I received an interesting press release last week about a new book called Bitten by Twilight: Youth Culture, Media & The Vampire Franchise. I’d like to share it with you, as well as some thoughts I had after reading it.
In their book, Bitten by Twilight: Youth Culture, Media, & the Vampire Franchise University of Missouri communication professors analyze the Twilight fandom from a variety of perspectives.
COLUMBIA, Mo. – As fans eagerly await The Twilight Saga: Eclipse set for release on June 30, University of Missouri communication experts have published a scholarly book on Twilight, Bitten by Twilight: Youth Culture, Media, & the Vampire Franchise, that analyzes the Twilight franchise and finds it to be unique for a variety of factors. In their book, communication professors Melissa Click, Jennifer Stevens Aubrey and Elizabeth Behm-Morawitz analyze the importance of gender dynamics to the Twilight franchise.
Despite the record-breaking success of the first two Twilight films, Summit Entertainment shifts marketing strategies with its third film to attract a male audience, MU researchers said. With the latest Twilight film, the researchers observe that the marketing of Eclipse highlights a subplot of Stephenie Meyer’s book that is dark and violent, a ploy to draw male moviegoers. The official full-length trailer for Eclipse promotes the film largely as an action movie instead of focusing on the love triangle that is established in the third book of the Twilight series.
“Although the establishment of a love triangle in Eclipse is central to the story and marks a very important turning point in the series, the movie trailer highlights the action, rather than the romantic, elements of the story,” Aubrey said. “Why is Summit doing this? From a cultural point of view, the media industry doesn’t confer cultural legitimacy on texts until they are embraced by men, not just women.”
“Summit’s desire to draw a larger male audience signals a discrepancy in the way Hollywood values male and female moviegoers,” said Click. “What Summit fails to see is that by courting male audiences, they are devaluing Twilight’s devoted female fans and missing an incredible opportunity to develop the terms for future female franchises.”
“The success of the Twilight franchise is on par with other culturally legitimate franchises, such as Star Wars and Harry Potter, but it has a largely female fan base, which makes it easy to ridicule,” said Behm-Morawitz. “Twilight’s story line shares much in common with these other franchises – including against-the-odds romance, super powers and epic battle scenes – but it has become clear that to be granted the same level of respect Twilight must get the boys and men on board. It is disappointing to see that many people dismiss or ridicule Twilight fans instead of truly trying to understand the fan experience and the appeal of Twilight.”
In their book, the researchers analyze the Twilight fandom from a variety of perspectives.
“One of the interesting things about Twilight is that fans want to live in the Twilight universe,” Click said. “The franchise capitalizes on this need by providing merchandise that supports this fantasy.”For example, fans can purchase clothes and jewelry worn by Bella Swan and other major characters in the film and books. In addition, the success of the franchise has largely been built on the celebrity of the actors who play the main characters so that fans have an embodiment of the fans’ beloved characters.
Bitten by Twilight: Youth Culture, Media, & the Vampire Franchise was released this month by publisher Peter Lang.
My questions are after the jump. Keep reading.
Here are my questions. I’d love to get your input:
How does one delineate between “male” and “female” oriented
entertainment? Sure, I think that most of us have ideas about this
(”chick flicks,” or “Movies for Guys Who Like Movies”) but what’s a more
scholarly definition? Help me deconstruct this.If we can all agree on a workable definition of male or female-oriented
movies, then why do these different forms of entertainment appeal to the
genders? How much of this is shaped by popular culture and gender
mores, versus innate biological preferences, and how does one even begin
to separate the two?
I also question the assumption that that this film will is engineered in
a way to draw in male fans. Am I being unreasonable in my own
characterizations of male moviegoers? Are there any dangers in drawing
these sorts of analogies? Conversely, should I say that a horror movie
with a romantic subplot is betraying its male audience?
If we accept that this new film does appeal to male film-goers, then the
authors see this as presenting a message that a franchise that appeals
to women isn’t legitimate unless it also has buy-in from men. I’m
extremely interested in this line of discourse. First, what does this
say about movie series that make no attempt to appeal to male audiences,
like the Sex and the City films?
Also, how does this correlate with the message of the Twilight
films and books as a series? It seems that there has been some criticism
that their depiction of Bella Swan itself presents a dubious message
about female autonomy: that a woman isn’t complete without the
attentions of a man.
