On Monday, I watched the movie Twilight in a screening for my film class. I picked up many things that I had forgotten since my original viewing of the film. These realizations included the less-than-oscar-worthy performance of the leads, despite this poor acting I had somehow still managed to fall for Edward Cullen, and the interesting gender roles played by Bella and Edward. Then something occurred to me: is Twilight a fairy tale? It seems to incorporate many structural necessities of a fairy tale: magical interventions, mythical creatures, and a love story (not that all fairy tales include a love story). Something that was strikingly obvious to me was that the roles played by Bella and Edward paralleled those played by typical princes and princesses in well-known fairy tales. Edward acts as the assertive, strong protector, and Bella assumes the passive female role. Edward, her prince, frequently saves her from danger, and she passively awaits his coming in various scenarios.
However, others have different opinions. A blogger responded on wikiAnswers: “Twilight can’t be a fairy tale. First, it’s too long. Second, it’s not for children (you know, the ones fairy tales are written for?) Thirdly, it’s the most God-awful series on the planet.” Some of these claims may be more truthful than others, however, I thought this nicely showed some of the stereotypes about fairy tales out there that still exist. Others have argued that Twilight represents a type of restoration tale, as Edward and Bella both better themselves through their relationship with the other. Some have taken it to even higher extremes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AikiLAzMMIM
I’m not completely sure where I stand, but I do appreciate it at least for functioning as an entertaining work of vampire fiction.
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For starters, I find it impossible to disagree with the blogger’s third premise for why the series can’t be a fairy tale, since the ten minutes I watched of Twilight solidified in my mind the dangers of letting someone with no experience or understanding of vampire or werewolf mythos or tradition write a series where most of the characters are one or the other. But that is beside the point, since his other two premises are much more relevant for this class. His second premise in particular interests me, since it is essentially the same idea that we struggled with throughout the early part of the course: are fairy tales children’s stories or are they layered so that they appeal to older and younger audiences? In the case of the fairy tales we read throughout the course, I would say that (with the exception of most of the ‘post-modern’ shenanigans) the tales were generally layered, with multiple meanings intended for different audiences. To me, this is an important aspect of the fairy tales, they impart some kind of lesson or morale to the reader, regardless of age. The morale drawn from the story can often be taken at face value by young readers, with a more subtle lesson drawn by older readers. Then again, sometimes there is only the face value meaning, but the point remains, there is something beyond an entertaining story. This is why I agree with the blogger that Twilight is not a fairy tale. Besides, classifying the Twilight saga as a fairy tale taints the prestige of the genre. It’s bad enough that it ruins the notion of vampire literature, do we really need to let it ruin more?
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