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A Woman’s Role Is Marriage And Children. Period.
Remember when I asked about what Bella’s goals are?
They are, in order:
- Get married.
- Have lots of sex.
- Get her throat torn out by a serial-killer and spending eternity as a teenager drinking the blood of the innocent and never having permanent roots in any area for fear of being murdered by the locals and/or causing ecological ruin1.
- Have kids.
By the end of the last book, she’s managed to accomplish all of these. But what else does she manage to do? Well, besides ignite a vampire civil war, anyway?
A part-time job. Graduating from high-school.
That’s it.
The only thing of value that she achieves is have a child. The very fact that she gets pregnant at all is seen as a wondrous miracle that every other female character gushes over; it’s repeated over and over again about the void that the female vampires feel because they’re unable to fulfill their womanly duties and how they’d trade everything in order to be fertile again. They’ll have to settle for eternal youth and beauty, riches beyond dreams of avarice instead… and the un-subtle message that they’ve failed as women.
The only female werewolf is similarly cursed; she’s a “genetic dead end” because she can’t do her womanly duty and provide little werewolves to the tribe. Keep in mind: breeding and childbirth is so important to the werewolves that they choose their mates damn near as soon as the girls are born. Leah Clearwater’s infertility is practically her defining trait, over and above her value to the tribe as a warrior.
Bella on the other hand is special because she’s a mom… so special that her sprog is literal deus ex vagina, so special that the bad vampires want to kill it out of sheer jealousy. Giving birth means that Bella gets it all: the super-sexy husband (who will never go to seed, lose his washboard abs or succumb to the ravages of time), the life of leisure, the wealth of Croesus and the satisfaction of being a mother.
Being a mother without the work, by the way. Because her child is so super duper special that she skips the whole “midnight feedings, screaming and shitting herself” stages and leaps straight to adult-hood in the span of a year… so all Bella ever has to do is provide love and all the motherly wisdom and guidance an 18 year old with only a high-school diploma and no life-experience can provide.
(One might be forgiven for noticing the levels of Stephanie Meyer’s frothy mix of resentment, wish-fulfillment and self-justification dripping from the pages…)
Abuse is Love
And here we get to the elephant in the room: Twilight is a four book, five movie treatise to how awesome abusive relationships are. When it comes to the bad relationship advice propagated by Hollywood, Twilight is the poster-child2.
But don’t take my word for it.
Over the course of the series, Edward threatens Bella’s life, threatens to kill himself, scares her with his driving, damages property when angry, makes all the decisions for the both of them and tries to isolate her from others – especially Jacob Black, his romantic rival. He’s thrown her through glass tables and has sex so violent that she’s covered in bruises and broken ribs. He pushes the relationship further and faster than anyone should be comfortable with – by the time they decide they’re dating, Bella is spending literally almost every moment with Edward.
Oh, and he breaks into her house, watches her sleep without her knowledge and follows her wherever she goes.
But it’s ok… he loves her. He just wants to make sure she’s safe.
Now, keeping all that in mind, look up the warning signs of domestic violence and abusive relationships. Go ahead. I’ll wait.
Pop quiz: how many of those moments I list were classic warning signs of domestic abuse? SPOILER ALERT: ALL OF THEM.
But again: it’s ok. Edward would never hurt Bella… intentionally. He can’t help it that she makes him want to hurt her, what with her super-delicious blood and all. He doesn’t mean it. He loves her.
Not, mind you, that Jacob is much better. By book 3, Jacob goes from being a living example of what happens when you get stuck in the Friend Zone to deciding that the best way to make someone love you is sexual assault. Bella doesn’t help matters when – even after punching Jacob and running the hell away she decides that oops, she may have feelings too! Not, y’know, enough to keep her from going back to her other abusive boyfriend of course. Just enough to keep jerking Jacob around a bit longer until Edward’s finally willing to come across.
Keep in mind: Bella literally welcomes this abuse as signs that Edward loves her. She compares Edward and herself to Wuthering Height’s Heathcliff and Cathy, apparently never stopping to consider that Heathcliff is an abusive sociopath. Her fondest wish is her violent death at Edward’s hands!
Ladies and gentlemen: the role-model for young girls around the world. This is what people are growing up to believe is “romantic”.
The only real solace to be had is that the national obsession with Twilight will be coming to a screeching halt once the last movie comes out and girls can model their future relationships after Katniss and Petra instead.
Related Posts
- Hey, they just feed off animals right? Mostly predators. That makes ’em ok, right? Sure… until you realize what happens to an ecosystem when you get rid of all the top-level predators [↩]
- You know… the one with a black eye who always wears long sleeves and “runs into doorknobs” a lot. [↩]
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