The Twilight Saga: New Moon. Starring Kristen Stewart, Taylor Lautner, Robert Pattinson, and Billy Burke. Written by Melissa Rosenberg (screenplay) and Stephenie Meyer (novel). Directed by Chris Weitz.
(For those of you unfamiliar, the Cullens, who are Edward’s vampire family, only drink the blood of animals to survive, even though they prefer human blood. The other, evil vampires in the movie, murder humans at will. Tsk, tsk.)
Twilight portrayed Bella as the passive object of vamp-Edward’s desire, who needed constant saving by him, from other vamps and from other men and from runaway cars, and who couldn’t make any decisions on her own throughout most of the movie. It shifts a little in the end, when Bella runs off to save her mother, ignoring the advice of the vampires who want to protect her. But by becoming an active subject in that scene, she’s punished, ultimately finding herself in a situation where Edward must save her yet again, literally by sucking poison from her blood.
But New Moon! How did you make me like you? It makes no sense—Bella still ends up in constant need of boy-saving, and she loses her freaking mind for months when Edward breaks up with her, which is not melodramatically showcased at all I swear, ha, by her constant nighttime screaming fits that force even her dad to run to her rescue. For the most part, Bella seems powerless, at the mercy of Edward, at the mercy of her nightmares, and eventually, at the mercy of the evil vampires who want to kill her (as punishment for Edward, who killed a vampire in Twilight).
So why did I find myself finally turning into an uber-fangirl as I watched? Because this time, the film is, dare I say … complicated.
Enter Jacob, Bella’s good friend who just happens to be a werewolf and who just happens to have the most incredible abs I’ve seen since Brad Pitt in Fight Club and who just happens to walk around with his shirt off constantly. And let’s remember the early scene in the school parking lot, where Bella watched as Edward walked toward her in exaggerated slow-motion, hair and button-down shirt blowing wistfully in the breeze, the camera steadied on him as Bella and me and fangirls across the country, yes, I’m going to say it, swoon. And then I started to wonder, “Is Bella entirely powerless?”
Not necessarily.
Because what strikes me most about the men in the Twilight saga is their desire to be looked at by Bella, which (fangirls everywhere unite!) positions Bella as the active subject (the gazer) and the men as passive objects (the gazed at). In the first film, Edward removes his shirt in the sunlight, revealing his twinkling vampire skin, and, upon seeing it, Bella says, “You’re beautiful.” She uses those words again in New Moon, this time with Jacob. When he says something along the lines of, “Why are you looking at me?” She responds with, “You’re sorta beautiful.”
Interestingly, (fangirls everywhere unite!) this direct physical objectification of women doesn’t exist in either movie—for instance, we don’t get traditional scenes of scantily clad girl-vamps trying to seduce men who they eventually eat (played as girl-power when it’s really just male fantasy).
But Bella isn’t without self-scrutiny. In the opening scene of the film, Bella dreams of herself as an old woman with Edward still at her side. That scene reveals an important plotline: fear of aging. Bella sees herself through the eyes of Edward (and therefore, men in general). She sees herself getting older while he stays young and twinkly-beautiful. She says, “You won’t want me when I’m a grandmother.” These feelings stem from living in a society that devalues aging women, and I like that the film explores the issue. Edward’s response? “You obviously don’t understand my feelings for you, Bella.”
Okay, so this is a total fangirl fantasy, right? I mean, a beautiful man loving you for what’s on the inside? I mean, honestly, we’re smarter than that, right? Right?! (Am I kidding?)
Still, in New Moon, even though Bella performs reckless acts, like jumping off a cliff and wrecking a motorcycle, just so faux-Edward will magically appear in some wavy fog-mist to male-dominate and tell her it’s dangerous, she still performs reckless acts. She makes decisions. She risks her life. For love! Ha. Of course, the fact that Edward can no longer save her—he isn’t physically there for real—means Jacob must step in. He does nice things … like taking off his shirt to reveal his Brad Pitt in Fight Club abs and to coincidentally wipe the blood from her forehead. He turns into a werewolf and saves her from one of the bad vamps. He performs CPR. Oh Jacob!
