Better Than Meyer

Camp aesthetic is a visual movement that communicates appeal through what would be considered tacky iconography, prescribing value (whether good or bad) through the irony of ugliness or gaudiness.  It is theatrical, over-the-top, and dramatic. Campiness has long been tied inextricably to queer culture. Queer films little known to heteronormative society such as Debs, and, But I’m a Cheerleader, or even ubiquitous cult classics to the tune of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and, Hedwig and the Angry Inch are undeniably campy. Within these works, the performance of heterosexuality is unsettling and seems unnatural due to the theatricality of the relationships (one only has to see But I’m a Cheerleader’s Natasha Lyonne drowning in the mouth of her character’s football playing boyfriend during a make-out session to see what I mean here). This type of camp is intentional and pointed. However, the performance of heteronormativity can easily fall into the realm of camp without intending to.

Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight Saga is never intentionally Queer; in fact, there’s not even a whiff of overt gayness to be found in the behemoth four book teen melodrama. Edward Cullen and the rest of his vampire family, as well as the rest of the town of Forks seem to be one hundred percent heterosexual. But since its release in 2008, and especially since the 2020 Twilight “renaissance”, Twilight has accumulated a steadfast and growing queer following, leading to packed midnight showings of the films, memes, fan art, and more. Twilight’s over-performance of heterosexuality whilst simultaneously destabilizing aesthetic gender constructs places the series firmly, if unintentionally, within the campy queer classics canon.

            Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble states,

“heterosexuality offers normative sexual positions that are intrinsically impossible to embody… both a compulsory system and an intrinsic comedy, a constant parody of itself…” (155).

Heterosexuality that does not have reproduction as a teleological goal is by nature not heterosexual, if society were to agree with the purpose of sexual desire as defined by anti-gay movements. In Twilight, the vampires are considered to be extremely sexually attractive, but in their current form, they cannot reproduce sexually. The relationships between vampires Alice and Jasper, Rosalie and Emmett, and, Carlisle and Esme, are now queer, because they are

“contesting the categories of sex or, at least, not in compliance with the normative presuppositions and purposes of that set of categories” (156).  

However, that’s not to say that sexual anatomy and reproduction defines gender or sexuality. For Butler, the performance of gender in queer relationships has to do with the destabilization of perceived gender constructs as they come into “erotic interplay” (157). A femme lesbian being sexually attracted to only cis-gendered women, but also being aroused by a butch lesbian’s performance of masculinity, is an example of that erotic interplay.  This becomes even more expansive in contemporary queer discourse, as we start to understand the performance of gender beyond the binary of men and women. Edward and Bella embody this destabilization through each of their gender crossing attributes. When Bella first witnesses Edward’s vampiric skin when it interacts with sunlight, she narrates,

“his skin, white despite the faint flush from yesterday’s hunting trip, literally sparkled, like thousands of tiny diamonds were embedded in the surface…his shirt open over his incandescent chest, his scintillating arms bare.” (Meyer 260).

Bella later goes on to say, “I would have liked to lie back, as he did, and let the sun warm my face. But I stayed curled up, my chin resting on my knees unwilling to take my eyes off of him” (260).

Edward becomes the object of sexual desire for Bella, subverting the narrative convention of the female being the focus of male desire.  

Masculine presenting people wearing glitter and being desired sexually is an intersection of the erotic interplay of gender performances. Edward is meant to be at his most beautiful when he’s in the sun. Meyer’s reasoning for his beauty is that it makes him, according to Edward himself, a perfect predator. He says,

“Everything about me invites you in – my voice, my face, even my smell” (263).

Meyer’s vampires use the erotic interplay of masculinity embodying elements of feminine presentation as an example of the ideal form of sexual desire, and therefore are able to seduce their prey before killing them. It is reminiscent, in some ways, of the seduction of Janet and Brad by Dr. Frank N. Furter, whose own drag aesthetic is considered to be erotic to all of the characters in The Rocky Horror Picture Show at one point or another.  

