On the Bechdel Cast.
The questions asked if movies have women and them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands or do they have individualism? It's the patriarchy, Zephyn Beast. Start changing it with the Bechdel Cast. Hello Bechdel Cast listeners, who Jamie and Caitlin?
Here a little plug at the top.
It's all coming together. It's all happening. I am going to be going on a book tour for the paperback release of my book Raw Dog, The Naked Truth about Hot Dogs. Ever heard of it? It is coming out in soft cover this may. If you're hearing this, it is out right now. If you are the kind of person that doesn't want to spend twenty eight dollars out of book, fair enough, we have a more affordable option.
And if you haven't purchased the book and you know, maybe you're able to now, you know, it's also a great gift. I've sound so desperate. The thing is, it's a soft cover book, and people love us and.
I love a flaccid book.
Yeah, it's a floppy little book. And if you do have the hardcover and you're a completionist, there is also a brand new ForWord that I wrote, and also the acknowledgments have been adjusted to acknowledge that my agents were Zionists, so I don't really thank them anymore. So there's a thrilling edition there as well. But there is new stuff in the book and it costs less, and we love that.
I will be going on tour throughout the country to promote the new book, and if you're a Bechdel head and you're in the area, this is a really great chance to come and hang out. It's all I'm at bookstores. I did kind of bigger shows the first time around, but this time we're just chilling. So kitling with your permission, I'm just going to rattle off some dates. What if I was like, no, no, click, yeah, the zoom, I'm going to go pee.
No please, by all means tell us okay.
May thirteenth, twenty twenty five, almost my birthday. So I know I'm missing your birthday. It's an act of violence. I will be at North Fig Bookshop in Los Angeles, hosted by friend of the cast, Julia Clair, May fourteenth. I will be at Carmichael's Bookstore in Louisville, Kentucky on May fifteenth, I will be at the Cambridge Public Library in Massachusetts with the Harvard Bookstore, and I will be in conversation with one of my dear friends, PBS's own
Tory Bedford. On the nineteenth of May, I will be in Portland, Maine at Longfellow Books, hosted by friend of the cast Mayo Williams. I am very very excited. On the twentieth, I will be going down to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, my home state. Know they're going to be begging, They're like, where are they? I will be at the Midtown Scholar Bookstore and Cafe in conversation with Joe Piazza. Then on May twenty first, I will be at the Fountain Bookstore
in Richmond, Virginia. And on May twenty second, I will be at Coppersfield Books in Pedaluma, California. And finally, on May thirty first, I will be at Marin Country Mart, which is also with Coppersfield's book in Larkspur, California. So if you live in those areas, please come out. I would love to see you. I'd love to chat. Please recommend your favorite hot dog. Let's talk becktel Cast, Let's do whatever. And there will be dates announced later in
the summer. So if you would like a show or a signing to happen in your town, please reach out and I will send it to my publisher and be like, see, I should go there. Anyways, that's a great it's begging works sometimes, and we'll link this full thing in the description. But see you soon. I'm making a little outfit and that's the Jamie Loftus promise.
I can't wait to see.
So if you click the link in the description, it will take you to the full page where you can register to go to these events. They are all free events, so come and hang out and provided that I get my shit together in time, there will also be speakers from local unions at all of these signings, So come out, make some friends, come hang out, and uh, let's eat.
Some hot dogs.
Beautiful. We'll throw the link to be able to access registration for the events on our link tree as well link tree slash Bechdel Cast, so there's no excuse not to come.
It's free, it's fun. I'll be wearing a little outfit. Come buy the book, yay, enjoy the episode.
About three things I was absolutely certain, Oh my god. First, the Bechdel Cast is a podcast, okay. Second, and there was a part of the podcast and I didn't know how potent that part might be. Yeap that thirsted for knowledge and amazing discourse. And Third, the hosts, Caitlin and Jamie were unconditionally and irrevocably in love with each other.
Yeah, I like it. Thank you, Wow, thank you Stephanie Meyer. She's a Mormon, and they're pretty homophobic. I don't know if she would endoors what.
