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So there’s this thing called Twilight, in which the Mormon teen experience of guilt-ridden frottage until the literally eternal union of souls in holy matrimony is gussied up in vampire drag and unleashed on the universe as books and movies, all of them huge fucking blockbusters.

Due to the hugeness of the blockbusting, I eventually exposed myself to some Twilight on film, watching the first two installments on DVD. The only thing that made any sort of lasting impression was the growing repulsiveness of the female protagonist, a whiny drip of a thing played by the (gorgeous and seemingly talented) Kristen Stewart, who is required to devote her gorgeousness and seeming talent to being a whiny drip that all sane people will eventually grow to hate.

Never mind the subtle poetry of her name (Bella Swan); the basics of what sucks about the character is laid out most cogently by Wm.™ Steven Humphrey in this week’s I Love Television:

Have you seen Eclipse yet? Aren’t Jacob’s abs AH-MAY-ZING? Isn’t Edward a pasty-face fop? And isn’t Bella the stupidest person in the world? Seriously, she spends the entire movie whining, “Edward! Change me into a vampire! Change me into a vampire!” Why should he? So she can nag the shit out of him for the rest of eternity? Bella would be, like, the worst vampire in the history of vampires—and yes, I’m including Count Chocula! At least he likes chocolate! Bella is stupid and doesn’t like chocolate, and the only thing she sucks is a person’s will to live.

Thus concludes today’s installment of Two Grown Men Getting Upset About A Fictional Teenage Girl. Carry on.

David Schmader—former weed columnist and Stranger associate editor—is the author of the solo plays Straight and Letter to Axl, which he’s performed in Seattle and across the US. His latest...

20 replies on “On Hating a Fictional Character”

  3. Best part of the movie: when they have Edward’s house to themselves for the first time. Bella just wants to fuck like nobody’s business but Edward wants to marry her first. Then comes her bargain..
    “Do this [have sex] for [with] me, and I will marry you”. REALLY!?

  7. I wish Taylor and Robert would just get it on already. Their erections are pointing, compass-like, at each other, and not at Kristen. Will-to-live is the only thing she could possibly suck.

  8. Here’s my favorite Grown Man Upset about this: Charlie Brooker, ladies and germs:

    The central theme, apparently, is abstinence; the heroine, Bella, is contemplating whether she wants to lose her virginity to a vampire or a werewolf. She’s not allowed to try them both out, or get to second base with one and third with the other. And she’s certainly not allowed to take them both on at once, although that would clearly make for a far better film.

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/…

  9. I liked her in “Into the Wild”. I think she’s lovely, but in live inerviews (the ones I’ve seen) she’s “Bella Swan” and that was disappointing. I’m glad our daughter reads Jane Austin.

  10. Soooooo right about Kristen Stewart. My husband calls her “terminal ennui girl.” I asked how would he know and he had to admit to watching “Twilight” on tv. I told him it was a gateway drug and he would start watching all things vampire, but he said it was no worse than me reading the books. Not true. The books are okay if you REMEMBER that they are TEEN BOOKS. Seriously, not profound literature but entertaining, quick reads. I forced myself to watch the “Twilight” film and was not impressed. I was begging Edward to kill Bella before the movie was half over.

  12. It works better if you read it as Bella’s abuse narrative, which at least the second movie (the only one I’ve bothered to see) helpfully assists you with by making Edward smash Bella’s head into a vase while “protecting” her.

  13. I saw Kristen Stewart give a good performance in The Cake Eaters, where she plays a girl with some terminal illness (dunno if they ever say what, and IMDB isn’t specific), and I thought she was pretty good. I didn’t realize it was the same girl until after the movie was over. This series of movies may do a lot of damage to the possibility of having any male fans, however.

    @8: THANK YOU for that link. That was hilarious. Also, the pic of the columnist seems to fit with the tone of that column. “Eww…. girls.”

    Also, I would be more interested if there were a threeway scene in that movie (even if it was…*sigh*…tastefully done). But I guess that would undermine the message of the books.

  14. I’d argue that it’s reasonable to get upset about the obvious and machined flaws of a fictional character particularly if they are *amazingly popular* and thereby likely to influence their non-fictional peers.

    I start to wonder… well, more like start to presume… that the Twilight series is, like Left Behind, a not-so-subtle attempt to deliver a particular brand of conservative morality to the heathen by shrouding it in entertaining motifs. Non-fictional teenage girls love Edward as much as (if not more than, given her divided affections) Bella, and he’s the main driver of the morality in the story, with Bella being the impetuant sinner with impure thoughts, not to mention a “silly girl” archetype, given the whole wanting-to-die thing (which, if the theory holds, is in actuality the convert-to-Mormonism thing).

    Anyway. So if Bella and her love for archaic Edward (who despite posing as a teenager amongst teenagers for a century has encountered zero peer pressure or cultural influence) are criticable, then criticize, because without critique there is nothing to stop the wildly successful teen movie series (which was already a wildly successful teen book series) from creating a generation of good little Mormon octomoms.

    The only other thing working against Bella’s influence that Twilight’s core audience is starting to hate her, to the point of wanting to drive her dead body in the back of her rusty pickup to La Push and straight into the Pacific, so they can have Edward all to themselves.

  19. What bugs me about Twilight are the stupid fans who want to turn into vampires, even though the books make it pretty clear that being a vampire is a boring, inconvenient hassle that never ends, and the only reason Bella wants to be a vampire is so she doesn’t feel all old and ugly next to Edward.

  20. @10 Neither you nor your husband are correct. The books are worse.

    6 words from Stephanie Meyer’s Bree Tanner follow-up:

    “Riley and the Cheeseburger of Pain.” (Thank you CleoLinda).

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