7 Reasons Why Fans Are Mad At Twilight

With the recent interview done by Catherine Hardwicke about the hardships of being a woman director, I decided to do a re-read re-watch marathon of the Twilight Saga. There were were a few details that I've always disliked, but then I came across a few more upon further investigation. These are opinions of course but I'm sure there are a few things on this list everyone can agree on. SPOILERS ahead!

1. The Underused Baddies

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They have a giant army, multiple enemies, and are basically vampire royalty...and we only see them for a few pages at a time. Even at the end of the series when the big battle of Volturi vs. Cullen was supposed to happen.... nothing did. We know Carlisle knows them personally and even spent a little less than a century with them, and yet almost nothing is known about them. I suppose we could read about their backstories in the Official Twilight Guide but what fun is that?

2. Japanese Alice

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Catherine Hardwicke pushed for diversity, and this was going to be one of the changes. Alice was born in Biloxi, MS in the 20s. This would have added so much to her character not to even mention the historical ramifications of being Japanese in this time.

3. Laurent and the Olive Toned Mess

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Stephenie is not known for having diversity in her books, and I can respect her not trying to act like she is the queen of representation (unlike some other authors)

However, in Hardwicke's quest for more diversity the only character (aside from a few human background characters) Meyer allowed for Laurent, the villain, to be non black.

Don't even get me started on Meyer's overuse of the phrase "olive toned"

4. The Quileutes

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Stephenie decided to warp real Quileute legends to fit into her book. It was incredibly disrespectful to Quileutes. It also contributes to the awful history of Indigenous people being seen as less than human (them turning into wolves, having a different number of chromosomes, ect.)

5. Life and Death

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Stephenie Meyer for the 10th anniversary of Twilight being released, decided to Ctrl+H her book and make a genderswapped version of it. Bella became Beau, Edward became Edythe, and Jacob became Julie. Fans all over were looking forward to her paused work on Edward's point of view in Midnight Sun but instead were treated to this cisswapped mess.

There were some nuggets of goodness in the book, I won't lie. But it was handled like a bad fanfiction in some areas.

If Smeyer truly wanted a genderswapped version, she could have made Edward human and Bella a vampire...or just written a brand new story. But no, this monstrosity had to be made in the name of feminism.

6. The One Canon Gay Character

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Sorry everyone, this image has been photoshopped. Edward and Jacob aren't in love nor are they gay according to Smeyer. She has however thrown the LGBT community a bone by creating the first gay character in the Twilight universe....as a joke. The "character" was played by a producer of the first Breaking Dawn movie. Horray for representation ladies, gents, and everyone in between!

7. Women Empowerment...?

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For her credit, Stephenie does show some female empowerment. Many of her characters are shown to be capable and smart. But a lot of it is superficial. The women in Twilight are capable in a way that the plot demands. Esme is the matriarch of the Cullen home and is strong to have gotten out of the terrible situation she was in as a human...after being literally and figuratively saved by a man.

Rosalie was strong in killing all the men who had done an awful and terrible thing to her. That's great! She's even managed to never taste human blood in her life which is something very difficult indeed. Except she is mean to other women, unless they act in accordance to the way she sees fit. Rosalie hated Bella until she decided to have a baby! Before then, Rosalie had only ever been nice to Bella right before her wedding. These are all gendered expectations for Bella. I could probably write my thesis on Rosalie representing all the insidious and beautiful parts of womanhood, but I'm lazy.