Was just said. I don't think so.
But it's what I want. It's what a lot of Twilight fans want. Every fan community wants a queer romance. But sometimes you just end up with Bella and Edward and you got to project the rest. And that's what we're here to talk about today. Welcome to the Bechtel Cast, the podcast where we take your favorite movies and talk about them from an intersectional feminist lens, using the Bechdel
Test as a jumping off point for discussion. This is I think one of a handful of episodes that of where we were covering a movie for a second time. We first covered this movie, I did not realize how long ago it was. My brain was not fully developed the last time we covered this movie, were you like how old I was? Twenty four? Whoa as bravely twenty four years old? I was just the last synapses were snapping into place, And so I cannot be held accountable
for anything I said in twenty seventeen. You can be held accountable.
I am repulsed to even think about what might have happened on that episode. I am afraid to go back and listen to it. We may or may not keep it up, we might delete it. Our guest was my best friend JT, and we just it was only like a few months into the US doing the podcast.
I don't think we need to apologize for something we did in twenty seventeen. The reason we're recovering it is because, like a lot of early you know, this was before podcasting was our full time job. We didn't have the time nor the resources to put in as much research as we put into the show now, and most of you, I'm assuming we're not listening back then. So while it was a fun episode, I did not really listen to it. I don't care what I had to say in twenty seventeen,
nor should you. But I also think that you know, like intersectional feminist discourse has evolved, thankfully, quite a bit since twenty seventeen. So we have grown, as has the world. I mean, you know whatever, There's been a lot of regression, but on a personal level, there's been growth. Yeah, and there's also been just like, this is the series people will never shut the fuck up about. It's really interesting to watch in the last and I say that would
love because I've watched all of it. Yeah, Twilight discourse is something that just as it begins to die down, there's a new angle, and baby, we're going with it. Like in the last I would say two to three years Twilight discourse, I think because of like the twenty year popularity cycle of things. Sure, people were getting nostalgic for the Twilight years, and now we're talking about it again and there's new things to talk about.
We're back in the Twilight zone.
We're in the Twilight zone today. And so anyways, if you listen to our first episode, we don't know what it said. We hope we did an okay job. But today we're here to do a better job because we're grown ups now and our brains are working better than ever.
Well, I wouldn't say that necessary.
Well not Caylyn, Mine's better than no, I'm kidding.
Mine is descending into mush.
Okay, so maybe we were working on the same amount of brain power cumulatively that we were in twenty seventeen, but the thoughts will be different. Yeah, okay, but we're using the Benal tests and jumping off point. Caitlin, what is that? I forget?
Well, my amazing memory will tell you. It's a media metric created by cartoonist Alice and Bechdel, sometimes called the Bechdel Wallace Test. There's many versions of it. We require that, in order to pass, two characters of a marginalized gender must have names, they must speak to each other, and their conversation has to be about something other than a man. But you know, it's just a jumping off point. It's
not the end all be all. There's much more to discuss, and in the case of the Twilight Saga, so much to discuss.
We talked about it, I'm sure a lot of things in our first episode, but it turns out there's actually fifty more things to talk about than we initially realized, and so we have brought in an expert, an enthusiast, someone who has spent time in the trenches with the twyhards to come and educate us.
Today, she's a poet an educator. She's the author of two poetry collections, former poet Laureate of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, a host of Bread and Poetry podcast It's Danelli Antigua. Hello and welcome.
Hello, Hello, Hi, Hi, Hi God.
Tell us what is your relationship to Twilight?
Oh? Where shall I begin? I think my relationship with Twilight first came from the books. I started reading the books when I was a teenager and fell in love with those first. And I had a really strange upbringing. I was raised in a cult, and around the years where I started reading the Twilight books, I was starting to emerge from the kind of like sheltered cocoon that
I was in for so many years. So I was about eighteen nineteen years old, and when the movies came out, I was just like first experiencing life in the world, in the secular world, and Twilight was my I almost like my rum spring on. It was my like coming out into society. And I remember when I watched Twilight, I went to the midnight premiere because I was one of those like midnight premiere bitches. I was wearing my Team Edward shirt. I was wearing a Tutu leg warmers.
