Reasons for the Popularity of the Twilight Saga that You Might Not Have Heard Before:
1) Ambivalence about Red Meat
1) Ambivalence about Red Meat
In recent years
there’s been growing discomfort in the Western world about eating red meat, particularly among young
girls who object to the blood and killing...yet the overwhelming majority still eat red meat. The image of the Cullens, “vegetarian
vampires” who struggle with their urges to drink human blood,
plays upon these ambivalent feelings about meat, not to mention sexuality. (Citations at bottom of the page.)
2) Bring Back the Wolf
Let’s not forget
Jacob…and environmentalism. As anthropologist Lee Drummond notes, Americans’
relationships with animals has become polarized, caught between extremes of household
pets and distant predators like the wolf, mostly known through mass media and
environmental campaigns. Twilight’s cute
werewolf, Jacob, directly addresses this schism.
3) And the Blood
Twilight confronts another paradox: blood is pervasive, from wars to
menstruation, yet it’s usually carefully hidden from view in contemporary
American society. As Drummond argues, blood in Twilight thereby addresses fundamental issues about male and
female, life and death, gender and sexuality.
4) Multi-ethnic Unions
It’s not a
coincidence that both Edward and Bella are exceedingly pale (i.e., "white"), while
Jacob, the other side of the love triangle, has a darker complexion and is Native American. As anthropologist John McCreery notes, the
film is dealing with the appeal, realities, and complexities of multi-ethnic unions in
contemporary society.
5) All the Usual Reasons Vampires are Cool
Vampires have what
many humans want: power, beauty, wealth, mystery, sex appeal, immortality,
boundary-crossing abilities, etc. Twilight partakes of a long line of vampire stories, as well as
previous fashions like “heroin chic,” as John McCreery notes.
Usual caveats: These
5 explanations don’t apply to everyone, nor cover all the many possible reasons
for Twilight’s appeal. They're just something to think about.
Credit and Links:
These ideas, among
many others, have emerged from an exploratory, sky’s-the-limit discussion about
Twilight that happened March, 2014 on the Open Anthropology Cooperative site, with Lee Drummond as the convener and driving force. I also recommend
Lee Drummond’s book American Dreamtime, where
he provides superb anthropological analyses of movies like E.T., Star Wars, and Jaws (full text on Center for Peripheral Studies website).
1) Declining Red-Meat
Consumption
For example, one
study showed a 39% decline in American consumption of red meat from 2009-2012;
another study showed that young females in Australia and the U.K. are 3 times
as likely as males to be vegetarian; and one of the main reasons young females
gave for being vegetarian is that they don’t like ingesting blood (posted by me
on Open Anthropology Cooperative, “From the Center for Peripheral Studies, After Lance....” direct
link on p. 69).
2) Wolves
Lee Drummond wrote:
In a world where our
experience with farm animals has dwindled to next to nothing, we readily
consume hours of documentaries and talking-head accounts about the lives of
physically distant animals such as major predators. The wolf in
particular is without doubt the most stigmatized of animals – bestial
man-eater, ally of demons, stalker of Little Red Riding Hood. And yet,
Bella’s only other significant alliance in Forks is with Jacob, wolf-boy,
werewolf. Could it be that the rehabilitation of the wolf – a major hot
button issue today – is accomplished in Twilight through a love
affair? (OAC, p. 66).
3) Blood
Lee Drummond wrote:
Our lives are awash
with blood, blood from animal slaughter, from our endless wars, from street
crime and other gun violence, from menstruation, childbirth, and
abortion. Yet it is all ever so carefully hidden. Bella personifies
that need to hide blood from view; she is terrified of it, faints at the sight
of it. And yet she wants, with every fiber of her being, to become one
whose entire existence is predicated on human blood. In aspiring to
become a vampire, she bridges two disparate and seemingly irreconcilable
identities of life-giver and life-taker…. (OAC, p. 70).
4) Multi-ethnic Unions
John McCreery wrote:
As Danah Boyd points out in It's Complicated, racial
and ethnic divisions in behaviour may still be prevalent; but in any major
metropolitan area, which is where the majority of Americans now live,
multiethnic or multiracial couples are becoming commonplace (OAC, p. 78).
5) Other Reasons
These are touched on at various points in the OAC Forum, and
developed at greater length in various websites and the vast scholarly
literature on vampires.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment