Let the sun go down on Twilight

Hungover and in need of some mindless chewing gum for our barely functioning brains, a friend and I went to see the new Twilight movie yesterday.

What a load of rubbish. I mean, I expected it to be crap, I even kind of wanted it to be a bit crap, but not quite that crap. In fact it was so crap I nearly walked out. But the cinema was warm and comfy and dark, which was helping my headache. Plus I had a box of popcorn to finish.

So instead I stayed and endured a vaguely unsettling and disturbing two hours of WTF. And it wasn't the supernatural stuff that was freaking me out.

Oh, where to begin with what was wrong with that film? The unhealthy conflation of co-dependency with intimacy? The emotional manipulation? The slut shaming? The sexual mind games...? I genuinely worry for the next generation of women buying into this shit as teenagers. When I was a kid, the glass ceiling might still have been double glazed, but at least all that was vexing my nascent feminist principles was whether Sandy oughtn't to have just told Danny to shove it up his arse, and stuck with the bobby socks.

Anyway. Let me try and break down what pissed me off so much about this film...

1. Edward randomly appearing in Bella's bedroom whenever he feels like it. Jesus Christ can she not just get five minutes of goddamn privacy!? Poor girl can't even have a poo or change a tampon without Undead Ed teleporting into her face like, 'don't worry Bella, I'm here'. And the worst thing is, she thinks she needs him. Case in point: there's this bit in the film where she's asleep and obviously having a dream so he wakes her up to ask her what it was about! Mind rapey.

2. The night before their wedding Edward tells Bella he killed a whole bunch of people a while back. But it's okay, because they were murderers, so they deserved it. How Republican of him. And don't you think maybe he could have mentioned that earlier? It's not really the kind of thing you forget to tell someone while you're 'baring your soul' to them is it? Which is what Edward maintains he's only able to do with Bella. It's like, what else has slipped his mind during their heart to hearts? After the 'I dos' is he going to turn around and be all, 'oh yeah, I like to touch kids too. Sorry, should have told you earlier.'

3. The honeymoon sex. Okay, so this is where it gets really icky. Because Edward's a vampire, and vampires are all about sex and death, it's impossible for him to sleep with Bella as a mortal and not be violent, to the point where (it's pointed out earlier on in the film) he might kill her. Gross, right? So on their first night as a married couple he takes her virginity, breaking the bed in the process, and the next morning the audience is treated to the sight of Bella covered in bruises. Nifty plot device having her be a virgin when he's not, by the way. It buys into so much slut-shaming (which the Americans love) and notions of marriage as proprietorial over women's sexuality. Not to mention the fact that if Bella had had a bit of experience herself, she'd know that it is NOT FUCKING OKAY if someone beats you up while they're having sex with you. Sure, Edward's a supernatural character and 'can't help it', but how does that translate into real life for young girls who are starting to have semi-sexual relationships themselves? Shudder.

3b. So, the day after they've first slept together Edward sees the injuries he's inflicted on Bella and apologises profusely, asking her to forgive him (ummm, echoes of domestic violence, anyone?) As a result he refuses to have sex with her for the rest of the honeymoon. Which segueways into a really creepy montage of Bella posturing in ever-skimpier outfits, trying to seduce Edward. This culminates in a totally fucked up power play scenario whereby Bella, so starved of intimacy, ends up literally begging Edward to have sex with her. So it's like, he sleeps with her, injures her, withdraws all intimacy until she's begging him for affection, and then he relents and sleeps with her again; the inference being if he hurts her again, she's 'asked for it'. Nice.

4. When Bella finds out she's pregnant, Edward acts like it's a huge catastrophe (which I guess it kind of is when you consider she might be carrying a demon) (can't believe I just typed that sentence). But the general attitude towards Bella is 'this is all your fault you stupid, fertile, human. Now you're going to fuck things up for everyone by insisting on keeping this devil child. I'm going to call my dad and get him to sort it out.' Then Edward basically doesn't talk to Bella for the next third of the film. Except to say stuff like 'if having this baby kills you, then you've chosen to leave me. I haven't chosen that.' Woah, dude, newsflash - she can leave you whenever she wants. In fact, you're so clingy I can kind of understand why she's seriously considering death as her only way out.

5. This is a kind of an aside to the main point of the Bella/Edward relationship being totally messed up on just about every level. But early on in the film, Jacob's talking with other people in his pack (they're humans who can turn into wolves, okay?) about his longing to 'imprint' on someone. Then, for the audience's benefit and by way of illustration of what having imprinted on someone looks like, we're shown a whole bunch of couples (other pack members) snuggling on the beach like lovers. Cut to the birth of Edward and Bella's daughter (who's called Renesmee by the way. Say it. Is there any more ridiculous word? They kept saying it in the film until it was like, 'please stop saying Renesmee, it's so dumb') and Jacob, seeing the new baby girl 'imprints' on her. Isn't that weird? We'd all been lead to believe that 'imprinting' was wolf euphemism for mating for life. And now here's this guy in his late teens imprinting on a baby. Weirdddddd.



After having typed all that I feel like I've taken crazy pills. But there's a genuine concern here. Obviously vampires and demon babies and people who turn into wolves is fiction. But the Edward/Bella love story, has a universal resonance. Teenage girls are inevitably going to use it to inform their ideas about love and relationships, and they don't have the maturity or experience to know that this is actually a very subtly sado-masochistic fantasy, constructed to support a narrative about the occult. And not how 'real love' should be.

In fact research done by the NSPCC in 2010 suggested a quarter of girls aged 13 to 17 had experienced physical violence from a boyfriend and a third had been pressured into sexual acts they did not want. This is a demographic which is extremely vulnerable.

I've been a teenage girl. I've cried real, devastated tears upon finding out popstars and film stars I'd never meet were married or had girlfriends. The strength of a teenage girl's emotions and capacity for fantasy relationships and love affairs is not to be underestimated. So it's not outlandish to think there there'll be girls who'll read the Twilight books or see the films and think that if a guy wants to know your every move and thought, that's love. And if he rejects you because he 'doesn't want to hurt you', that's love. And if he makes you feel bad about you making autonomous decisions about your own body, it's because he really cares.

When in fact any of those behaviours needs to be filed under 'mind games' instantly before relegating the perpetrator to the annals of history as fast as possible.

I can feel you all rolling your eyes now like 'it's just a film, chill out'. And it's true. All this wouldn't be so bad if there was something else to balance it out. But there's not. This is the kind of insidious shit that's sold to the future women of the world. A helpless virgin who ends up having the life blood (literally) sucked out of her by some controlling guy in the name of true, eternal love.

And that is so depressing.

Time to turn the Twilight switch off I think.