Edward and Bella are also transgressive due to the differences in their species. Edward states many times throughout their will-they or won’t-they courtship that their being together is a bad idea. In fact, he likens it to a predator falling in love with its prey; in the same scene where Bella sees his sparkly skin for the first time. He says,

“And so the lion fell in love with the lamb” (273),

noting the innate perverseness of their love. Vampire stories have been linked to queerness for nearly two centuries. Dracula leads the way with the homoerotic subtext between The Count and Jonathan Harker in Bram Stokers 1897 novel, something that is essentially canonized in the BBC adaptation from 2020. In the series, Sister Agatha Van Helsing asks Harker if he had “sexual intercourse with Count Dracula” and he remembers back to a dream he had at the castle where his sexual fantasies of Mina shift into a sexual fantasy of Dracula. The series ends with Van Helsing and Dracula together in their own sexual fantasy, which shows the way transgressive sexuality is eroticized in the vampire plot. Van Helsing hates Dracula for his cruelty, but is still attracted to him. Edward lacks Dracula’s cruelty, but his monstrous status has in actuality turned him into an ideal beauty. Bella is attracted to him in part because of his inhumanity, describing his face as angelic or godlike (Meyer 262). Her attraction to Edward is transgressive in a similar way Agatha Van Helsing’s obsession with Dracula is transgressive.

            In a pivotal scene in both the book and the later 2008 adaptation starring Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson, the vampire family plays a game of baseball together. The Cullen family can only play baseball during a thunderstorm, due to their super vampire strength (apparently they can hit a baseball hard enough to be mistaken for a crack of thunder, but yet the ball remains completely intact). Baseball seems to be a fairly all American, wholesome, straightforward activity. However, the way the Cullen family plays is decidedly theatrical. Everything they do is over the top and extra, from their vehicles;

“They circled around Rosalie’s red convertible, unmistakable lust in their eyes” (Meyer 222),

to Edward’s piano playing, to baseball. Everything is designed to make them stand out, and apart from the rest of the town. They are the monstrous other, even if they never actually drink human blood. Their everyday activities are performance.

            The Cullen family is theatrical in all things, but especially in romantic partnerships. The first night Bella and Edward ever spend together, she tells him that she loves him. He responds with,

“‘You are my life now’” (314),

which is an intense confession to make after one kiss and a sleepover. Throughout the rest of the novels, Edward and Bella remain obsessed with each other to the point of suicide. In the second installment, New Moon Edward believes Bella has died, and tries to kill himself. He says to Bella,

“I wasn’t going to live without you,” (Meyer 263).

In the last installment, Breaking Dawn, when Bella almost dies (again), he forms a suicide pact with Jacob where he wishes for Jacob to kill him if Bella doesn’t survive. He tells Jacob,

“the moment Bella’s heart stops beating, I’ll be begging you to kill me” (Meyer 70).

A significant chunk of my notes during my twilight annotation were about Bella's dyke moments so lets look together:

I made 8 different notes calling Bella gay and 5 of them are about Rosalie

When Rosalie gets introduced we get this passage "The tall one was statuesque. She had a beautiful figure, the kind you saw on the cover of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, the kind that made every girl around her take a hit on her self-esteem just by being in the same room. Her hair was golden, gently waving to the middle of her back." Meanwhile Edward's entire introduction is "The last was lanky, less bulky, with untidy, bronze-colored hair. He was more boyish than the others, who looked like they could be in college" It sounds pretty clear which of the two Bella finds more attractive and is more drawn to off the bat

Much later in chapter 12 Bella says "Suddenly Rosalie, his blonde and breathtaking sister, turned to look at me." "I wanted to look away, but her gaze held me" Mind you, Edward and Bella are together(ish) at this point - it is set after the Port Angeles scene

In chapter 14, Edward and Bella are having a light conversation about feeling jealousy and Bella throws in this little comment "Rosalie, the incarnation of pure beauty, Rosalie"

When she meets the family later, Edward is telling Bella that Rose is jealous of Bella's humanity and she says "I tried hard to imagine a universe in which someone as breathtaking as Rosalie would have any possible reason to feel jealous of someone like me."

Finally, at prom, Bella sees Rosalie and says "And Rosalie was... well, Rosalie. She was beyond belief. Her vivid scarlet dress was backless, tight to her calves where it flared into a wide ruffled train, with a neckline that plunged to her waist." Firstly, not school dance appropriate attire, secondly, gay as hell.

