Screening Twilight

Critical Approaches to a Cinematic Phenomenon

Wickham Clayton, Sarah Harman, Wickham Clayton, Sarah Harman

• Publisher: I.B. Tauris
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781780766669
• eBook ISBN: 9780857736543
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Film History & Criticism

The Twilight saga, a series of five films adapted from Stephanie Meyer's four vampire novels, has been a sensation, both at the box office and through the attention it has won from its predominantly teenaged fans. This series has also been the subject of criticism and sometimes derision - often from critics and on occasion even from fans. However, it also offers rich opportunities for analytic and critical attention, which the contributors to Screening Twilight demonstrate with energy and style. Through examining Twilight, the book unpacks how this popular group of films work as cinematic texts, what they have to say about cinema and culture today, and how fans may seek to re-read or subvert these messages. The chapters addressTwilight in the context of the vampire and myth, in terms of genre and reception, identity, gender and sexuality, and through re-viewing the series fandom. Screening Twilight is also a revelation of how a popular cinematic phenomenon like Twilight rewards close attention from contemporary critical scholars of cinema and culture.

PART 1

MUTE MONSTERS AND VOCAL
[FAN/] CRITICS: GENRE AND
RECEPTION

1

GUILTY PLEASURES: TWILIGHT,
SNARK AND CRITICAL FANDOM

Francesca Haig

In July 2010 a colleague and I arranged to see the newly released film The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (2010, dir. David Slade). We referred to this as ‘the excursion of shame’, swearing to make no mention of it in the academic department where we work. We’d shared long conversations about the many things that appalled us about both Stephenie Meyer’s books and the films themselves, but sheepish and critical as we were, there was no denying that we had some kind of affection for both the books and films and that our enthusiastic engagement with these texts was a source of pleasure. There was a similar combination of fervour and furtiveness in a series of exchanges I had with a PhD student: we had several passionate conversations about the manifold failings of the books and first two films, but these discussions culminated in her begging me to lend her Breaking Dawn (2008), the final book in Meyer’s series (but to leave it in her pigeonhole in a brown paper bag). As I struggled to reconcile my own criticisms of the texts with my eager engagement with them, I began to see a similar form of critical Twilight fandom proliferating, from video parodies on YouTube to LiveJournal exchanges gone viral. At a 2011 academic conference on ‘Modern Vampire Romance’, many of the papers and much of the discussion centred on trenchant criticism of the Twilight books and films, from academics who had, none the less, evidently consumed the books and films with some pleasure.¹

Since the start of the Twilight phenomenon, press attention has focused on the ‘sincere’ fans (‘Twi-hards’, the ‘Twilight Moms’, etc.). However, Twilight seems also to have provoked an ironic, critical fandom in which readers and viewers bemoan the flaws of the books and films, while enjoying and keenly devouring (if sometimes furtively) the texts. Such engagement is sometimes described as ‘snark’ (‘snark’ is defined by the Urban Dictionary as a combination of ‘snide’ and ‘remark’); while this term evokes the humorous and critical aspects of such fandom, it doesn’t quite do justice to affectionate, immersive engagement with the texts. What does this conflicted form of fandom reveal about the Twilight phenomenon and the nature of the pleasures it provides? Is this critical, subversive fandom simply an attempt to justify the pleasure taken from The Twilight Saga, or does the criticism itself constitute a new kind of fan pleasure?

While this critical Twilight fandom is distinctive, theorists and fans have increasingly been aware that fandom often incorporates elements of criticism. Despite the popular perception of fandom as uncritical adoration, the definition of ‘fandom’ does nothing to exclude critical engagement with texts; Cornell Sandvoss defines fandom as ‘the regular, emotionally involved consumption of a given popular narrative or text’.² The critical fandom generated by Twilight fits this definition in both its regularity and its emotional involvement: critical fans both devour each new book and film, and engage in sustained, passionate debates about the series and its flaws. However, the particular form of critical response generated by Twilight may help to clarify or expand existing theorisations of fandom.

In providing examples of this ironic fandom, it is perhaps simplest first to clarify what it does not include. Uncritical fandom, including much of the adoring, imitative Twilight fan fiction that floods sites such as fanfiction.net, often fits neatly into existing fandom stereotypes, and bears almost no relation to the kind of Twilight snark this chapter examines. While it is difficult to generalise about such fan fiction, due to both its volume (more than 185,000 Twilight stories on fanfiction.net, for example) and its range, the majority display an earnest mimicry of the characters, tone and tropes of the source texts, even while envisioning new events. The same is true of sites devoted entirely to Twilight criticism, or ‘Twilight Haters’ sites (relatively few in comparison to ‘fan’ sites, it must be said). These include the GoodReads ‘you know you hate twilight if … ’ site. This forum contains many relevant criticisms (commenter ‘Gemma’ writes: ‘I sorta wanted to gouge my eyes out with dull toothpicks everytime [sic] stephanie [sic] meyer used the word “velvety” ’³) but it lacks the affection that characterises the more complex engagements with the texts. Equally I would exclude the film Vampires Suck (2010, dirs Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer), whose affection for the texts exists only on a mercenary level, and which lacks the wit and the intellectual acuity of much of the more sophisticated Twilight snark. As film critic Mark Kermode recently noted, such films have ‘no parody in them’.⁴