But then, after all this constant being saved by vampire-men and wolf-men, something amazing happens. Bella saves Edward. And even after she saves him, she saves him again, by convincing the Lead Evil Vampire God or Whatever to kill her instead of Edward. He doesn’t kill Bella, of course, because he becomes interested in—check out this awesomeness—her immunity to vampire powers. That’s right: the vampire mind readers can’t read Bella’s mind and the Dakota Fanning vampire can’t inflict mystical pain on Bella just by looking at her. It’s like Bella’s a vamp’s version of a superhero!
Look, is the film flawed? Yes.
The objectification of the men, for instance, also becomes an objectification of The Other (vampire/werewolf). Bella wants Edward to turn her into a vampire so they can be together forever but also because she doesn’t want to age (i.e. become undesirable). Bella can’t function when Edward leaves her, and she risks hurting herself just to get a glimpse of him again. Edward is 106 years old and she’s 18—would that work if the genders were reversed? And, when Edward agrees to turn Bella into a vampire, he insists that they marry first, which plays an awful lot like some creepy, conservative, let’s-get-married-before-I-take-your-virginity nonsense, creating that metaphor for teen abstinence vibe again.
But Bella isn’t a one-dimensional character anymore. In New Moon, she’s much more fleshed out, and perhaps most importantly, she doesn’t have to take her clothes off or perform a certain kind of femininity to get the boy. Edward falls for her because he finds her intriguing: he can’t read her thoughts (see True Blood), and he’s drawn to her because she smells delicious, sex metaphor? Jacob falls in love with Bella after they spend significant time together; it’s not some love-at-first-sight fantasy where he sees Bella, and the camera pans from her feet all the way up her legs and finally to her face where she either smiles coyly or looks down shyly.
As Dana Stevens writes in her review of New Moon:
The feminist in me wishes a lot of things. But say what you will about the Twilight films; they take female desire as seriously as a grad student from the early ’90s. The whole overcooked vampire vs. werewolf mythology (which also involves packs of shirtless wolf-boys and a sort of vampire Pope, played with camp glee by Michael Sheen) is, in essence, an excuse to place the viewer in Bella’s Timberland boots: torn between two flesh-eating monsters, feelin’ like a fool. Haters may construe Bella as a passive victim eager to be served up as vampire meat, but she’s the subject of this love story, not its object; she’s the lover while Edward and Jacob are her diametrically opposed beloveds, one hot-blooded (Jacob runs a constant body temperature of 108 degrees), the other pale and cold as stone.
Be sure to check out the Salon article, “Could New Moon Be a Feminist Triumph?” where Kate Harding argues that the movie’s box office gross could be a game-changer for the future of women in film.
i wonder if you are reading too much into this. why can we objectify men but not girls? why cant bella be saved by the boys who are physically stronger, not because they are boys but because they have supernatural powers. why cant she love him with her whole heart and want to try to find a way to “see” him again. whats so wrong with abstinence? its not so common now but there is no reason to think its a message that the author is sending, it suits the storyline… Its a lovely story, lets just enjoy it.
Great review. Jacob is fine. Sexy fine. I find
Edward a tad controlling. Bella and Jacob’s relationship
is based on equal footing. They talk. Bella and Edward?
What do they talk about??
Hi Anonymous,
Thanks for your comment. My main goal in reviewing this film was to look closely at how women (and fangirls in particular) experience it. Many film critics have easily dismissed the Twilight saga as antifeminist garbage, and I wanted to look at it through a different lens, especially since the movie has broken box office records with the number of women who show up at the theater. Since movie studios have talked repeatedly about how “women don’t go to movies” (and then use it as an excuse to not make women-centered films or films that appeal to women), the Twilight saga is a huge deal for moviegoers, and women in film. So, I guess that was my long way of saying, I don’t necessarily think I’m reading too much into this.