Not to worry everyone, Rosalie is not the only person Bella is gay about. Alice also gets some wildly queer moments too

This first one takes place exactly one page after our second Rosalie note, in which Bella says "Alice - her short, inky hair in a halo of spiky disarray around her exquisite, elfin face - was suddenly standing behind his shoulder. Her slight frame was willowy, graceful even in absolute stillness." " 'Edward' she answered, her high soprano voice was almost as attractive as his."

Later at the Cullen house where Bella is officially meeting the family, Alice comes superspeed running into the room (graceful description again) and the family is disapproving of her unsubtle vampirism, but Bella says "But I liked it. It was natural - for her anyway". She then gets a cheek kiss from Alice, and Bella describes herself as feeling pleased - yeah I sure bet you were

makes me think of my new fave FD Signifier quote: “the dissonance isn’t cognitive enough for some of you”

anyway - with hoa hoa hoa season upon us here’s your annual reminder that if you give money to Stephanie Meyer ALSO give money to the Quileute - if you give money to TJ Klune ALSO give money to NICWA - etc

Alfred Wierusz-Kowalski (1849–1915)

Rant incoming - also, this is about the BOOKS, not the movies

Middle school me knew there was something wrong with Bella and Edward's relationship. The "eternal seventeen" view my friends had (and still have) didn't hold water to me because I was the same middle schooler reading a whole bunch of books about vampires, werewolves, fae, and mythology. In my report on the first book, I said that there's no such thing as an immature immortal character - they'd be dead if they were truly immature.

Because seriously, Bella is a teenager with no real world experience compared to Edward. I said "think of it like a thirteen year old girl dating a eighteen year old boy." Back then, I pretty much wrote about grooming without fully understanding it in depth (I got sent to the counselor and ended up learning more). Edward himself acknowledges the power imbalance of their relationship, he does incredibly disgusting things that are NOT romantic, and reading Midnight Sun years later only validated my old views.

Jacob is also a teenager with no experience. Setting him up as some type of romantic rival to Edward doesn't acknowledge the MAJOR issue of JACOB BEING AN ACTUAL TEENAGE CHILD! A lot of my very rantish book report on that aspect was detailing how Jacob is just as much a victim of the story as Bella if not worse. He's written as a sweet and caring boy trying to do right by his family and friends, gets abruptly turned into an incel because Meyer realized she made Jacob too perfect for Bella, and then enslaved for the rest of his life AT RHE AGE OF SIXTEEN. He did not deserve any of what happened and it happens because Meyer made him, a CHILD, Edward's rival.

Because, YES, Jacob IS the superior match for Bella. Not simply because she canonically calls him her sun, but because HE'S AN AGE APPROPRIATE MATCH. Nevermind that, canonically, Bella acknowledges that she IS in love with Jacob and if, not for Edward the manipulator being her drug of choice, they WOULD be together.

She has a whole "what if I married Jacob" sequence where she had a happy and healthy relationship and LIVED, no amount of gaslighting could change my opinion when I wrote "this is like that old movie that glorified domestic abuse - Edward is constantly slapping Bella and he is her true cause of her death, but 'love in adversity' is the lesson we're meant to take from it."

There's also a paper I wrote using Twilight to discuss racism and PDF-philia in literature for my AP Lit class. And it holds up! Meyer legit had Quil imprint on a TWO YEAR OLD, Jacob on an infant (with the kind of an adult which adds another layer of horror and abuse to Jacob's treatment), made the shifters all angry hotheads who harm the people around them, has them referred to as dogs and mutts by the very White elitist Cullens, and gives all of them awful endings. She legit made it canonical that the shifters have to cut their hair, something that even a cursory amount of research would tell you that is a cultural no-no.

Meyers, and the fandom, give Edward so much grace for his predatory, entitled, and petty behavior and simultaneously drag Jacob for his very justifiable hatred of the Cullens and desperation to get Bella away from them. The Cullens legit repeat history by invading native land and despite KNOWING that their proximity is causing them to shift and result in deaths, THEY DONT CARE (they did it TWICE, by the way). They don't care about Bella either, they constantly put her in danger and treat her like an object, why WOULDN'T Jacob try to get her away from them?

