Tejiri Ohwahwa
Contributor
With Twilight, much of the criticism has come from women’s groups who look at the series through a feminist lens. We’ve all heard Twilight haters saying that Bella, the series’ heroine, revolves her whole life around Edward (insert screams), the ridiculously hot vampire. She is criticized for having no ambitions, no personality, and no backbone because she lets the men in her life make decisions for her.
So is she really a horrible role model for young women? Does she embody everything feminism rejects? To address the question, we must first know who Bella really is.
Bella is—despite only being a teenager—mature, intelligent, and determined. She reads books people her age would not bother to read, and aces her classes. She is more than capable of thinking for herself.
The strength of Bella’s character is constantly questioned by critics who say she is incapable of ever saving herself, and is always rescued by a man. What seems to be forgotten is the number of times Bella herself saves the people in her life.
In the first book, Bella withstands torture to save her mother. In the second book, Bella saves Edward. In the third book, Bella uses inspiration from the Quileute legend to distract the vampire that almost kills Edward. In the final book, Bella saves her entire clan with her vampire goddess superpowers.
Author Stephenie Meyer’s definition of feminism is giving a woman the right to choose, and Bella consistently makes her own choices throughout the series. She chooses to leave Phoenix for the dreary little town of Forks for her mom. She chooses to pursue Edward despite her fears, and despite his insisting that she doesn’t. She chooses to put herself in danger to save her mother, and doesn’t tell anyone about it. She prevents Edward and Jacob from killing each other, and still manages to choose Edward over Jacob.
Despite being in love with him, Bella hesitates to marry Edward, and when they do marry, she exerts control in her decision to have sex with him before being turned into a vampire.
The bottom line is that Bella is a well-rounded character, and she is the one who shapes her destiny. Ultimately, Bella comes into her own and finds her identity in Edward’s vampire world.
Her decision to become a vampire has very little to do with her obsession with Edward, and more to do with feeling like she does not fit in the human world. The decision is about her, and her only. It is not about wanting to spend “forever” with Edward.
Credit must be given to Meyer who, despite her religious beliefs, presented abortion as a viable option for Bella’s life-threatening pregnancy. She was, in fact, encouraged by Edward and his entire family to go through with it, but she is the one who decided to keep the baby, making a choice which is in keeping with Meyer’s definition of feminism.
Meyer succeeds in portraying a teenager. Bella is not the perfect heroine—she is silly, romantic, and flawed just like any other girl her age. She is clumsy, sometimes obtuse, and aggravating.
She does not find actualization, and this is something that we do not often see in our heroines. This is what makes feminists uncomfortable. We often define this actualization from a masculine point of view of what the world looks like. Bella holds up a cracked image of ourselves we do not want to see.
Meyer does not depict an untouchable, perfect heroine, but the transformation of a weak, young girl into a strong woman. We hold on to heroines who are tough and dangerous because they are an alternative to the one-dimensional female characters we see in romantic comedies and the like.
We refuse to acknowledge the emotionally flawed and human characters like Bella even though they represent what we are actually like. We need to stop blaming Bella for all things that plague women. There are characters out there we should be much more angry about.
