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Twilight's Cringe Factor Reflects a Realistic High School Experience

     Being a parent in 2008 couldn’t have been easy. In addition to the already awkward talks of dating and sex they must have with their teenage children, there was the issue of navigating the new dating craze: dating a vampire. My own parents decided that I, at the ripe age of 8, was too young to see Twilight, starring Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson, in theaters. By the time I turned 11 though, all bets were off. Sliding the disc into my television’s DVD player, I prepared for a gothic enlightenment. 

    Maybe I was a cinephile in the making, or the cinematic quality of Twilight was so low that even a child could recognize its lackluster nature, but I was not impressed. Bella, the young high schooler that Edward the vampire falls in love with, didn’t connect with me. She was graceless and Edward was creepily pale. The acting was weak, the characters were weird, and it just didn’t click. Everything I knew about attraction was absent in this film. Years later, at the ripe age of 21, it dawned on me that this movie is uniquely transformative. I couldn’t have predicted it then, but probably to my past self’s disappointment, I was Bella (kind of)! I walked my high school’s halls with the same ineptitude as Bella until junior year. Maybe being a vampire’s muse would’ve helped me the way it helped Bella finally speak with some form of authority. I have changed my mind on the movie because I now hold enough life experience to recognize that Bella’s awkwardness is yes, next level, but not completely outlandish. It might even be to her advantage. 

    My predilections for Twilight are not isolated or obscure; once the movie was released on DVD in 2009, it was the most sold DVD of the year. There is a reason for that. Twilight is a cultural cornerstone where feminism and the damsel in distress fight for the spotlight; it is not obvious, but Bella awkwardly navigating the throes of love between a vampire and a werewolf is not because she is meek. Twilight brought the power to the woman. Yes, Bella was the least powerful of the supernatural men she was choosing between, but Edward was 104 years old in the movie and still unable to find love. In a matter of days, Bella seduces him in a way a century worth of women could not. The movie takes a preposterous plot and weaves in high school normalities that are sometimes ridiculous, but always entertaining. 

    Bella Swan is the female lead in Twilight. She moves from sunny Arizona to Forks, Washington to live with her divorced father. To capture the rainy and vampiric setting, the whole movie is shot with a pale blue filter reminiscent of a 2007 perfume commercial. The blue cast over each scene is jarring, but any attention given to it is then given to the shockingly bad dialogue that occurs throughout the movie. For example, as Bella enters a classroom and looks for a seat, a boy comes behind her, shakes his wet hat over her head and jokes, “Sup Arizona, huh? How you liking the rain, girl? Get used to it, girl.” This is an unpleasant situation to watch, let alone experience; Bella is obviously uninterested as she fakes a chuckle and slinks away, with the boy smitten thinking a job well done. However, it’s not unrealistic. How many countless times has this exact instant, with varying dialogue, occurred to every high schooler? A random person, in an attempt to flirt, somehow inconveniences or bothers them. This scene is cringy because it is cringy to think people actually do this. And they do. According to a survey conducted by the American Association of University Women in 2002, 83% of female students have been sexually harassed. The incident in the movie wasn’t sexual, but it still portrays a level of harassment that is relatable to anyone who went to school. At one point, I would’ve critiqued this scene as poor screenwriting because of the awkwardness I felt watching what was supposed to be a comical moment. However, when I watch the scene now, and physically grimace in response, I find it exceptionally accurate when it comes to high school seduction attempts. When I look at it that way, I can’t help but be impressed. Isn’t that the art of good screenwriting? To be so accurate that it makes us feel? 

    As I mentioned before, I had a problem with Bella. I wanted her to be defiant, capable, and confident from the start. There’s nothing wrong with this, but the desire probably came from the fact that that trope was the new one at the time. When I was between the ages of 8 and 11, I was watching movies like Harry Potter, where Hermione was clearly the smartest among the Harry, Ron, and herself trio. I felt like Bella needed to continue that trend, and be the female hero I seeked. The truth is, however, that every girl isn't Hermione. Confidence, a sense of self, and wit doesn’t always come naturally and as important as it is to have strong female role models, it’s just as important to cast those who have yet to come to that stage. Bella does, eventually, evolve to that girl, but in the meantime, she still, albeit unintentionally, holds the power; despite not being a great conversationalist herself, she calls Edward out on his banality: “you’re asking me about the weather?” she asks cooly, unimpressed. He stutters, as if he hasn’t had a century to practice his pick-up lines. There is no doubt that Bella is not always the feminist icon that parents want their daughters to look up to. She ditches her friends for her boyfriend, ignores her childhood friend Jacob while he pines for her attention, and is just overall cruel to her father; in one scene, she rushes out of the house saying if she doesn’t leave, she’ll be stuck with him, just like her mother was for years. All of this considered, she is fiercely loyal and in a bid to save her mother, ignores her boyfriend’s demands to lay low and hide from another vampire. Bella isn’t a strong woman all the time, but who is? She is 17 and in love for the first time. Take into account that her lover is a supernatural creature, and it’s amazing she comes out of the movie with only a broken leg. 

    I’m not saying Twilight was deserving of a Golden Globe or that any of the actors should’ve won an Oscar. However, the movie does and should hold a place in the cultural ether. Twilight was the mother for shows like The Vampire Diaries and True Blood where vampires are lovers, not demons to be slayed. The actors are not wrong to cringe at their performances years later, but the very thing they cringe at is what makes Twilight, Twilight. 

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