We saw the pictures. They're incredible.
Yeah, thank you. I was wearing fingerless gloves that I got a hot topic, like, I just like went all out, and I remember buying a Noss from like the gas station, and I went to and I went to the midnight premiere and it was like just life changing for me at the time, and many many years have passed since then.
I definitely have a different relationship to Twilight at this point, but there's still like that little girl, that like nineteen year old girl who is madly in love with Edward and has you know, posters of him in her bedroom and shit, like I was so obsessed. That might be, but I'm sure there's more. I'm sure there's more.
Well share whatever comes up.
Yeah, truly, don't hesitate. This is a safe space for twyhearts.
Thank you, Thank you, Jamie.
Remind us what's your relationship?
Oh gosh, I wonder if I said anything defensive in my first when we talked about this movie like eight years ago.
I mean, you were twenty four, so I.
Can't be accountable for what I did when I was twenty four years old, a full grown adult. So I read the books. I think, maybe not right when they came out, but like they definitely were gathering steam in the middle school contingency as they were coming out. I remember my mom introduced me to them because my mom was both really into Twilight and Fifty Shades of Gray, And to this day, I'm positive she has no idea that Fifty Shades is Horny or Twilight for like non
Mormon Twilight fanfit. Basically yes, but she was really into both series and so she I think that there was like this bizarre shame feedback loop going on between the two of us where she would get She got the boxed set of I think the first three Twilight books that were out at the time, and then read them herself and then gave them to me as if to say, like, these are yours. You bought these and then I read them,
and I don't know. Weirdly, it feels sort of in conversation with Beliswan herself, where I was very invested in I think, as a lot of tweens are in being not like other girls, and part of being not like
other girls to me was not liking Twilight. And part of being not like other girls to me was not liking high school musical, even though I very much enjoyed both of these things in total privacy, like I was completely I vividly remember blowing through the first Twilight book in like this gnarl the old hammock we had in our backyard during the summer when I couldn't be seen or be accounted for, and then literally going to school
the next year and being like what's that ew? And then like going the same thing with the Jonas brothers. I went to a Jonas Brothers concert and I was like what is this? Meanwhile I bought a ticket, like I don't know, like it just it's something that young people do.
And we can talk about that, like the shame that like culture attaches to do you like something like Twilight, You're a freaking loser because that's for girls.
It was a big thing, and I think that it's yeah, it's tied up and like how not like other girl stuff is like internalized misogyny to some extent. Yeah, So I was I was writing high on that meanwhile reading Twilight books, like my life depended on it. By the time the movies came out, I was I saw the first movie. I remember, like I think seeing the first movie. I was in high school by that point, and I was at the tail end of my like so weird that I'm at this movie the day it comes out.
How could this have happened? But I did see it the day come out. I kind of fell off after that. I moved on to whatever the fuck I was doing, So I didn't see the other movies. I don't think in theaters, and I'm not even sure to this day if I've seen all of them. I feel like I've only seen one of the because the last one's in two parts. Yes, I don't think i've seen one of them. I'm not sure. I read all the books. I haven't seen all the movies.
That might be blasphemy, but I do feel like revisiting the first book.
So also, I really over prepared for this episode. I reread the book.
Yeah.
Wow, I walked fourteen miles yesterday just pacing around listening to the audio book, sweating my ass off, being like I gotta get it all in. And then there's also been so much Twilight discourse that there are so many essays.
There's one essay I'll be citing a intensively today from Capacious journal Wow that is called still not as Gay as Twilight, postmodern affect, nostalgia and queer Twilight renaissance during the COVID nineteen pandemic, And that is where I think it was during the initial lockdown period where you saw this kind of resurgence of Twilight discourse that has I think was going on well into last year because there was a very popular ContraPoints video that came out on
that topic. So I think it went on for nearly five years. But I think because so many people became nostalgic for comfortable feelings during Lockdown, that all of a sudden, Twilight was back. And I watched and engaged with a lot of that, and I don't know, I just like I'm constantly engaging with Twilight. While I would consider myself a casual fan at best. Anyways, rewatching the first movie, it's a good movie. Like I don't know what to say.