And Bella defending the Cullens, but not ONCE defending Jacob or the wolves from the Cullens and the disgusting things they said THAT WEREN'T TRUE.

And the two page rant I wrote about Jacob imprinting on Renasty (that is legit what I kept calling her) holds up so much that my sister is re-reading the series right now. Jacob is legitimately terrified of imprinting and having what little control he has left taken from him. And when it happens, it is legit HORRIFYING. He's untethered from everything that made him an individual, his life becomes all about Renasty

JUST SAY SHE'S YOURS. Carlisle keeps turning people left and right, it'll be fine. Jesus Christ. Just fucking lie and say she was dying in hospital and Carlisle was like 'don't mind if I do'. He collects them anyway, so who's gonna question that?

Ooooh, that's too risky? THEN SAY SHE'S FROM FUCKING CANADA, WHO CARES. Seattle? Nah girlie pop hasn't been there once in her life. Never heard of Seattle, in fact.

Aro wasn't even there then, what is Jane gonna do? Risk both Carlisles and Aro's ire cos she wants to murder a random new born? Please.

𝐀𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐧𝐨𝐝𝐨𝐫𝐚 𝐕𝐨𝐥𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐢 & 𝐒𝐮𝐥𝐩𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐚 𝐕𝐨𝐥𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐢

Not necessarily because I think the fans as a whole particularly LIKE the sparkly vampires thing. I suspect that most "Twilight" fans could probably take or leave the sparkling. But because the sparkly vampires thing was novel enough and "weird" enough that EVERYONE *HAD* to comment on it and investigate.

And, you know, most people lack familiarity with... uh... genre conventions? Literature generally? Once people were hooked into looking into "Twilight" at all, it might be a) their first time actually engaging with a vampire story instead of just the general pop culture idea of vampires, b) their first time engaging with a romance novel (especially with supernatural & action elements) and all of the misogyny baked into the heteronormative formulas there. So, you know, audiences are thrilled or enraged (clutching their pearls) either way over all the rather unoriginal elements of this new pop culture phenomenon, like the story is the first one to have ever done creepy male leads who can't communicate.

(Side note: And yeah, of course, not nearly enough people here are noticing and criticizing the hideous racism and cultural appropriation / replacement.)

And, you know, people who aren't wowed by whatever this new pop culture phenomenon is push back for a variety of reasons. But that's just talking about the thing more, so it gets even more attention. And so on and so forth. Thing becomes inescapable, egged on by the people who are actually trying to sell the thing as a product.

Anyway, when "Twilight" first came out, I think the only mildly original / innovative thing it had going for it was the sparkly vampires? (Before the later books came out with all of their weird shit, I can't think of anything else about "Twilight" that genuinely differentiated it from what other supernatural romance stories were doing.) Which was appealing to some, sure, but also hit that sweet spot of absurdity and novelty that I think a lot of people felt compelled to talk about it. And also attracted a lot of misogynistic / homophobic attention as the most easily mockable thing about it, which just attracted more attention to it.

I mean, I'm not going to say that "Twilight" wouldn't have been big WITHOUT the sparkly vampires. There were a lot of corporate forces pushing those books and movies HARD (they don't give a shit about media quality, this is known), especially once the series happened to hit that societal sweet spot, after all.

But, man, I remember just how hard anti-fans and non-fans came down on the sparkly vampire thing, sometimes without knowing anything else about that series. It was EVERYWHERE as a joke. And in the current wave of romantasy stuff now, as someone currently generally uninterested in a lot of it, I mostly only hear about something when a story has done something... slightly novel? Really absurd? Or when there's some sort of scandalous author drama attached, I guess.

Being absurd isn't a guarantee of catching mainstream attention, of course, but a lot of marketing these days seems to be oriented towards doing something, ANYTHING, to stick in people's heads for longer than scrolling to the next post. Towards (paying influencers and) prompting users to generate posts about your thing and to therefore "organically" become the social media topic du jour. We're in a pretty different literary and marketing scene now, compared to when "Twilight" came out, but some of the elements of getting lucky with where the spotlight lands remain.

your hands are so warm and tender

I love you

you remind me of my late wife

your eyes are beautiful yet filled with pain