The Twilight Love Effect: Where the Hell Have you Been, Loca?!

 I was at Hot Topic digging in their clearance racks, using my forearm to divide the dense layer of black clothing when my eyes widened. It was a Twilight tank top of Edward’s photo and the words team edward, a common phrase from the movies, shimmered as it hung on its hanger beckoning to me. I purchased my tank top and facetimed my best friend to show her my new find and once her eyes saw the top she cackled until her cheeks ran red. I’m 30 years old and the first Twilight movie premiered in 2008 when I was a freshman in high school, and I watched every installment from 2008 through 2012. I have fond memories of attending premiere night for every new installation in the Twilight series with my best friend I called on the phone, and her mother. I know what you’re thinking: yes, the books weren’t well written, yes the acting was sometimes mediocre, and yes the CGI love child of Edward and Bella is nightmarish. However, none of that mattered to us as teenagers because the reason we loved these cliche movies was due to Bella: she’s plainly herself. 

My friends and I related to Bella Swan because she’s purposely written as a plain 17-year-old girl that we inserted our lives into; she’s moody, insecure, and lower middle class. Bella has divorced parents who move her from Arizona to a new high school in Forks, Washington, where she eventually meets what the movies imply to be her soulmate. On the first day of school Bella sees the infamous Cullen family who are rich, cool, and good looking, when she notices that Edward Cullen stares her way and this was her initiation into a thrilling, desirable life. The Cullens are interesting and have a strong family bond that Bella doesn’t have with Charlie. She goes home and she feels alone with her father whereas she feels a sense of belonging with the Cullens. Their love begins when Edward watches Bella, his lab partner, stroll into Biology and discuss the phases of mitosis with him. Their conversation is extremely awkward as we can hear him choke on his words, pause, and then ask Bella a question about the weather which she gives him a hard time for, but we later learn it's because he couldn’t stop thinking about tasting her blood. These tense, stressful scenes are in every movie and me and my best friend always made fun of them because it’s obvious they’re sexually repressed. Yes, Edward’s desire to consume Bella’s blood and taste her flesh is an analogy for his yearning to have sex with her. However, they don’t have sex until after they’re married in Breaking Dawn part one and this waiting period was appealing to younger viewers. 

“My head is itchy,” I told my best friend as we laid on her verdant green lawn, pulling tufts of grass between our fingers. We finished watching Breaking Dawn part two and were in her backyard mimicking Twilight’s flower scene, ruminating on love since our series ended. She replied, “it’d be nice to find our own Edwards.” I threw a fistful of dandelions at her and told her, “Stop whining.” At the time, I wanted to find someone who loved a woman so deeply that he was obsessed with her like Edward, who had the financial stability to take her on luxurious trips, and most importantly, someone who looked past their lustful nature and genuinely loved a woman for her character. In the novels Edward tells Bella to “Stop trying to take your clothes off. It might be too late for my soul, but I will protect yours.” The movies portray Edward’s love as something so deep that it penetrates beyond the flesh and is eternal; hence, why Bella becomes a vampire so that they can love one another endlessly. If I had to define it, I’d say the Twilight Effect is when a woman, or young teen, believes there is a man out there who is willing to love her for eternity. Like I said before, I’m 30 and many members of the teen fanbase who grew up with these movies now understand how simplistic this view of love is. Despite this, Bella never had to change who she was in order to receive Edward’s love. She willingly chose to transform into a vampire so that she could reciprocate his affection and prevent their bond from being destroyed. The knowledge I have now informs me that love is complicated and occasionally ugly, a sharp contrast to Edward and Bella’s dreamlike scene in the flower field. I’ve outgrown the love portrayed in those flower fields that Bella and Edward romped around in, but I nostalgically remember what it felt like to believe in a love so intense.