In a 2010 article for The Guardian titled “Twilight: the franchise that ate feminism”, David Cox claims that Twilight is an antifeminist film. So what if 80% of moviegoers are women? Those women are dumb for wanting to see Twilight, because 17 year old Bella is just a mess. Cox criticizes Bella, claiming she fails to “get a grip on her life and forge a purposeful path for herself. Perhaps she could sail round the world single-handed, set up a dotcom business or at least get on with her homework” (as a side note, anyone who has read the books would know that Bella spends plenty of time on her homework. Like, I’ve never read a book with more details about how a protagonist managed her time grocery shopping, cooking lasagna for her dad, doing laundry, and getting ahead on assignments). Instead, she makes the reprehensible decision to pursue a life in a world of mythical creatures with paranormal abilities . I’m pretty sure no one criticized Harry Potter for deciding to go to magic school instead of getting an economics degree and becoming an entrepreneur. But when women are interested in having a magical life, they are impractical, ‘unfeminist’, incapable of “[getting] a grip on [their] life and [forging] a purposeful path”.
Cox claims that the plot of Eclipse is just Bella deciding between Edward and Jacob, ultimately choosing Edward because he is ‘hotter’. He then contradicts himself by claiming that Bella never makes any choices in the movie, that she is passive and submissive in the entire film and Edward and Jacob decide everything for her. So, Bella chooses Edward, and chooses a bad life path, and both of these decisions are worthy of criticism, but also she makes no decisions at all. Cool.
Cox satirically lauds the ‘great triumph’ finally won for women in movie theaters, the triumph being that at long last there is a major movie… about a woman. But then Cox wonders, “Just how much good it's doing them [women] is more doubtful. The spell that Twilight casts over Twihard poppets and even their full-grown Twimoms cannot be assumed to be entirely benign.” As if the monikers “Twihard poppets” and “full-grown Twimoms” were not condescending enough, Cox seems to believe that Twilight is somehow bewitching moviegoers into… what… something that Cox would define as unfeminist behavior? Like risking your life to save your vampire boyfriend from another vampire trying to kill him because he killed her boyfriend? Damn, that’s going to set back feminism by 50 years at least. All the girls are going to be putting themselves in danger trying to fight off these revenge-bent vampire killers, and they won’t have any time for their homework! Apparently Twilight is not “doing women good” – its giving them no education on nautical skills or information on how to found a business. You see, women can only possibly take everything literally, are completely unable to critically reflect on a movie, and actually need to be instructed by films on ‘right’ behavior, the kind of behavior that smart men like Cox decide is feminist.
Cox then makes the dizzyingly misogynistic claim that “something here seems perplexing. You can't get away from a strange paradox. Women are using their regained power over the picturehouse to trash their hard-won independence. What mysterious creatures they are.” So by watching Twilight, women are “trash[ing] their hard-won independence”. What does that even mean? And David, you’re the one who said that this “independence”, or “power in the box office”, (I don’t know how ‘power in the box office’ relates to independence, but that’s another question) was entirely gained by women because of the popularity of Twilight: “the tables have been turned by a single franchise.” So according to you, the “single” reason women now have “power in the box office” is the popularity of Twilight, but by watching Twilight, women are “trash[ing] their hard-won independence”. Which is it, David? Did Twilight’s popularity give women power, or is it disempowering them?
Perhaps I do not need to point out the irony of an article which posits itself as a defense of feminism calling women “mysterious creatures” who are incapable of choosing respectable movies to watch. Cox fails to suggest any alternative, ‘more feminist’ films that women should be watching instead of Twilight. He seems unable to connect his first paragraph, the one talking about how there are almost no movies made for or about women, with his later point that women are irresponsible and nonfeminist for not picking better movies than Twilight to watch. I thought none of the other movies were made for women, David? So are women just… not supposed to go to the movies? Maybe instead of going to the movies women should be doing homework, starting dot.com businesses (we all know how well those work out!) and sailing around the world! Gee, thanks David. As a ‘Twihard poppet’ myself, I would have never known how to make a feminist choice and find direction in my life. But you have so helpfully made the choice for me! I can now be a real feminist!
This article exemplifies the way misogyny is infused into criticism of Twilight. If an article written to ‘defend feminism’, is this consescending towards the women who watch Twilight, one can imagine what less ‘progressive’ critics were saying about the films and the women who watched them. As one such woman, I am proud to say that Twilight didn’t actually stop me from doing my homework. And now, at my ripe age somewhere between that of a “Twihard poppet” and a “full-grown Twimom”, Twilight actually is my homework! Perhaps by now David has realized that criticizing a movie for not showing a woman making choices, but using your whole article to condemn the choices that that protagonist and millions of other women have made, is a little contradictory. But maybe I just don’t know enough about feminism!
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