Cover Actor Robert Pattinson and actress Kristen Stewart arrive at the Los Angeles Premiere "The Twilight Saga: Eclipse" at Regal 14 at LA Live Downtown on June 24, 2010 in Los Angeles, California.
Actor Robert Pattinson and actress Kristen Stewart arrive at the Los Angeles Premiere "The Twilight Saga: Eclipse" at Regal 14 at LA Live Downtown on June 24, 2010 in Los Angeles, California.
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Many fans of the ‘The Twilight Saga’ franchise are waiting to sink their teeth into Netflix’s new animated spinoff. But we hope some of the fantasy romance’s problematic tropes have been left in the last decade
As much as Hollywood is inventive and innovative, as proved by the recent success of the tale of a woman’s emancipation, Poor Things (2023) and instant cult classic, The Substance (2024) starring Demi Moore; Hollywood also knows how to make a fortune off people’s yearn for comfort—and more specifically, nostalgia.
Yes, we’re talking about the animated remake of The Twilight Saga, the hit film franchise that was based on Stephenie Meyer’s wildly-popular-at-that-time Twilight novels. While teenagers in the 2000s collectively swooned at the romance fantasy between Bella Swan, a young girl, and Edward Cullen, a vampire, there were many problematic tropes in the original franchise that we hope have been left in the last decade.
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Romanticisation of toxic relationships
Let’s get straight to the heart of the matter: the relationship between Edward and Bella in The Twilight Saga is plagued with red flags from the get-go.
Stalking and assaulting Bella? Check. Normalising the predatory age gap? Check (Edward is a 104-year-old vampire while Bella is a teenager). Breaking into Bella’s mansion to watch her sleep? Check. Micromanaging Bella’s private life and denying access to her friends? Also, check.
But Edward’s controlling nature was often misinterpreted and romanticised as being romantic, feeding a potentially harmful idea of romance to young audiences who might not have known better at that time.
Exploitation and appropriation of Native American culture
We can’t talk about The Twilight Saga without also mentioning the many misconceptions that befell the Quileute tribe as a result of the series’ cultural appropriation. One of the book’s characters is Jacob Black, who is supposed to belong to the Quileute tribe, but the way the community was represented caused them to voice concerns over inaccuracies and appropriation of their cultural identity.
For a culture with such a rich heritage to be reduced to a mere plot device or aesthetics played into harmful stereotypes that did not honour the profundity of the Quileute culture.
But we would like to think it’s not too late to turn the tables and set the record straight, given an animated reboot is in the works. A great starting point would be to approach Native American cultures with sensitivity and respect, to cast Native American voice actors to tell their own stories and to incorporate elements of the Native American heritage into the story in an educational way.
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Bella as a damsel in distress waiting to be saved
While we discuss what can be done right in the animated remake of The Twilight Saga, it doesn’t hurt to reflect on the series’ missteps, one of them being Bella’s dependency on the men around her. Bella Swan often exudes the vibe of a self-handicapped damsel in distress caught in a love triangle, rather than being a three-dimensional, fully realised heroine in her own right.
While the idea of a helpless young woman being ‘saved’ by a 104-year-old vampire might have resonated with the audience back then, we struggle to see how the cultural climate in recent times has a place for a woman like Bella Swan, whose sense of worth came entirely from the validation of the men she surrounded herself with, rather than as an independent woman who can buy herself flowers and write her name in the sand the way she pleases.
