There’s no denying that the Twilight saga is one of the most popular cultural phenomena on the planet. Girls love the romance between human and vampire, and dream of an immortal lover to sweep them off their feet. And there’s nothing wrong with a fantasy like that–just as long as it stays in your head. Because if I had a girl friend who acted the way Bella does, I would be astonished at her lack of independence and self-worth.
The heroine of these books, Bella Swan, is a young woman who pretty much does nothing but obsess over her vampire boyfriend, Edward. When he leaves her in the second book, New Moon, Bella enters a severe depression in which nothing else matters. For months. If a guy I really cared about broke my heart, yeah, I would treat myself to a week of self-pity, cry to my friends, eat a pint of ice cream, all that good stuff. But months? A girl with a healthy self-esteem would never act that way.
The dangers don’t stop there for our friend Bella. Since he is her voice of reason (she doesn’t have her own voice of reason, silly! She depends on him for everything, even common sense!), she purposely does dangerous things in order to hear his voice in her head. I cannot stress this enough. This young woman purposely puts herself in potentially life-threatening situations to hear the guy who left her speak in her mind. Not only does this indicate no imagination (she couldn’t just pretend he was talking to her?), it indicates a need for extensive therapy. No one should ever feel the need to potentially hurt themselves, especially not over an unrealistic vampire pretty-boy.
And let’s look at the guy for whom this girl would throw herself from a cliff. I found an excellent list of points, in a very well-written analysis called ‘Arzim’s Rebuttals’, detailing how Edward qualifies as an abusive boyfriend. The results are staggering: the rebuttals find that Edward is ferociously jealous, controls any physicality in the relationship, and breaks promises.
My research on relationship abuse revealed even more problems with this apparent perfect couple. Unrealistic expectations (such as for Bella to marry him, though she is still a teenager), seeming too good to be true (Edward is regularly described by our narrator as impossibly beautiful), and intimidation (the guy’s a vampire, he could break her in half like a pencil if he so chose).
Bella doesn’t end up going to college, or having a career, which is what most young women hope to do one day. She gets married straight out of high school and immediately becomes pregnant. There’s nothing wrong with this, of course, but young parents tend to have a harder time of things than those who have college educations and good careers. But Bella is a vampire now, and her baby grows up at a ridiculously unrealistic rate. Say what you want about Teen Mom and how it affects teenagers who watch it, but at least it shows that taking care of a baby is hard. The Twilight Saga makes warp-speed parenthood look approximately as difficult as taking care of a hamster, if you manage to survive the brutal and torturous pregnancy and birth. Of course they didn’t use protection! Edward and Bella are too special to get pregnant! Oh…wait…
Bella is no role model. She’s an example of someone you don’t want to become. And Towson girls, if you find yourself acting like her, please, please get help. The counseling center is always here for you, and so are your friends. You don’t need an Edward to be happy. There’s a real boy out there for you.