her blush when her mother asks over the phone, “are you being safe?”
While the abstinence porn idea fits quite nicely, there is something else to it that complicates this whole thing. Bella wants to be bitten, even after she gets a taste of the pain of conversion (re: death). She practically begs at their prom. I also hear that she ends up kissing Jacob in the second book? (OMG I CAN’T WAIT TO FIND OUT WHY AND HOW!!!!) She’s very adventurous and claims quite persuasively that she is, “not afraid.”
This movie begs for it to be viewed with an S/M lens of pleasure, power, and submission. Who has the power? Who’s submitting? And ultimately, how pleasurable is this for the players involved? Bella and Edward seem very happy - err, lusty. And Bella and Edward seem to take turns torturing each other with sexual desire and refrain. And as far as my knowledge and experience go, (someone can always challenge me on this), especially for S/M sexual practices, it’s not about when the sexual act begins, it’s about the play. And the play happens when someone acknowledges a sexual attraction. When the players are getting ready and setting the boundaries, demolishing others…
The sexual act is always just the sexual act. But the beginning of play, the end, the playground and its rules change, interact, repeat, and even make love to each other. And as Andy Warhol points out in his art over and over again, there is no such thing as a beginning and an end to sex: it just is
a vital part of the relationship
the essence of human connection
intense longing
the eternal waiting
Bella and Edward have already engaged in sex.
This all leads me to another movie criticism/curiosity/question: what about that scene where we actually see Bella and Edward make out? As some of us may have noticed by now, in all movies “sex” – as in the naked, physical connection – that the camera sees is raunchy, dirty, and, ultimately, trivial. When the sex is meant to involve love or is considered significant the camera turns its view to some trains, oceans, rainy windows, or in Twilight’s case tree tops in the beautiful Washington forests. Twilight treats those moments when Bella and Edward look into each other’s eyes like sex scenes. But then when we get a glimpse of what we define as sex, the camera stays. Why? Maybe this fits with the abstinence porn thing: we are given examples of the bad sex, and are forever confused about what good sex is.
Or, perhaps this scene plays to our/my/the audience’s fantasy of what the naked, physical act of sex would look like between our two anti-heroes. Maybe this movie is engaging in sex with us. Teasing us by giving us a sexual connection, and then torturing us by cutting the act short (Edward pretty much runs away), and literally dangling their sexy bodies in our faces, out of reach but definitely in sight and in mind. Because we are not directly involved in their relationship – we have no fallen desperately in love with either of them, and likewise, they haven’t fallen in love with us – engaging trivial attempts at expressing love and connection, the naked, physical sex I’ve been referring to, is the only way for us to get directly involved. Even art, as great as it is, is limited and must make petty attempts at imitating humanity.
humanity creates art
to define itself
to engage in humanity
and art struggles
to keep up
And as horrible a boyfriend as Edward is with his stalking and murder jokes, his humility and need to maintain a human connection with the world, his desire to fight his destiny of becoming a “monster” is what attracts me to him. There’s hope for him yet. I have faith in him to commit to change, to love, and productivity. Although I’m not sure I trust him, I’ll have to see how our lamb, Bella, stands up to the fight.
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