Finally, is it true that Twilight isn’t taken seriously as a
pop culture phenomenon? It seems like I can’t get away from it:
magazines, television and the internet is awash in Twilight.
Even Burger King is offering product tie-ins. Seems like a genuine pop
culture phenomenon to me. What counts as being “taken seriously?”
Suvudu readers,
Twilight fans, and arm-chair pop culture theoreticians:
care to give me your take? For further thoughts regarding Twilight and gender dynamics, read this excellent post from my Suvudu colleague, David Pomerico.
Matt, good questions. I had similar ones after reading Twilight, which I wrote up for Suvudu as well: http://bit.ly/quEnt
You raise some good questions, ones that I don’t think I can answer without taking up a ton of space. But I can succinctly give my opinion as to why the third Twilight film is focusing on the action subplot instead of the romance.
Girls love Twilight, a lot of them, at least, and those female fans are going to see the third movie, no matter what. They were going to see the third movie before the second movie even came out, because they’re devoted fans. By focusing on the action, the third film is trying to get the guys to see the movie. Not because of any sexist reason – simply because if the guys see the movie, that’s more money made.
If a guy sees the third movie for the action, and gets swept up in the story, he’s likely to watch or buy the first two movies and reserve a seat for the fourth movie. It’s simple business, branching out to gain a larger audience. Hollywood can be very complex, but it can also be very predictable. The Twilight series is hugely popular with girls, so they don’t need to do anything to keep them interested. What they’re missing are the guys, and an action-packed movie is exactly what they need to get the guys in the theater.
Anecdotes are not data, I know, but I am female and I would be far more likely to see this film, with the fun battle scenes, than I would either of the previous two, which focused mostly on romance, and more likely to see the action-filled film than to actually crack open any of the books. (I have not seen any of the films or read the books, but because I spend more than three seconds daily on the Internet I’ve found that complete plot spoilers and in-depth analysis are utterly unavoidable.)
I take great issue with their claim that the ridicule of Twilight is because the fanbase is female. I actually find it a little insulting, because they jump right to assuming it’s gender-related and completely ignore the quality of the books. I’m not saying the issue they’re discussing doesn’t exist, it most certainly does, but I don’t think it applies nearly as much as they say it does in this case.
There is a reason so many people make fun of/can’t stand Twilight (actually more than one reason, but I’m not trying to start a Twilight war, so I’ll just leave it at that). I think they completely miss the point: people don’t like Twilight usually because they think it’s bad writing/storytelling/etc., though I also know many people don’t like it because it’s everywhere and the devoted fans can be pretty nuts sometimes. It has nothing to do with the male approval thing they’re talking about.
And is it hard to believe that Summit’s motivation for going for male audiences is something other than money-related? Getting a bigger male audience increases the amount of moviegoers, therefore making them more money (not that they need it, but hey, it’s the movie industry, right?). Again, nothing to do with what they’re talking about. Sure, I bet the male approval issue did play a role, but not nearly as large a one as they’re implying.
I think your point about the message of Twilight is much more relevant to why it’s ridiculed so much. Other criticisms include Edward being an obsessive controlling stalker, the absolutely ridiculous vampire mythology she created, Bella being a Mary Sue character, and the quality of the story. (again, no Twilight wars please, that’s not the point) If so many people are raising issues like those, I think there are more influential factors than male audience acceptance.
“It is disappointing to see that many people dismiss or ridicule Twilight fans instead of truly trying to understand the fan experience and the appeal of Twilight”
so… all the haters are just being silly and they should try to understand and appreciate a franchise they can’t stand?
Is it just me, or does that sound awfully condescending?
First of all, thank you for pointing out this book. Secondly, I think the three editors do have a point.
Consider this: Every installment of the Twilight series has been helmed by a different director. Twilight was directed by Catherine Hardwicke, i.e. a woman in a profession that is still traditionally male dominated, and immediately became the highest grossing film by a female director of all time. But even though Twilight was successful, the production company replaced Ms. Hardwicke with a male director mainly known for silly frat boy comedies. Personally, I think the director of New Moon did a good job, but based on previous directing experience he was not a logical choice. However, he was male. For Eclipse, the production company switched directors again, this time picking a male director mainly known for horror films. He may well have gotten the romance – horror/action balance right. But his past directing experiences give reason to suspect that the balance may tilt too far towards horror.