We live in a society where you can’t get away from images of women’s bodies, and it’s becoming increasingly common to see men’s bodies displayed on billboards and magazines as well. It turns the person being looked at into someone who has no control or power. I only wanted to show that the fangirls who watch the movie, and who identify with Bella, might experience the power that she experiences when she gazes at the male bodies. Often in movies, it’s the women who walk around barely clothed, but that’s not the case here. It’s interesting that in Bella’s world, be it fantasy or not, the reverse is true, and women don’t exist as objects for men to look at.
But I would argue that in most of the instances where Bella finds herself in need of rescuing, the supernatural powers, or even physical strengths, aren’t necessarily required (like when Bella falls off the motorcycle or when, in Twilight, Edward finds her in an alley being harassed). If the writer(s) wanted to get creative, they could consider giving Bella some power and letting her get herself out of some jams—I believe New Moon started to head in that direction in the end. After all, it was a team of two women who ran to Edward’s rescue, and it was Bella who inevitably saved him from death.
Hannah,
I’m definitely in agreement with you. Edward and Bella kind of stare at each other longingly; when they speak, it’s usually about vampirism or how he needs to protect her. I think he’s less controlling in New Moon, though. Twilight was straight-up stalker territory. Jacob and Bella do things, like joke around, go to the movies, normal teen stuff—the Edward/Bella intensity isn’t there, but the Jacob/Bella relationship definitely seems more balanced.
I haven’t seen the movie(s) or read the books, but based on what I’ve picked up about both, I was initially quite skeptical of any kind of positive take. You do make some very interesting points, though, which force me to think about the Twilight phenomenon a bit differently.
Question: Does Bella have female friends? Does she have a mother? You mention her father coming to her aide one night; are there women in her life who she, as Claudine says about Jacob, does things/talks with? In other words, does NM pass the Bechdel test? If not, isn’t the film just reinforcing the notion that men should be at the center of a woman’s life, that men make better companions, etc.?
Our recent Review in Conversation of Sex and the City brought up similar issues–and similar tensions–about woman-centered films. While both of us basically hated SATC when we saw it, we were able to take a step beyond that and praise the film for its focus on female friendship and enlightened sexuality. At the end, however, these seemed like small tokens in a film that ultimately promotes a lot of the things we abhor about the representation of women in film (hyper-commercialism and materialism, traditional values about marriage and gender roles, blindness to class and race). My big question is this: Why give New Moon a bigger pass–when it promotes conservative notions of female sexuality (ooh, it’s dangerous–even though Bella is an adult, right?), gender roles, and what should be most important in a woman’s life (OMG, boys!)?
Bella does have a few girlfriends she interacts with, but for the most part, she seems disinterested and distracted when she’s with them.
In Twilight, she goes shopping for prom dresses with her friends but ends up watching them try on dresses; she doesn’t participate, then decides to leave to do vamp-research at a bookstore. In New Moon, she tells her father she’s heading out for a girls’ night, then goes to see a zombie film with one of her female friends. Again, she ends up leaving her friend when she becomes distracted by Edward’s fog-presence.
Her mother lives in another state—Bella talks with her on the phone in Twilight, and when she believes her mother to be in danger of a vamp-attack, Bella runs to save her (but ends up in danger herself). Her mother makes no appearance in New Moon. So, all in all—yes, these films technically pass the Bechdel test, but it’s still quite clear that Bella’s world revolves around Edward (but his world revolves around her, too).
Actually, I really like the relationship that Bella has with Edward’s vampire sister, Alice, in New Moon. While they only briefly interact, it’s supportive and healthy (with birthday presents and hugs and everything), and when Edward leaves, along with Alice, it’s clear that Bella genuinely misses Alice as well. In the end, Alice and Bella make the trip to save Edward together.
While the female friendships definitely aren’t the focus of these films, the girls all get along well. No jealousy, no judgment over the fact that Bella’s dating the creepy guy, just genuine excitement that she’s got a boyfriend. And when Bella joins her group of friends again, after sitting alone through months of Edward-abandonment depression, they all willingly embrace her, no questions asked.
I like that A LOT about the movie. So often in teen films that take place in high schools, you can’t get away from girl hate, jealousy, body shaming, slut shaming. These films don’t go there.
