Before your brush this off as a Twilight-bashing or Twilight fangirl post, please be aware that neither of the reasons stated above are the purpose of this blog. However, I cannot promise neutrality as I read the first two books in a post-exam state of brain-deadness while the last two were read with the purpose of cynically laughing at the characters and plot. (You should ask me and my fellow friend and blogger, Ailsa, for our five minute skit of the entire series. We’ve made complete strangers laugh with it.)

Nonetheless, I’ve been wanting to explore this question for a while since I heard the following comment from one of my friends: “I know that Twilight is a horribly written series but Edward is the kind of guy I’ve always wished for.” Coincidentally enough, I was not surprised by her declaration; in fact, I always had a suspicion that this was the reason why the book had become so popular.

Although he is definitely not my cup of tea, I can somewhat understand how Stephanie Meyer’s readers would be attracted to the sparkling vampire. However, I feel that there are a few implications that are quite alarming in the fact that millions of girls and boys of all ages are obsessed with this handsome vampire.

First of all, let’s enumerate some of Edward’s qualities. It’s been repeatedly said that he’s handsome, extremely in love with the lead protagonist and is always there to save her when she is in danger. Although I will not take issue with the first two qualities stated above — we’ve all been attracted to who we think are good-looking people and it’s definitely good to be in love with someone who reciprocates your feelings — I often wonder at the admiration for Edward’s protectiveness, especially since most of the readers of the Twilight books are girls and women. In other words, my big question is: if the series is indeed a source for wish fulfillment, then do girls really want to be protected? If so, does that mean that there is something big and scary out in the world that they need protecting from?

Consider this: most Twilight readers are women and girls from their pre-teens to their 40s who are living in areas of the world that could afford them the luxury of buying books or at least are privileged enough to access them in some way, are educated and most probably literate. In having the right to education, they should have the tools that would allow them to be equal with the opposite gender in their respective societies. If this is true, then what is the big bad monster out there that they want Edward to protect them from?

In the end, I would like to just throw this question out into the wide expanses of the intertubes in hope that someone could give me an answer. Maybe to most Edward-lovers, their adoration of him stems from the fact that they like his romanticism, or that girls actually want guys to stalk them and watch them while they sleep. Perhaps I’ve been going about all of this the wrong way the entire time and all there is to this Edward-obsession is the fact that guys these days just don’t cut it anymore. Ouch.

So to all the guys out there, if you want a girlfriend:

1. Try acting emo
2. Crawl up to your crush’s bedroom window and watch her sleep
3. Remember that death by glittering is the most romantic way to commit suicide in case you think your love is dead

(The author of this post doesn’t actually encourage any of this behaviour. She takes no responsibility for any of her readers’ actions.)

Picture taken from here.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 18th, 2009 at 12:07 pm and is filed under Entertainment, Film, We've Got Issues. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.