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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

I loved this analysis/breakdown of Twilight

4 replies

BertieBotts · 28/11/2010 12:11

Whole thing here but I'll c&p the best part:

MEYER: I don't understand. I gave you everything you ever wanted. I gave you a perfect mate, Bella, because he has no flaws beyond his own determination. He will love you eternally. I gave you a man to take care of you and protect you, Bella, who will always make sure that no one harms you. Jacob, I found a way for you to still be in love with Bella and find true love. Everything is the way it should be and everything is happy and wonderful. What more could you ask for?

[The characters stare at each other for a few seconds.]

EDWARD: You didn't give us what we wanted. You gave us what you wanted.

BELLA: We are your fantasy.

JACOB: We are your religion.

RENESMEE: I'm a fucking baby and I already have a husband. I should shit in your bed.

[Meyer is aghast at these accusations. Her mouth drops open.]

MEYER: You're role models for my fans! You are the way life is supposed to be. You're full of faith, you respect the sanctity of marriage, the bonds of family, the role of genders in relationships...you're everything I love and cherish about this world.

EDWARD: No, we are not.

[As soon as EDWARD finishes this sentence, BELLA grabs MEYER by her hair and drags her out on to her emerald lawn as she screams in protest. She kicks her feet, screeches piercing the pristine ordered neighborhood.]

MEYER: Stop it, stop it, what are you doing?

[BELLA stops as she reaches the middle of the yard. The neighbors are peeking out of windows, standing in their yards, watching in horror.]

EDWARD: We are going to do what you would approve of. We're going to destroy you.

MEYER [in terror]: What?!?!?!

BELLA: Look what you've made us. We're violent, immoralistic heaps of space who pretend to be good Mormons with perfect families, but we're really just extensions of the same garbage that's told the gays to stay in the closet, that's told trans women they aren't real, that sex is a thing to be feared, unless the man wants it after he's tricked you into marriage.

JACOB: We are the physical manifestations of rape culture, of men disrespecting the bodies that belong to women and women only, and of the men and women who say that you have to have a vagina to be a female. We are the shape-shifting embodiment of feminine violence, of the non-existence of consent, of the thoughts that men have when a woman says, "No."

EDWARD: We are the establishment of religious morality that feigns superiority when all we care to do is inspire fear in those we seek to control. We are the men who worship the virility of the virgin and demonize the women who have learned that sex is powerful. We are those who believe that marriage is an institution to solidify the roles of gender that have oppressed and marginalized everyone who has dared challenge it.

BELLA: You created this. And it's going to destroy you.

[In a flurry of activity, JACOB shifts form to a russet beast, towering over MEYER. EDWARD and BELLA suddenly cast prisms of light in all directions of the Phoenix neighborhood and they both begin to hiss. As JACOB rises to his hind legs, preparing to crush MEYER's head, a voice stops them.]

RENESMEE: DON'T DO IT!

[They all stop and stare at RENESMEE, who is standing at MEYER'S stoop.]

RENESMEE: We can't do this!

EDWARD, JACOB and BELLA [In unison]: Why not?!?!?!

[RENESMEE runs out to the middle of the lawn, her curls bouncing on her forehead.]

RENESMEE: Don't you see? The one thing Meyer never gave us was a choice.

JACOB: Huh?

RENESMEE: She'd like you to think you were made this way. That you can't control who you are. That your hand is forced by the religion you obey, by the gender roles you uphold, by the bigotry that makes up the fabric of your characters. But she's wrong. You do have a choice.

BELLA: A choice to do what?

RENESMEE: Anything you want. To reject a God who thinks women belong in a role, to reject male autonomy, to reject the glorification of rape, and to reject all of this bullshit she's made you do for four entire books.

OP posts:
Showaddywaddy · 28/11/2010 12:15

I thought it broke down into:

It rains.

Edward is cold.

Bella falls down.

BertieBotts · 28/11/2010 12:35

I haven't read it or watched it, TBH. But from what I have heard I find it incredibly creepy and seemingly glamourising of some fucked up relationship models.

OP posts:
BellaBearisWideAwake · 28/11/2010 12:44

this is my favourite summary

breathtakingben · 28/11/2010 12:47

Where was rape glorified in twilight?

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