I’m struggling with my SATC hatred vs my New Moon defense. I think my willingness to defend New Moon comes from the fact that it’s absolutely adored by TEEN fangirls everywhere, it brings in huge box office numbers—exclusively because women go see it—and there’s finally a TEEN girl franchise that measures up to all the teen-boy targeted, misogynist crap like Transformers that plagues the summer months.
And, women critics everywhere (and we hardly have any, compared to the male critics, who, by the way, also bash these films) have risen up and flat-out destroyed the Twilight movies in their reviews, claiming antifeminism and misogyny. It’s not that I mind the attacks, necessarily—they’re certainly deserved in many ways—but I don’t understand the vitriol that women critics have for, finally! a woman-driven movie franchise!, when these same critics hardly extend that kind of criticism toward the teen-boy franchises that deliberately and consciously exploit their female characters for the pleasure of teen boys.
Why the hate now?
My question is, Why do fangirls make us so uncomfortable? Why do we mock them? Why is it okay for fanboys to fantasize about a (misogynist) world where hot women parade around for them, but we can’t let fangirls fantasize about being desired by two insanely hot guys, having their pick of either, without screaming ANTIFEMINISM.
I appreciate the way in which this review was written, and I might say that it does bring up some issues – whether or not it’s an antifeminist movie, whether or not men are being objectified etc. The thing is, that after seeing it, though I consider myself an observer of detailes, I didn’t notice anything, it just left me with a warm fuzzy feeling, because it’s not presenting us an intricate plot with subversive detailes. It’s one of those movies you just enjoy, without analyzing it too much
I think That the Twilight movies and The Transformers movies have some similarities. If you look at Bella and Sam they are the same in a sense. Sam is the nerdy boy who gets the beautiful girl not because he is the typical popular good looking muscle man.
Do I make any sense here?
from emilie:
while i do think that this is a well-thought out and well-written review of the film, i also think that you’re grasping at straws. yes, the movie is technically “female-centered” in the sense that a female is at the center of a fucked up love triangle, but let’s be honest here. if it weren’t for jacob and edward, no teen girls would be going to see these movies. if it were truly female-centered and not just another run-of-the-mill teen romance movie, it would have more of a cult following (i.e. “buffy”) versus the huge commerical success that it’s enjoyed. i know you’re a “buffy” fan as well, stephanie, so you’ll know what i’m talking about here. think about it…for a huge portion of the “buffy” series, she was single. certainly her relationships played a role in the plotline (especially with angel), but the main focus of the show was on her kicking everyone’s ass and saving the world. because she was empowered. because she didn’t need a man. the men in her life were there because she chose them, and sometimes those relationships ended because they were threatened by her independence and power. so typical.
bella, on the other hand, is not a role model of any kind for young girls. when her boyfriend leaves her (and as you mentioned above, he is extremely controlling of her prior to this), she literally loses her mind. her world stops. all hope disappears until another guy comes along and essentially “saves” her. that’s not the message i want to be sending to girls. “you’re nothing without a man” is what it boils down to. having the ability to make the choice to harm yourself because you can’t live without the controlling vampire freak of a boyfriend who left you because he was a pussy does not a strong woman make. that’s a sad, desperate girl who has nothing if she doesn’t have edward.
you mention that her character is more fleshed out in this movie. i would argue exactly the opposite. i think the complicated nature of her relationships with edward and jacob are fleshed out, but this is again centered around the men in her life. we learn nothing new or interesting about her as a person. what is she like apart from edward or jacob? we have no idea. no one addresses it, and no one seems to care. they’re just there for the love story.
so, i enjoy jacob’s abs as much as the next girl, but i would never claim that this movie is anything other than lame hollywood fluff.
Emilie (hi!):
I actually think you could make the argument, regarding Buffy, that she was rarely without a love interest—in fact, Angel came onto the show almost immediately, and from that moment onward, Buffy was pretty much romantically engaged in one way or another for the entire run of the show. Even if it just meant randomly meeting up with Angel or hate-screwing Spike while the house crumbled around them, the girl always had a few jealous boys lusting after her (including her good friend Xander).
