Gender in the Twilight Movies

 

About a week ago, I watched all the Twilight movies. Don’t ask what prompted me to do this to myself, because frankly, I have no idea. I’m going to blame it on the fact that I’ve hardly left my house for over seven months. I won’t lie, I enjoyed the films, because they are hilarious and have interesting enough plots that I didn’t get bored. However, I found that there are many things about the Twilight movies and books that are problematic, the most prominent being the way gender plays a role in Bella’s and Edward’s relationship.

There are several ways in which Twilight plays into toxic tropes of heterosexual relationships. First, Edward has a lot of power over Bella and her emotions, especially since Bella has such an unhealthy obsession with him. Edward does many inconsiderate things to Bella: he abandons her during the second movie which takes a huge toll on her, but visits her in a weird ghostly apparition (which is never explained) driving her into further emotional turmoil, he essentially tells her that he wants to kill himself, and he almost gets her killed when he takes her to play baseball with his family and several evil vampires show up and want to eat her. Overall, he’s a pretty crappy boyfriend, but Bella’s love for him is completely unwavering because he is the knight-in-shining-armor male love interest, and therefore can do no wrong. As an audience, we are supposed to go along with the idea that Edward and Bella’s relationship is romantic and perfect, even though Edward gets away with things that should be very difficult to forgive.

To continue the point that Edward has too much power of Bella, he is always telling her what to do and almost always calls the shots in their relationship, playing into the idea that the man always takes the lead in a straight relationship. Edward’s commands of Bella range from making her go to prom to coercing her into marrying him even though she doesn’t believe in the institution of marriage and telling her to abort their baby. Those decisions are obviously things that Bella should be able to decide. Edward is incredibly controlling of Bella, but because he is a man and presented as the *protector* in the relationship, this unhealthy behavior is hidden under the guise of wanting to keep Bella safe. Additionally, it certainly doesn’t help that Edward is 109 years old (another layer of yikes in their already toxic relationship) and therefore feels like he knows best in every situation.

      Finally, I want to address the sense of danger in Bella’s and Edward’s relationship. Apparently, Bella’s blood is especially tasty smelling to vampires, which means that though Edward loves Bella, he constantly has to suppress the urge kill her. In the first couple movies, they can hardly kiss because Edward can barely stop himself from killing her. Additionally, the first time they do the do, Edward can’t control his supernatural strength and leaves bruises all over Bella’s body, and destroys their bedframe. Obviously, this is terrible and romanticizes violence in relationships by selling it under “it’s exciting because it’s risky” and “star-crossed lovers” tropes. The fact that Edward has the urge to hurt his romantic partner should be a huge red flag, but like all the other problems in their relationship, the audience is supposed to see it as part of the romance.