What Twilight can teach us about teenage girls

Twilight is already old enough that it’s entirely possible that it has some fans who don’t remember the media hype around the franchise when it was at its peak popularity, namely when the first movie came out in 2008. It. Was. Huge. The hype was routinely compared to Beatlemania it was so big, and while other demographics did enjoy Twilight, they were a small enough portion of the fanbase that they often made their own separate groups and communities surrounding the series. The general understanding was that Twilight mainly appealed to teenage girls. And, like anything that appeals to teen girls, it was subject to weirdly personal hatred from grown men everywhere. I have this ridiculous memory of walking into a Hastings bookstore in my hometown, maybe two years into the Twilight era, and I see a local author all set up at a little table with his books. At the time I’m a teen girl who loves to read and wants to be published one day, so I go over and start talking to him about it. The book looked to be in line with my tastes at the time, the cover had like a skinny, pale goth chick on it, and the title was blood red. It was a vampire book, and I asked the author, y’know, what made you want to write this? And he told me “Well y’know, I read those Twilight books, and they were just so bad, y’know? I was sure I could do better!”

I’m sure you can guess how I felt about Twilight at the time, just from the fact that I feel compelled to make this video. I was a huge fan. Even so, I did end up buying a copy of his book, he signed it for me and everything… and you have no idea how much I wish I still had that stupid book, because it is still one of the worst things I’ve ever read, even as a teenager with zero critical thinking skills. I read this book just to make fun of it and write my corrections for his grammar and spelling errors in the margins. It was awful - and of course it was! The only reason he wrote it in the first place was to spite Twilight, there’s no heart there. It was always going to be garbage. But I always thought that interaction was weirdly representative of the cultural space Twilight seemed to occupy. Some random dude off the street really took a look at this level of unprecedented literary success, this 21st century Beatlemania, and not only did he earnestly believe that he could do better, he wrote and sold a book with its only selling point being, “it’s better than Twilight.” Insane.

Also reminds me of that meme that was ubiquitous at the time, where people would take a picture of any two things that were connected to each other in any way and caption them “still a better love story than Twilight.” And I know how memes work, plenty of the people making those jokes probably had no real disdain for Twilight, and they were just participating because it’s a joke and it’s fun, but I do think it’s a good example of the weird cultural contempt we had for Twilight.

Anyway, the biggest reason I wanted to organize my thoughts on this was because I’m a big fan of both Twilight and what I kind of see as its predecessor, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Stay with me, because I rewatched some of both recently and they have a surprising amount of similarities, which is funny because when Twilight was big, these two were almost always placed at odds. Buffy was kind of like Harry Potter in that it was one of those holier-than-thou, my-thing-is-better-than-your-thing things. People liked to hold up bouncy blonde Buffy as evidence that Bella was lame for being a sullen brunette. And given that I was a sullen brunette teenager, I honestly think that kept me from engaging with Buffy for a while. But the two do have a lot in common. Both fanbases were mostly made up of teenage girls, the stories themselves revolved around teen girls who fell in love with vampires and lived under constant threat of being killed by them, for… one reason or another.

I think the supernatural romance genre being so popular with teenage girls is fascinating. Because think about it: growing up as a young girl is a minefield. Suddenly you’re supposed to care about your looks (not too much though), you’re the most impressionable you’ve ever been while also receiving countless contradictory messages from the media about how you should feel about your body, or even just what your life should look like as a woman. And then, as a teen girl, you’re likely navigating your first romantic and sexual encounters with other people, and if you’re so inclined (or led to believe you are), that means boys. If you’ve ever been a teen girl, you might remember that as being a shitty time. High school years are the first time a lot of women have to learn what sexual assault is, what counts as harassment, what is and isn’t healthy in a relationship. Personally, when I was a teenager, I experienced more harassment and outright sexual assault than I do now… and I am talking about attention from both teenage boys and adult men. This is when a lot of us first learn that some men can be capable of cruelty. So I find it fascinating that a lot of young girls find comfort and representation in magical worlds in which every sexy love interest openly admits to being a monster.

“As if you could outrun me, as if you could fight me off, I’m designed to kill!” (Edward in Twilight)

“She needs some monster in her man.” (Spike in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, season 5 episode 10)

Angel from Buffy and Edward from Twilight even say the same exact line to their love interests - “I wanted to kill you.” (Edward says this in Twilight, Angel says it in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, season 1 episode 7)

Here’s what this says to me: to these fictional women, romantic love does not mean finding a boy who will respect you. Romantic love means finding a boy who’s worth enduring disrespect. The disrespect is a given; what makes it worth it is if he’s interesting or mysterious or attractive enough for there to be a silver lining. And I think for a lot of women, that sentiment can be devastating in its accuracy. How many times have you heard a woman say “I don’t know if this is worth breaking up over, it’s a good relationship if not for this one thing!” Personally, I’ve heard it countless times from every woman I know, I’ve said it myself, and I can’t think of a single time I’ve heard a man say the same thing. To me this trope says, sure, the men in real life hurt me. But at least these fictional monster men don’t put me under any delusions about who they are.

And in fact, the protagonists’ active choices to be with these dangerous men isn’t just emphasized, it’s often implied or spoken outright that these teenage girls have a deathwish.

And here’s the darkest part of my thinking on this: they’re kind of right. I got the urge to start writing about this when I rewatched Twilight a while ago, and it just hit me really hard how similar these two scenes are.

“Dawn, the hardest thing in this world is to live in it. Be brave. Live.” (Buffy, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, season 5 episode 22)

“Death is peaceful, easy. Life is harder.” (Bella, Twilight)

And here’s the deal, I know that just saying “life is hard” is relatable to anyone, I know that sentiment is not exclusive to teenage girls. But Buffy and Twilight largely appealed to the same demographic, and then they followed the same formula, and now they both have had incredible staying power among girls and women years after they’ve faded from the larger cultural spotlight.

So… am I saying that if you were super into Twilight when you were younger, you’re probably struggling with depression now? No, I’m not saying that. I’m… not saying that you’re healthy, necessarily.

To be clear, I know both these franchises - especially Twilight - portray certain behaviors as romantic onscreen when in real life they would be painfully creepy at best, and straight-up abusive at worst, and I’m not looking to excuse any of that. But I do think it’s possible - and, actually, necessary - to both allow yourself to enjoy something while at the same time being critical of the ways it falls short and needs to improve. I love both Twilight and Buffy, I think I always will. I guess the only conclusion left to make for this video is, if you have a teenage girl in your life, please be supportive of her interests. If you are a teen girl, don’t be ashamed of what you like, and if a boy does something to hurt you, don’t blame yourself. And if you are an embittered former teen girl such as myself, um… maybe stop overanalyzing the media you consumed when you were younger-