And that’s what happens in New Moon: Bella has hot boys fighting over her. Yes, Buffy is an ass-kicking superhero, but that’s the difference—she’s got supernatural powers. She’s a vampire slayer. She’s either physically as strong as or stronger than the evil she’s supposed to be fighting, and she’s got a whole slew of people around her (the Scoobies) helping her do that, including her (male) Watcher, whose sole role is to, you know, watch her and make sure she doesn’t die.
In New Moon, Bella manages to save Edward’s life, without being a superhero. She has help from Alice—I’ll go as far as to say she couldn’t have saved him without Alice—but, ultimately, she still saves him. Does that mean NOTHING to you? 😉
I touched on this in my review: Bella appeals to me because the film rarely focuses on her physical attractiveness. Yeah, you can look at her, as the viewer, and realize she’s attractive, but she’s treated as a regular teen. Buffy was somehow always looking amazing, even after beating the shit out of zombies and/or walking around in The Hell Mouth. That’s a lot for a girl viewer to live up to. Not only that, but the men of Buffy constantly make a big deal out of her hotness.
(I can’t think of many teen movies or television shows where body image and objectification of girls/women doesn’t become an issue at some point, and I can’t think of any vampire movies where women, either vamps or non-vamps, aren’t constantly physically objectified.)
Okay. So. Would I have liked for Bella to help fix the motorcycle, rather than merely watching Jacob do it? Yes. Would I have liked for Bella to not melodramatically pass out in the middle of the woods after Edward broke up with her? Yes. Would I have liked for Bella to engage with the world in a way that didn’t exclusively involve obsessing over Edward? Of course. But, you know, the film is a total rewrite of Romeo & Juliet: obsessive love, I can’t live without you, if you leave me I’m going to fucking kill myself, etc. It’s a tragedy, baby!
Keep in mind too, Bella doesn’t magically get over Edward because Jacob magically enters her life and magically brushes away all her lusty vamp-thoughts to the point that she’s all, “oh thank god, a new man has entered my life, now I’m whole again!” She seeks out Jacob herself. She goes to movies with Jacob. At one point, she might even throw a slice of pizza at Jacob (did I just make that up?). Anyway, it’s a far cry from “i’m nothing without a man I need to go find one” … it’s a genuine attempt at friendship after months of depression.
You might have a point about Bella’s character not being necessarily “more fleshed out,” but she certainly grows in New Moon. She isn’t entirely helpless anymore. She isn’t just tossed around, always at the whim of Edward’s moodiness and emotional abuse. But you’re right, the film is definitely flawed, and I address many of those flaws in my review.
So now I’m wondering: if we read this film as an updated Romeo & Juliet, does it make the film any more, or less, problematic or antifeminist?
Both the Transformer franchise and the Twilight franchise are about the awkward, nerd and unusual suspect getting what they fantasise about. don`t you see they are about the regular person fulfilling the dream Hollywood said was the most important one
I haven’t read any of the writing on the anti-feminist nature of the film, but it seems to me that any critic, male or female, would be doing his/her job by pointing out the aesthetic problems in this film. As someone who teaches dramatic writing, the script for New Moon is hideous. Edward is a vampire, so he has to leave Bella to protect her, which makes her sad. Jacob is a werewolf, so he has to leave Bella to protect her, which makes her sad. It’s the same damn conflict dealt with the same damn way twice. That’s the epitome of lazy writing. Additionally, when she wakes from her dream beside a copy of Romeo and Juliet, then her and Edward watch the movie together, don’t you kind of want to punch yourself? That’s the most heavy-handed symbolism since Tennessee Williams gave a crippled girl a broken glass animal. And that’s without getting into the bad acting and directing, as well as the heavy-handed emotionalism.
