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Why Bella Swan Is Not a Bad Role Model
On feminism, trauma, and Twilight
I know I’m late to the party, but I just finished reading the Twilight books for the first time. After growing up in a sea of endless, furious Twilight discourse, I must admit, I was surprised by the series. Having now emerged from Breaking Dawn into the light of day, I guess I’ve earned the right to add my voice to that discourse at last. What surprises me most is that I have something to say:
We, as a society, have been getting Bella Swan all wrong.
To begin at the beginning, for anyone somehow still unaware, Twilight is the first of four in a series of fantasy romance novels by author Stephenie Meyer. It chronicles the life of 17-year-old Isabella “Bella” Swan as she moves to Forks, Washington, and falls in love with her classmate, Edward Cullen, who turns out to be a vampire.
The books, and subsequent film adaptations, have generated an unparalleled level of popular discourse and an astronomical amount of money. There are many controversial aspects of the series, from Edward’s abusive behavior, to the romanticization of a relationship between a teenage girl and a 108-year-old man who wants to kill her, to the character Jacob falling in love with Bella’s infant daughter, to the animalization of the Indigenous characters and the…
