A girl, a vampire and a werewolf : an audience ethnography of romance and gender representations in the films Twilight (2008) and New moon (2009)

• Published: 2015
• Subjects: Twilight (Motion picture : 2008); New moon (Motion picture : 2009); Sex role in motion pictures; Sex in motion pictures; Vampire films
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10210/14046

M.A (Audiovisual Communication) === In 2008 a film about a Gothic Romance between a teenage girl and a vampire became a pop culture phenomenon (Edwards, 2009:26). The ‘chick flick’ or ‘women’s film’ genre was suddenly in the spotlight at the box office as droves of female spectators of all ages were entranced by the neo-Gothic fantasy-Romance entitled Twilight (2008) (Em & Lo, 2009; Parekh, 2009:16; Puente, 2009:1; Ryan, 2008). More than 75% of the audience members were female with 55% being under 25 years (Ryan, 2008). Despite Twilight’s (2008) soaring status as a pop-culture phenomenon, much debate has ensued emphasizing the problematic representations and thematic elements that surround the gender roles and relations depicted in the film. As Lezra (2009:1) argues: “The cultural and social values…are so regressive that they would make people in Victorian London stand up and angrily defend the rights of women and minorities”. Twilight (2008) has been criticized for perpetuating traditional, oppressive, patriarchal values and glorifying a female character who has been termed “a feminist’s nightmare” (Czech, 2009) and “a 1950s-robot housewife” (Gassley, 2009). In 2009 the second instalment of the Twilight Saga: New Moon (2009) was released which had far more success than Twilight (2008) at the box office, as well as attracting a slightly older demographic (Gray, 2009a:1; Gray 2009b:1; Puente, 2009:1; Seltzer, 2009:1). The thematic conventions surrounding heterosexual relationships depicted in New Moon (2009) make the film particularly interesting. The film shifts focus from the relationship between Bella and her vampire love-interest Edward, as seen in Twilight (2008), to the relationship between Bella and her best friend Jacob, a werewolf. This relationship has been praised as the ‘ideal’ heterosexual relationship and Jacob, the ‘ideal’ partner: “Edward is not the ideal boyfriend-lover. In fact, Jacob is…Edward will only lead to black eyes, rape, torture, and possibly even death” (Housel, 2009a:188). Thus the representation of heterosexual relationships and gender roles within those relationships is brought into question in New Moon (2009). What makes the situation more complex is that despite these criticisms, so many women of multiple age groups are fans of the films. While there are many elements of the film which may contribute to this mass interest, such as fascination with the ‘undead’, or film being a temporary escape for spectators in times of economic instability and uncertainty (Olson, 1995:16), the appeal of this neo-gothic romance for women in particular needs to be examined more closely: “What did it mean that millions iv of girls were fantasizing about men who could barely repress the desire to kill them? In 2008?” (Mann, 2009:132). By integrating genre analysis and audience ethnography, this study explores the representations of gender roles and heterosexual romance in the films Twilight (2008) and New Moon (2009) and the perception of these representations by selected, female South African viewers. It further aims to situate the films within the sociocultural context in which it emerged and thus uses postfeminism as a theoretical framework.