It would seem to me that might be a place to begin an anti-feminist argument. Why must a female-centric movie be so badly made? Shouldn’t the goal be not to associate female desire with the bad aesthetics that have been accepted in phallocentric action films? Also, the sentimentalism of the film, which is also part of it’s success, encourages female viewers to passively relate to suffering, rather than to actively engage the world (i.e., the rotating camera, month-passing, moping scene with Bella, complete with emo music). After all, Bella only becomes active after Edward’s departure when she meets another boy, and Jacob, though it is before Edward leaves, actually initiates talking to Bella. And that whole thing about intentionally endangering herself to get Edward’s attention is a bit of an issue, I would think. Not exactly the image of love to project to young girls, is it?
As for reversing the gaze, I noticed when I was watching the film as well that it tended to show male flesh, rather than female flesh, which is interesting. But I’m not sure the parading of depictions of underage male bodies is particularly a good thing. It’s different, but isn’t the goal to overcome objectifying gazes regardless of the subject?
Btw, Wikipedia the arc of the four books. The arc of the story in the end is the opposite of tragedy. In fact, the last book was critiqued both for medieval representations of sex and pregnancy and for allowing the characters to all get what they want in the end. Not quite Romeo and Juliet (in fact, Romeo and Juliet were much more active participants; they didn’t spend a lot of time sitting around sad).
Also, could you point me to some of the movie studios that have said women don’t go to films? I remember seeing reporting as far back as Titanic (which is interesting to compare to NM) on groups of young girls who would watch movies over and over again. And my impression with NM was that the studios new exactly which buttons to push to get money from adolescent girls.
From Heather…
Okay, I’m a little bit pissed about the Buffy spoiler, Steph. Hate-screwing Spike while the house crumbles down around them? You bitch.
SPOILER ALERT!!!!!
Everyone running with the anti-feminist view will HATE Eclipse this June, but listen, son… how about Breaking Dawn. Yeah, that’s the one where Bella becomes the most powerful vampire EVER… She’s runnin’ this shit, people.
Great post. I like your points about the flipping of the gaze and regarding Bella as a desiring subject driving the narratives. In relation to your point that “The objectification of the men, for instance, also becomes an objectification of The Other (vampire/werewolf),” I would point out that non-white men (the Quileute, Laurent) are more or hyper-objectified and perpetually shirtless — unlike the usually clothed vamps. I think this links to the real-world tendency to sexualize men-of-color more readily and to white male privilege…
I know I’m very, very late to this, but I’ll comment anyway because the post is on the side bar.
I don’t disagree with the post itself, but with the replies you gave in the comments. I think it’s because my view of the movies is tainted by information given in the books only, but, considering that the majority of the movie viewers will have read the books too, I feel that my points of view are valid.
Jacob v. Edward: I think it’s easy to like Jacob because Edward is so unlikeable and his relationship with Bella has so clear issues that have been examined exaustively, but I don’t think Jacob is so much better if you look deeper. Jacob is a Nice Guy (TM). He uses the friendship that Bella feels for him to try to manipulate her into a romantic relationship. He’s not satisfied with being her friend, so he hovers around in the hopes that she’ll change her mind, ranting about how he’s nice and Edward isn’t. He resents her for rejecting him, and he doesn’t lose any opportunity to try to guilt trip her by pointing out that everything bad that happens to him is her fault because he loves her. And wasn’t it in New Moon that he used his werewolf super force to grab and kiss her while she tried to say no and physically fight him away? I know lots of Team Jacob fans think it sexy, but I just think it’s sexual assault. Oh, and Jacob did fall in love with Bella at first sight. He just didn’t make his move immediately because he was only 14 at the time.
Edward becoming less controlling: I think he’s even more pathologically controlling than before. Edward is scared of his attraction for Bella, and he tries to deal with it by controlling her. In Twilight, he tries to conciliate his fear and a relationship, so he hangs around her and at the same time tells Bella that everything she does is wrong and everything she wants is too dangerous. In New Moon, he goes to extremes and tells her she just can’t see him anymore, and later he attempts suicide to keep himself away from her. Maybe bad, simplistic analogy, but it’s kind of like the control factor in eating and self-harm disorders. And maybe there can be an argument that, in New Moon, he turns the control he exerced on Bella on himself.
