The Twilight Example

So, the third installment of The Twilight Saga, Eclipse, came out recently and it, as always, has everyone in a pop-culture gabfest. You either love it or hate it, or really really hate that you love it. I've long been a fan of vampire literature and media and its recent reemergence as a mainstream cashbox is really putting some new, and often horribly shameful, spins on the old Dracula paradigm. Last year I wrote a paper for a conference studying the long history of the abstinence trope within vampire mythology. The online version of the article can be found here.

It's interesting how vampires have become so closely linked to undertones of feminism. Today, I read a really probing discussion from The Good Men Magazine, titled "Driving in Cars With Vampires," investigating why teenage girls are so obsessed with the Edward-Bella relationship of Twilight. I think the true profundity of the conversation lies in the revelation that Edward and Bella have a really messed-up, creepy relationship, but at least it is a relationship. Meaning, teenage girls (and all women in general) are idealizing an emo and controlling undead monster because, unlike the men in reality, he's willing to commit. Hey, he doesn't even want to hook-up (though that may have more to do with the whole "I don't want to kill you with my vampiric, bloodsucking fangs" thing). Vampire media, be it Twilight or True Blood, is all about fulfilling women's modern fantasies. Both Sookie Stackhouse and Bella Swan have the undying (undead?) devotion of a slew of mythical man-creatures. And even if their lives are in constant threat of some otherworldy fatal onslaught, it's better than never getting called back. So, we can continue to escape to HBO or the movies...or we could start demanding a little more control and a little more respect from real, circulating men again.