It's like, there's a lot of issues with it. But when it comes to like do I understand why people absolutely love this movie? And do I feel like it captures this very specific not like other Girls Fantasy one hundred percent, and the soundtrack is still great.
Oh my god, yes, yeah, so rock and roll.
Oh my god, super massive black hole, baseball scene. I'm like, you can't do all that.
Oh my goodness.
The baseball scene is is so hot cinema, It's so good. I love the baseball scene. Everything, Like, the baseball scene's the best part. But I get it. And I also have really enjoyed going through people's you know, reflections on this because there's also a massive queer fan base for this essentially Mormon movie, so we'll get into it. But anyways, Caitlin remind us, what is your history with Twilight?
Oh gosh, I'm sure I had a better memory of it on the first episode. But again, I will not be going back to listen to that, and I don't think our listeners should either.
Please don't well and just take it down.
I mean maybe we will anyway.
Yeah, what are you edging like Dubella and Edwards?
Yeah, anyway, so I the first few books came out, I don't really know the timeline of like what was published when.
Two thousand and five, six, seven and eight.
Okay, and then thank you so much, and then so the first movie came out in two thousand and eight, right, yeah, okay, so it wasn't until probably twenty ten, I would say, again, memory is murky, but it was well after the books had come out, and probably the first one or two
movies had come out before. And of course I heard people talking about I have a distinct memory of chatting with some people when I moved to New York, which was in two thousand and eight, and I was talking to a friend and her sister, and it was like a sister older than me, so she was she would have been like in her mid twenties at the time, and she's like, yeah, Twilight is the best thing I've ever read. I want to date Edward Da da da. And I was just like, what are you talking about?
What's this Twilight thing? And then the movie started coming out, and because I hate books and I love movies, I was like, Okay, fine, I'll check this out. And I think I don't remember if this was the case or not, but it might have been jt our guest on the first episode that we did on this movie that kind of got me into it. I don't know if he like showed me the first movie.
Again, massive queer fan base.
Like yeah, yeah, either he showed me the first one or I definitely started watching the other ones with him, to the point where I think I saw Eclipse Breaking Down Part one and two in theaters with him.
Oh so you saw you were like on the other half, you're a late Twilight bloomer. Yeah, what did you think of the mo some of these at the time, I'm so cue because that would have been like well into Twilight backlash.
Era too, and I was a part of that. I was like, these movies suck. They're bad, and yet I was going to see them.
I mean, you're not wrong, but I mean they're not.
Okay. Here's the thing. There's a distinction between I like it and this is good, and both of those All of these things are subjective, right right, that's camp. I was like, this is not good and I don't necessarily like it, but I do. There's some weird like I'm compelled by these, I'm entertained by these. I can't stop watching them. I'm not really enjoying myself or am I I don't know, there's like this I cannot explain how I experience.
Yeah, yeah, that's like Edward himself, Like everything about him draws you in his voice is smell, the way he looks exactly.
But I know that he's dangerous, yeah, and that there's something to be feared about it.
What do you think you could outrun him? Do you think you could fight back? Because you couldn't, because you're never gone up.
I couldn't. He's killed people.
He's like a drug to you. He's like a drug to you.
He is my own personal brand of heroine, and I him.
That scene is the most hot topic codd scene that has ever been committed to film.
It's completely blue.
Like this whole movie is blue, and I support it. Yeah, you know you were team Edward?
Yes?
I was. Yeah. And then Kaitlyn, did you ever choose a team or were you just team Hater?
No? I was hardcore team Jacob.
I was team Jacob as well. Yeah, which is canonically, I mean Jacob ends up marrying a baby, yes, yes, which ContraPoints argues is a way of the series having it always of like, hmm, he falls in love with an extent Bella, and this is how they're able to like justify this like polycule that they create.
Yeah, he like loved her egg, you know, yeah, and you're like.