Also, there’s the problem that Edward should have the right to decide to not have a relationship and not have sex with Bella regardless of being attracted/in love with her, and Bella shouldn’t have the right to force him to either just because she’s aware of his attraction/love, and because we think that his saying no is an attempt to control her. There’s an undercurrent on the fandom of “SIlly Edward, your mouth says no but your body/heart says yes” and “men are always up for it deep inside” that really bothers me. It’s totally rape culture.
I know that these last two paragraphs are contraditory, but I’m ok with thinking it’s not that one negates the other, but that these books/movies are just wrong in several different levels.
Oops, I’m not finished…
Bella’s female human friends: she hangs out with her female human friends, but she feels superior to them. She considers them all just silly teen girls who only think of (human) boys, parties, clothes and make-up (Bella has that thing where women who put effort into looking good deserve scorn because it’s such a womanly, therefore silly, concern), as opposed to her own high minded thoughts about Edward, vampires, and Edward. She’s really judgemental about her human peers, and the human girls more than the human boys. She might think the boys act like pathetic puppies for being interested in her, but at least she remembers their names. The other girls might not judge Bella and might not engage in the “girl hate, jealousy, body shaming, slut shaming”, but Bella does it for everybody else. She dismisses the human girls as inferiors to the vampires, the human boys, and herself especially, as she’s sooooo not Like Them.
Bella’s female vampires friends: Rosalie hates her and doesn’t even speak to her unless forced by the other vampires. For most of the series there’s a suggestion that Rosalie is jealous of Edward (Rosalie was made a vampire to be given to Edward as a mate – because she was so pretty – but Edward rejected her). I think it’s only in the last book that Rosalie tells Bella she hates her because she wanted to have babies, so she disapproves of Bella’s choice of marrying Edward and becoming a vampire for love, instead of finding a human guy to have babies with.
Alice is nicer, but she also forces her own views of femininity on Bella, and helps Edward control her. Bella doesn’t like parties and doesn’t like to dress up, but Alice joins Edward to trick Bella into going to the prom (after Bella said she didn’t want to), buys dresses for Bella, applies make-up, does Bella’s hair, organizes Bella’s birthday party (after Bella had said she didn’t want one)…
Focus on Bella’s physical attractiveness: well, everything is told from Bella’s point of view, and she’s at the same time self-deprecating and hating female beauty rituals as a mark of inferiority, but she does make a point of showing how every single boy in the school is interested in her, following her around like a puppy. So I think the idea was that we’d think Bella was gorgeous but too nice to be aware of it.
Finally:
Why the hate: I hate and fear that boys and men get all that pop culture made for them that’s so full of misogyny, yes, but I feel like the antifeminism and misogyny in pop culture targeted at women, and very young women especially, does a bigger damage, and is a bigger betrayal, because of the potential for internalization.
For example: I once saw a guest of my father making rape jokes in a Christmas party at my parents’ house, and I confronted him. While explaining what was wrong, I mentioned I had been assaulted and that he was triggering me. My father told me to get over it and tried to shut me up. I think he was embarrassed that I called out a guest (even though I was polite, he thinks correcting anyone isn’t polite no matter what you’re correcting), but also that he worried the people who heard me would think his daughter was a bad girl for having been assaulted, that I provoked it somehow. Yes, it hurt a lot that my own father did that, but at least I stood up to the guest and to my father, and went on defending myself and all the other women who were also bothered by the jokes but didn’t think they could say anything (they talked to me the next day when the men were somewhere else.) And how many years before that had I been silent and tolerated it because I too had internalized that I couldn’t say anything either?
So yeah, I hate it that boys watch Transformers and think the best thing about a woman fixing a car’s motor is the way her ass points up and her breasts hang when she bends over the chassi. But I fear even more that girls watch Twilight and think that being kissed by force against their will is sexy and that being stalked and controlled is a proof of love, and that they’ll unwittingly join the Transformer boys as part of the problem.
Breaking Dawn: what I liked most is that half of the book seems to be variations of Bella saying “No, Edward, it’s not for you to decide because the body is mine”.