Tuesday, 14 February 2012

Twilight: A Leavisite analysis


Dear Twilight,

I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you have no idea the types of values you are promoting to young audiences, particularly girls. In that case let me inform you: you are not a love story! Do you hear that Twilight?! Most Twilight fans are so quick to label the film with tags such as “love” and “passion”. Surely, these should be changed to “creepy” and “obsessive.”

Why you ask? The relationship between Bella and Edward is completely obsessive. Firstly, he stalkers her and before they have even uttered a single word to each other he breaks into her bedroom and watches her sleep. Surely that is grounds for a restraining order, not the starting platform for “the greatest teen love story of our generation.”

What with Edward being a vampire, he also has the ability to harm or even kill Bella. In the first film he is very open about the fact that he would like to bite her neck, but eats animals instead to curb his appetite. He also invites her back to his house, where his vampire family live, because this is a very good idea. Obviously. Upon meeting her his entire family look at her as if she was a giant cheeseburger with legs. They might as well be licking their lips and nibbling on her arm at this point.

So to sum up, this film promotes obsessive and dangerous relationships, and yet audiences drink it in like nectar. One of the things I hate the most about this entire franchise is that it has sparked off a million other vampire related media texts imitating Twilight. ‘The Vampire Diaries’ and ‘True Blood’ appeared suddenly, quite coincidently, after the world wide success of Twilight. These two shows, particularly ‘True Blood’ are aimed towards a slightly older audience, as it concerns itself with sexual desire, and as one of my friends so politely put it: “It’s practically porn, but with vampires.”

Lovely.

Call me old fashioned, but I miss the days when love stories where love stories and horror films were exactly that. The two never met, and I was okay with that. So I beg you, Twilight, please, please, make this mass produced nonsense end?!


Yours sincerely,

Amanda Johansson

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