Disturbing Media: Twilight Pedophilia

Seoul Sister, ,

(If you haven’t read or seen Twilight, spoiler alert…)

(During the filming of Twilight, Kristen Stewart was still a child and she had to take breaks from working to uphold the child labor laws, look at how young she was when the first film began.)

I think the Media holds responsibility for the stories it presents to the public. Films can promote subtle messages, a form of programming. It’s interesting to look closer at what popular films are promoting.

In Twilight, Edward Cullens died of Spanish influenza, he might have died when 17 or so, but his soul continued absorbing life experiences for another 100 years or so. He wasn’t a frozen teenager that was revived, although he lived like a vampire Peter Pan for decades. He attended high school how many times? He’s a creepy old guy that’s in love with 17 yr old Bella, an average modern teenager. Bella is not a genius surgeon or Nobel Peace Prize winner. Maybe if she were more extraordinarily mature, if she was a teenager emancipated from her parents, self-supported financially and lived on her own, she would be more adult-like, but even then, the pair would be unequally matched. Edward is exceptionally immature, but that’s still no excuse for him to seduce and marry a virgin teenager, straight out of high school.

Bella also had a simultaneous crush on Jacob Black, the Native American werewolf. He too thinks he’s in love with Bella until he realizes that he’s always unconsciously been destined to love her unborn daughter Renesme! What? He babysits her daughter, is there at every stage, as she’s growing up rapidly. He even defends her life when she’s a child. He really did a great job of grooming her! He creepily waits for her to come of age (hopefully he waited) and he ends up marrying her, happily ever after. Hmmm sounds like pedophilia once again. Just because Renesme’s body rapidly matured, didn’t mean she’d mentally matured. He married her when she was mentally 5, 9, 12? I never read the Twilight trilogy but in the films she ages within months from birth to prepubescent childhood.

Why should vampires or werewolves be exempt of pedophilia? Did the writer, Stephanie Meyers, realize what she was actually advocating as an ideal romance? Did the producers, directors, actors and all the rest think about what they were doing? The “fairytale” message reinforces the older man, younger woman relationship and takes it a step further. Statistically young women married to significantly older men are often abused, it’s an unequal power dynamic. Females don’t need to be protected and controlled by an older man.

10 Comments

  3. It’s interesting that you wrote this yesterday, because all day, I was thinking about Fledgling by Octavia Butler. In this book, Shori, a prepubescent vampire seduces various adult men and women. There’s some fairly graphic description of the action that’s just… icky.

    Of course the difference here is that Shori has the 100 years of experience to guide her through her relationships, but come on, her physical development is that of a twelve yer old girl.

    I read the book when it came out in 2005 and this dynamic of the story wasn’t front and center in my mind. I reread it last year and I was completely dismayed. It’s amazing how quickly our perception can change with education. Like many of the racist “classics” from yesterday, much of our modern literature (at least our vampire literature) may need to be rethought.

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    1. I agree, I’ve started looking deeper at the underlying messages and it’s amazing the concepts that we automatically accept as normal because it’s “fiction”. I recently read that “Lolita” was based on a true story of the kidnapping of a girl who was shamed and blamed for being kidnapped and raped by an adult man. I’ve never read “Lolita” but always questioned why it’s celebrated as great literature. Anne Rice also had a child vampire character, named Claudia who was I think, based on her dead daughter. It seemed very odd how she was a mature woman in a child’s body. “Fledgling” sounds very disturbing!

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  4. Ah! This shitty movie is exceptionally bad and not even “it’s so bad that it’s good”. Nope, just mind-numbingly bad! Though Edward and Bella’s relationship was not exactly pedophilia which is a disorder in which an adult or adolescent is attracted specifically to prepubescent children but Jacob and Renesme’s relationship sure had pedophiliac origins. 🤮
    That doesn’t mean Edward-Bella romance was watchable. You are absolutely right that he was not just a little old… he was ancient compared to her, a 17 year old idiot. Also, why the heck would you keep repeating high school??? Do what the guy in the movie “The Man From Earth” did. Keep moving and grow the fuck up, asshole. (sorry! but this movie, this whole story just dilutes all my filters).
    “Females don’t need to be protected and controlled by an older, father figure.” – You said it, sister! 🙂

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    1. Haha! Yes, you’d think they’d at least be homeschooled! Ridiculous premise. Well, I think that although Edward was in a 17 yr old body, he was psychologically ancient in comparison. There are many pedophiles who seduce teens not little kids, I think a 30yr old with a virginal 17 yr old is still pedophilia. Many celebrities/politicians are now getting caught and getting away with doing this. I’m going to write a post about this soon.

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