Ah, Twilight. The film that launched (way more than) a thousand ships. Whether you ship Team Edward or Team Jacob, none can deny the immense cultural impact of Stephanie Meyer's Gerard Way fanfic-turned sparkly vampire teen angst books-turned five film series. Like most media ostensibly made for young women,Twilight was widely maligned from its inception. In the hunt to get it made, the director of the first film, Catherine Hardwicke, encountered one executive who reasoned the series would appeal “at most, to about 400 girls in Salt Lake City”. But the story of a pale, clumsy human girl and her telepathic vampire lover became a runaway success, grossing $395 million worldwide, and quickly established itself as one of the most iconic films of the early 2000s.
When Twilight premiered, though it was a smash box office success, it was seen by many as 'uncool': lame, basic, cringe: and to like Twilight publicly was to open yourself to ridicule. Liking Twilight became synonymous with 'having bad taste'.
But everything changed when Netflix attacked. Over the past ~2 years (with mid 2021-ish as a high point) viewers have been returning to Twilight, and collectively realizing, ‘hey, this movie is actually pretty good’ (while those who have always known it was amazing feel quite vindicated (its me (I’m feeling vindicated))). In 2021, the films were added to Netflix, and in mid-July they executed a veritable coup of the streaming service, usurping its other titles to claim all five top slots of the daily most watched movies: a surprising statistic, given the films premiered over 10 years ago.
The re-popularization of the films set off a press wave of journalists trying to figure out what all the fuss is about. Alongside the press buzz has been a slew of social media content across platforms, with people digging out their Twilight merch (or ordering new stuff), cosplaying, exchanging memes about the series, and generally basking in the newfound space of permissibility granted to those who can’t help but love this supernatural love story. The reuptake of the franchise has been coined the ‘Twilight Renaissance’, possibly after a Twitter account of the same name which posts daily memes about the series.
In an interview by Paper, the admins of 'twilight renaissance' reflected that “Back then you were either a hardcore fan or you hardcore hated it, but either way, you were obsessed”. The “hardcore” nature of peoples’ attachment to Twilight has persisted, the level of fervor and “[obsession]” becoming newly meaningful as people look on the film with the clarity of perspective.
In recent articles on the re-popularization of the franchise, many Twilight fans relate stories of either having had to defend their love of the series, or having disavowed it as a way to distance themselves from all things girly. Indeed, Twilight was of the not-like-other-girls area, during which the ‘proper’ way to be feminine was to malign the feminine. A Vice article titled “Wait, ‘Twilight’ Is Cool Now?”, interviewed viral TikTok Twilight cosplayers, one of whom (a Bella Swan cosplayer, if you’re curious) revealed a childhood hatred of the series: ““I was actually one of the many who despised Twilight when it first came out. I think I was around 10 or 11, and I was firmly in my not-like-other-girls phase so I wrote off anything even slightly feminine, including Twilight”. The author of the article echoed this sentiment, “When Twilight had girls swooning with its star-crossed story arc, I was stuck in my own cynical preteen phase of rejecting anything ‘mainstream’ and ‘girly.’ This meant that I would scoff at my Twihard sister who bought the entire set of novels, but took secret pleasure in reading them anyway.” Both this author and cosplayer sing a familiar tune, one that reveals the misogynistic foundation of Twilight- hatred. Liking Twilight was explicitly to align yourself with the feminine, which, from the release of the first film in 2008 to the last in 2012, was Uncool. In rejecting Twilight, one was disavowing femininity. Though I have found multiple articles claiming that Twilight was the first film which proved a movie centering a woman, based on material written by a woman, could be anything other than ‘box office poison’, instead of being revered as opening doors for stories by and for (gasp!) ladies, Twilight instead became a Trojan Horse people could criticize as a way of maligning the feminine, and a cultural marker women (especially young women) were pressured to disavow to be ‘cool’, and a way to mock those who refused to.
Ironically, Bella Swan is an archetypal not-like-other-girls-girl. She is a brunette, is more interested in hunting down a tome on vampires at the bookstore than she is in trying on dresses, she listens to old music (hello Debussy) and she erm, likes old men. Or, rather, she has an easier time relating to immortals who have been around for upwards of 100 years than she does with her classmates (they just don't get it). But if Bella was the archetype of a not-like-other-girls girl, Twilight became the archetypal movie for not-like-other-girls girls to hate on -- essentially hating on the representation of a woman they were trying to be like. Bella would probably not have been a Twilight fan -- she was too busy reading Wuthering Heights and Romeo and Juliet anyways. The irony of this situation reveals the truth of all this not-like-other-girls slander: the trope has always been about hating women.
Many parodies have been made which ridicule the franchise, including a full-length feature film called Vampires Suck. Vampires Suck is composed of a slew of scenes recreated in near-exact detail from the first two Twilight films, with no comedic innovation beyond slight exaggerations of elements from the originals. This lazy parody is a great example of the level of vitriol directed at Twilight; if such a small degree of change was necessary to make Twilight into a parody, this was because so much about the original movie was already seen as unforgivably 'cringe'. As we know, THE thing to do in 2010 to prove that you were cool was to point at things and say 'ew, cringe'. Those were less evolved times (specifically, according to The Philosopher's Meme, 2010 was the start of the age of proto-ironic memes – so many levels of irony behind where we are now).