That's well, that's disgusting. It got harder and harder to be team Jacob as the books went on. I will say definitely, because I don't remember very much about Breaking Down at all, but I vividly remember the scene where he's like, I'm in love with your unborn baby and being like, no, my team is down. My team is my team. We've lost, We've lost, he's in love with the baby. We're cooked.
Yeah, And I think I went back and read. I don't know if I finished the first Twilight book or just read a good enough of a chunk of it where I did. Basically, I just wanted to confirm that the writing was as bad as I had heard that it was, and I did confirm that. But I didn't read any of the other books. But I have seen I would say I've seen the first Twilight movie probably a good fifteen times. Whoa yeah, and then it tapers off like I've only seen Breaking Dawn Part two that
one time in theaters. I'm pretty sure.
Yeah.
I was like, I think I've seen it like at least five times, and I don't think I've seen a few of the movies ever.
Yeah, really it's weird, Like there are movies that I considered to be my favorite, like among my favorite movies, that I have seen fewer times, and I've seen Twilight, which I would not consider at all to be one of my favorite movies. I cannot explain this phenomenon, and yet it exists. So I have a weird relationship with Twilight. I think it's trash and yet I know it very well.
But I think that's like a very common experience.
Yeah, don't humans love trash? Though, Like don't we love trash? Like reality TV is trash? Sackly, I love McDonald's.
That's trash, but it's good trash, but it's delicious trash.
Yeah, except boycott McDonald's.
But right, right, right, But yes, but the idea behind yes, Yeah, I don't know. There's been a lot of I think in this like most recent past five years, discourse around Twilight have like moved forward the conversation around this franchise in an interesting way of like almost getting back to the shame and like projection that was beneath some but not all, of the Twilight backlash. That's the thing is, like it's just very complicated because there's a billion very
valid critiques of this franchise, many of which we'll discuss today. Yes, and we'll just place here we're not discussing the entire franchise today because we would never leave the zoom call if that were the case, right, So we're discussing the first movie, the book, the you know, cultural sensation at the time of the first movie today and then we will cover subsequent movies on the show down the line, just because it's just like such a broad topic that, Yeah,
if there are certain elements of this franchise you would like to hear us talk more about, please let us know, and we will make a point to discuss that in future installments. But there's just there really is just like so so so much to.
Talk about, truly, and let's try to begin. But first we'll take a quick break and then we'll come back for the recap and we're back, all right. I'm really mean during this recap so apology in advance.
Like I like that You're like, I'm a Twilight hater to the grave, Caitlin, You're not like other she theys You're.
Just not I'm not I am an intellectual no, just kidding.
Didn't you get a film degree somewhere right?
Thank you so much for bringing something up that I would never mention, which is that I do have a master's degree in screenwriting from Boston University.
Oh yeah, that's what I thought.
Yeah, but again, would never mention it. So I actually don't even know how anybody knows that because I've never said it before.
I didn't. I just learning.
Yeah. Anyway, content warning at the top for abusive relationship dynamics, stalking, gaslighting, things of that nature. And here we go. We open on a deer in the woods pray if you will, and there's also a predator something or someone is chasing the deer and grabs.
It, and then it goes me. This court of this movie is a real earworm. Shout out Carter Burwell. There's It's wild how many like really generationally talented people worked on this movie because Carter Burwell is like iconic. He's so good.
My favorite part is when it starts out being non diegetic and then suddenly it's diagetic because Edward is playing it on the piano the score of the movie, and you're just like, WHOA.
I like it because I think Carter Burrell is probably the most famous for being like the Coen Brothers go to guy. But also he did Twilight, and I support that. It's a good score.
It's pretty good. Okay, So there's this deer. Then we cut to Bella Swan played by Kristin Stewart, who is moving from Phoenix, Arizona because her mom wants to travel around with her brosif of a husband instead of raise her teenage daughter.
So, yeah, Renee, Renee's a real piece of work.
Yeah she is.
So Bella gets shipped off to Forks, Washington to live with her dad, Arlie Swan.