Instead of those responses that simply adore or critique the series, the form of Twilight fandom that interests me is demonstrated on the ‘Twatlight’ website, a LiveJournal community specifically set up for Twilight snark. The site is for fans of the series, but with an explicitly critical bent; as they state: ‘We’re not anti-Twilight, but we’re not a serious Twilight community. If you can’t handle humourous [sic] discussion of the books, don’t join’. In a similar vein are two of the most popular exemplars of Twilight snark: ‘Growing up Cullen’ and ‘Twilight in Fifteen Minutes’. The former is a long exchange between two LiveJournal users (‘oxymoronassoc’ and ‘welurklate’), in which they riff on possibilities offered by the text, with a focus on the hero’s century of abstinence in a house filled with passionately bonking vampire couples. Parodying the prudish, controlling and emotional aspects of Edward’s character, this text builds into a delicious series of imagined dialogues in which Edward channels his sexual frustration into an increasingly tenuous series of hobbies, while being mocked by his family, particularly Emmet. Constantly justifying his actions (including his stalking of Bella) to his family, Edward exclaims: ‘Yes, I am doing that “Emo bullshit”, I can feel if I want to.’ A representative excerpt (in which both ‘oxymoronassoc’ and ‘welurklate’ are voicing Edward) shows Edward’s response to a porn film that he has caught Emmet watching online:

Oxymoronassoc: Who has been looking at this vile filth on the computer? Who?

Oxymoronassoc: I am suspicious of their alleged love … it is unpure …

Welurklate: This film has failed to make me believe their relationship at all

Oxymoronassoc: Emmett you can see the boom mic

Oxymoronassoc: The production value is shoddy at best

Oxymoronassoc: Could they not afford more fabric for the costumes? … I do not believe a lady cop would dress in such a manner … it is terribly unprofessional

Welurklate: She has worked hard to be respected in a male dominated field … she would not throw it away by sleeping with five members of the force at once

Oxymoronassoc: Why must we subjugate her in this manner?

Welurklate: they are NEVER going to catch the killer this way!

‘Twilight in Fifteen Minutes’ is another example of Twilight snark that has reached viral status. Based on Cleolinda Jones’ LiveJournal site (titled ‘Occupation: Girl’), it is the first in what became a series of sharp, parodic synopses of the Twilight novels and films, playing up the manifold absurdities of both the plot and style. Here follows an excerpt from Jones’ recap of the first Twilight film (2008, dir. Catherine Hardwicke):

Bella: Wait, what’s going on at the police station?

Edward: Wait, why is my not-dad there?

Carlisle: Bella, I’m so sorry … your father’s weird friend was killed by a feral plot point.

Bella: I didn’t even know we had those in this movie!

Carlisle [significant look]: I know. They’re very rare in Forks.

Edward [mind-reading]: D:<

As a result of the popularity of ‘Twilight in Fifteen Minutes’ (and her other Twilight recaps) Jones has become something of a Twilight authority, quoted in publications such as New York Magazine and Salon.⁵

It is worth considering whether these texts would in fact count as a form of fan fiction. This practice, like most types of active media fandom, is commonly seen as shameful in non-fandom circles, an attitude encapsulated by the reference in the Jezebel blog to ‘medieval-themed Twilight fan fic … from under the internet’s mattress’.⁶ I suspect that the authors might resist the fan fiction label, loaded as it is with connotations both of poor quality and of uncritical, obsessive fandom.⁷ None the less, both of these memes, particularly ‘Growing up Cullen’, perfectly fit the definition: they are imaginative texts that play with and extend an existing canon, and which demonstrate an extensive knowledge of, and pleasure in, that canon.

As well as ‘Twilight in Fifteen Minutes’ and the related recaps, Jones’ LiveJournal page also offers a considered analysis of the popularity of the Twilight series; called ‘My thoughts on Twilight: Let me show you them’. The essay approaches the canon in a subversive and parodic manner. For example, she writes: ‘it’s totes okay for a guy to stalk you and watch you while you sleep so long as he’s hot.’ Commenters on this post join in, with criticisms in a similar vein; ‘viorica8957’ writes: ‘it’s totes okay for your boyfriend to break your car to keep you from going to see someone he doesn’t like.’ In a telling metaphor, Jones’ article likens Twilight to ‘Twinkies’:

If you want gourmet pastry, or even a homemade cake, you know where to get that. If you’re eating a Twinkie, you clearly know what you want and why you’re eating it, and you know that it’s not good to eat very many of them, but … you know … sometimes you just want one....

Table of contents

• Cover
• About the Author
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Foreword
• Introduction
• Part 1. Mute Monsters and Vocal [Fan/] Critics: Genre and Reception
• Part 2. Werewolves, Lions and Lambs: Creating and Subverting the Generic Myth
• Part 3. Romancing the Tomb: Sexual Dysfunction and Sexuality
• Part 4. The Politics of Pallor: Post-colonialism and Racial Whiteness, Queered?
• Part 5. Slash and Burn: Deviating Fandom and Rewriting the Text
• Contributors