Now, with its second wind, Twilight is getting a fresh chance to be viewed for what it is: a silly absurd dramatic excellent moody atmospheric hilarious formalist paranormal exaggerated angsty teen love story with an excellent soundtrack that serves as a better aesthetic tribute to the Pacific Northwest than any film before or since.
In a press interview for the new Batman, Robert Pattinson says that "it's not even cool to not like [Twilight] anymore". This is straight from the vampire’s mouth, as it were. Twilight’s renaissance is a perfect example of an object of media which has widely been taken up post-ironically. People are looking again at this cultural object, one they may have liked or may have hated, and then maybe mobilized ironically to prove that they were funny and hip and… well, ironic, but now, now having watched the films again, people are saying… wait a second. There’s something there. The sweeping shots of forests of impossibly tall evergreens, craggy cliffs and gray, rocky beaches overlaid with Bon Iver, Radiohead, Paramore, Iron and Wine, etc etc? Bella’s low voiceover, each word intense yet somehow provocative, giving the kind of exposition that feels like its happening in your head, like you’re somehow in the story? The campily stiff way Edward looks at and speaks to Bella, the way all of his reactions come in two parts, the initial half-expression, a moment’s thought, before sinking into smiles and recoils alike? Bella’s furiously anxious recourse to grabbing chunks of her hair? All of this coalesces to communicate how impossible it can feel to be a teenager.
When Bella confronts Edward about his now-gold previously-black eyes in the high school hallway, and he awkwardly stutters for a moment before muttering something about ‘the fluorescents’, turns about-face, and just walks away… that’s doing something. His general stiffness, maligned at the time as bad acting, is actually a great example of what a vampire fighting the urge to drink the blood of the person in front of him while trying to prevent said person from realizing that he isn’t human might look like. The point is, Edward looks awkward and stiff, and not naturalistic. Great. That’s because he isn’t supposed to be – natural. He’s a vampire. And before you go off about how Bella is equally as formal and stiff, that’s because she was literally meant to be a vampire – born in the wrong generation, not like other girls, weird and misunderstood. Duh. Don’t tell me you never felt like you were some sort of alien in the wrong school, the wrong family, the wrong universe? That you were surely meant for something more, something better, more real than the life you found yourself living? Twilight encapsulates this desire and makes it actual. It dares to say, yes, you were meant for something more than mere human existence. This whole time, Bella was thinking there was something about her that was different from everyone around her. And it turns out, she was right. She was meant to be the fulcrum of an intergenerational battle between warring vampire and werewolf clans. She was meant to bear a child that would set the vampire overlords upon her small town of nowhere, Washington.
Because despite the insta-obsession between Bella and Edward (the level of U-Hauling happening truly gives lesbians a run for their money), its not just Edward that entices Bella so much; its his whole family, these sparkly, stiff, beautiful people with their mysterious powers, their incredible house, and their close knitted-ness. They are more creative, sophisticated, worldly, interesting, and special than anyone Bella has ever met.
And then there’s the vampire stuff. I’m talking the superspeed-to-open-your-car-door, climbing-into-your-window so I can watch you sleep, hoisting-you-on-my-back to jump-through-layers-of-foliage-like-I’m-flying (hold on tight Spidermonkey!), bona fide vampire stuff. The mind-reading, the predicting the future, the mood manipulation. And, of course, the baseball.
~A thunderstorm is coming. You’re watching a movie and drinking some hot tea, but he’s with your girl, and they’re playing baseball. Or, rather, she’s watching him and his super-athletic, sexy, mysterious family play the most acrobatic game of baseball to probably ever exist. The group wears a strange array of baseball-esque clothes and, against all odds, they manage to look freaking cool. Questions abound. Why play baseball in a thunderstorm? Simple: the sound that booms forth when these hotties hit the ball is so damn loud that it sounds like thunder. They need to keep their whole superstrength operation low-key, so they can't just cause this ruckus any old time. The thunder camoflauges their home runs and collisions. Why play baseball at all? It’s America’s favorite pastime, and, hello, it can be very fun! Some people say baseball is a slow sport, but when you have superspeed, anything can be fast. And, to be honest, logic, rationality... all of these things cease to matter the moment Supermassive Black Hole starts playing. All-together, these elements create the perfect storm. ~
This is part of the appeal of the Cullen's whole vampire thing. They do the things that you do, but when they do them, they're better. You like to hike? They can practically fly between trees, leap over gorges, sprint over forest terrain. Enjoy a cool party? Theirs are the most elaborate you've ever seen, funded by 400-year-old investments and a stock-predicting prescient manic pixie dream girl. Enjoy a joy ride? The Cullens have a garage full of sick cars and reflexes so perfect that they can go as fast as they want without worrying about a crash -- besides, even if they did crash, they're bulletproof. Their senses are more adept, they are more beautiful, they don't sleep so they pick up all sorts of skills like virtuosic musical talents and polyglot portfolios and on and on. You look good in the sun? They will literally DAZZLE you away. All of this sounds great, but in the movies its paired with hilarious alienation factors, like strange-looking chalky skin, outrageous prop-placements (in one scene, Emmet holds a large zip-lock of hard boiled eggs), scary-looking golden eyes, and semi-outrageous hair. Not to mention the fact that half of the Cullens walk around looking REALLY angry (something something bloodlust, etc). They are beings defined by the juxtaposition of the normal and the paranormal, and these injunctions are sometimes envy-inducing and sometimes hilariously failed. All these ironic juxtapositions are set against the sincere, intense tone of the film. I believe these are some of the elements that makeTwilight a great object to post-ironically relate to.
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