Drawing in a male audience in addition to the young female audience is theoretically a good idea – as long as Eclipse does not alienate the young female fanbase by showing too many werewolf fights and not enough romantic angsting. Imagine there was a movie called “Dawn of the splatter zombie massacre”, third installment of a series appealing mainly to young men. Now the studio decided they wanted to capture female viewers as well and added a love story to the film. Now imagine the finished film “Dawn of the splatter zombie massacre” would consist of 90 minutes of a couple sitting in a boarded-up house discussing their marital problems and 5 minutes of zombie action. The existing fanbase would be pissed off and rightly so.
Besides, there is something of a tradition in Hollywood to devalue entertainment aimed at women in favour of entertainment aimed at men. There are countless examples of TV shows that had good ratings either being canceled or retooled beyond recognition, because the viewer base was predominantly female and advertisers want young male viewers. Which is silly in itself, because women make a majority of everyday purchases and usually have a say in the big ticket items such as cars or electronics, so you’d want women to watch your ads.
Finally, it is pretty obvious that a large part of the rampant Twilight bashing is not due to the questionable quality of the books (and for the record, I don’t think they’re particularly good either) but due to the fact that the audience for those books are teenaged girls. Just look at all the concern about the messages Twilight is projecting to teenaged girls – because teenaged girls obviously cannot distinguish between fiction and reality. Besides, when you ask actual teenaged girls what they like about Twilight, the answers are often quite different from what you’d expect. What is more, urban fantasy and paranormal romance are probably the most commercially successful SFF subgenres right now, but the SFF community either pretends that those subgenres do not exist (hardly any reviews, no award nominations) or bashes them, often without even having read a single example. But of course, everybody knows that those books are just crap and vampire porn. Meanwhile, I don’t see a lot of blanket condemnations of say steampunk or epic fantasy or hard SF or cyberpunk. What’s the difference? Urban fantasy and paranormal romance are being written and read mainly by women, many of whom are not part of the SFF community.
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with disliking Twilight (though one should at least have tried to read the book or watched one of the films) or simply not being interested in Twilight. I don’t particularly care for Twilight myself. But a lot of the kneejerk Twilight hate is at least partly rooted in the fact that the target audience and enthusiastic fandom is female. In short, Twilight has girl cooties.
And this goes for some female Twilight bashers as well. There is something of a tradition among women in the SFF community to distance themselves from books, films, etc… perceived as feminine to prove that one is one of the boys, so to say. I should know, cause I was like that myself, until I actually tried reading some of the books I just knew were crap and found that some were very enjoyable indeed.
The real issue isn’t whether particular criticisms of Twilight are legitimate or not, or whether they indicate some unexamined misogyny. It’s the INTENSITY of those criticisms that suggest there’s more going on here than idle lit crit.
For ex: I don’t “get” the appeal of Star Wars, but I’m willing to accept that this is a matter of a difference of taste. It’s reasonable to concede that millions of fans can’t be all wrong.
But for many critics who don’t “get” Twilight, it’s not a question of taste. It’s proof of Twifans’ immaturity, or false consciousness, or general suck-itude. Because these fans are female — worse, teen girls — in this case, millions of fans can be dismissed out of hand, and with arguments that would be considered irrelevant to the merits of more mainstream (i.e. male-centric) works of fiction:
#1) “It’s poorly written”: as though literary quality has ever been the primary qualification for the bestsellers’ list. I’m sure the world would be a better place if teens sat around reading “Anna Karenina” instead. But that doesn’t sound like much fun to me, either.
#2) “It’s gender politics are ‘bad’ for girls”: While I agree to an extent — ask me how many times I threw “Breaking Dawn” across the room mid-paragraph — there’s an equally strong case that Bella and Edward’s relationship is an empowering reversal of the “sexual gatekeeper” power dynamic. But in either case, how many of these critics have bothered to examine the gender politics of their favorite franchises? Turned up their noses at the “Dark Knight” because of Chris Nolan’s deep discomfort with his female characters, for example? It’s a disingenuous argument.