Twilight: A Cultural Renaissance
- Zahrah Habib 26020505
- Jun 14, 2024
- 2 min read
The book series turned movie franchise, the Twilight Saga, has long since been reviled by teenagers and adults alike for being a symbol of cringe culture online. It has been rightfully called out for its reinforcement of normative gender roles, its treatment of Native Americans and a blatant lack of autonomy given to its female protagonist. However, the first Twilight movie in particular, participated in a counterintuitive cultural moment in online history.
The first Twilight movie was the cornerstone of queer art back in 2008 and during its renaissance in 2020. The film hinges on a heterosexual romance, but the characters are queer coded in such a way that every marginalised teenager could relate to in the high school setting. Bella’s character in the books may have fulfilled the “not like other girls” trope with her disregard for makeup and designer clothes, with her lack of social abilities, however the way that Kristen Stewart lived her, imbued her with this inherent awkwardness and standoffishness that truly embodied the experience of someone who cannot fit in, not matter how much she tried. Edward in the novel was the textbook heartthrob with vampiric powers and sparkling skin to boo, but Robert Pattinson understood his off putting intensity and one track mind enough to portray it in kind. these characters were made to be glossy and perfect, but what the movie brought out was raw and real and at times off putting, which made the media mainstream enough to get a franchise deal, but still fit into niche subcultures on the internet. Queer teens especially latched onto the, for the lack of a better word, “weirdness” of it all and related to being treated oddly in school, simply for existing as they were.
The film itself has been shot with a consistent blue tone over every scene, plunging it into an aesthetic heaven of muted blues and greens, the overall effect heretofore unseen in films of the time. It produces this constant melancholia that queer teens feel trapped in high school without reprieve from the heteronormative cultural narrative.
The soundtrack of the film is made up of artists and bands that were far from the mainstream at the time, artists that queer teens gravitated towards as they did not peddle heteronormativity in the same way that pop music of the time did. This help set the movie apart from its contemporaries and became so iconic in the online sphere that was mostly populated by alternative, queer and self proclaimed nerds at the time.
Therefore, the first Twilight film became started a counterintuitive cultural phenomenon by becoming a central piece of media for queer teens back in 2008, participating in a tumblr renaissance and becoming a comfort movie for the queer teens on the forum, despite its messaging and content opposing everything those teens stood for. By this analysis, I posit that one cannot pigeonhole queer media into palatable pieces chock full of “correct” queer representation like the show Heartstopper. Although important in the cultural fold, these sanitised shows do not accurately represent online queer culture as queerness has always aligned itself to what is different, unsanitised and uncensored, therefore found their niche in Twilight.