And while he's hot, a cav includes Charlie Swan, It really does, because he's the chief of police of Forks, Washington.
Okay, so he and Bella have a very awkward relationship, but he does buy her a truck off of Billy Black played by Gil Birmingham. His son is Jacob Black played by Taylor Lautner, a childhood friend of Bella's. He mentions that he goes to school on the reservation because he is a member of the Quillute nation. Even though, and this is one of the very many valid criticisms of this movie, Taylor Latner is not an indigenous actor, and the representation of Quillute people lots to discuss there.
Well, we'll talk about that further.
Yeah, yes, any case, he lives and goes to school on the will You Reservation, and Bella's like, oh darn, you were my only friend here, Like it would have been nice to know someone at school, but she's not even gonna know him.
And Jacob in Twilight Part one Sweetie Pie.
Yes. Yeah.
Also Taylor Lautner bad Wig not even in the top ten problems, but did really strike me in this viewing. I'm like, oh, it's doing a lot of work. It's like a nicole kidman grade wig.
Yeah. Anyway, So Bella has this new truck and she loves this busted, rusty gass truck from the nineteen seventies because she's not like the other girls. Then Bella heads to school, a bunch of students are like, oh my god, who are you? You're the coolest and most interesting person I've ever seen.
This is I think, like, in retrospect, one of the most interesting dream fulfillments like aspects of the story that probably made it so appealing, where it's like, what if you were truly the most normal person with no distinct features, and yet everyone was obsessed with you.
Yeah, like who is Bella Swan? Like we don't know anything about her hobbies, We don't know really what she likes. Truly, She's just like blank canvas. But everyone loves that they can just project whatever they want onto this, like very boring Bella Swan blank canvas.
Which is like not incredibly like yeah, it's like that's very common for protagonists. But it's like glaring with Belli because literally we see her just like sitting in a room staring into the middle distance when she's not like talking to Edward Colin. You're like, all right, there's I know we have. This is a self insert character, but you got to give her an interest, like it is wild.
Sometimes she reads a book.
Sometimes she does read a book, and they are interestingly the exact books that Stephanie Meyer's love sorry Stephanie Meyer singular myyr yeah one Meyer, one Meyer. But yeah, Bella. I mean that's a very common criticism of her husband for twenty years. But like it is true.
You know, she doesn't have a personality.
Oh unless clumsy is part of a personality.
Which, oh my god, which in the book is exacerbated to like such an absurd degree. I clocked literally over forty mentions in the book of her being like what if I fall? And Edward's like, I know there's a big chance you'll fall.
Can you watch where you're going.
I'll make sure you don't trip and die? Like it just it really is, like it's it's so silly. Yeah, but it's I mean again, that's the pulling from the Lizzie Maguire school of heroine. You're like, well, sure she's conventionally beautiful, but she false.
Yeah, but that doesn't stop everyone at school being obsessed with her, including such characters as Eric, Mike Tyler, Jessica played by Anna Kendrick, and Angela played by Christian Serrados. So now she has all these new friends immediately, so her concerns about not having any friends at school where
she didn't have to worry. Then at lunch, Bella spots a group of hot thirty five year olds, and her new friends tell her that these are the Cullens, a family of foster kids who were adopted by doctor Cullen and who are dating each other, including Rosalie and Emmett. Are a couple. Alice and Jasper are a couple, although one of them is single. And this is Edward Cullen
because he's not like other vampires. One of the things that I don't think I ever fully registered because she looks so different in this movie, but that I appreciated because the other Catherine Hardwick movie we've covered on this show is thirteen, and Nikki Reid, the star of thir and co writer of thirteen, plays Rosalie, which I never noticed because again wig like, I just didn't know.
And the makeup, it's the makeup in this movie is horrible, Like all of the vampires, like you can even tell if you look at their like collar and their neck, you can tell that it hasn't been blended correctly.
Oh brutal.
Yeah, you can still see like the pink of their flesh when they're supposed to be pale as fuck. So I don't know who the makeup artist was, but you got to blend all the way down to the neck, honey, all the way down down.
I wonder if that's why there's so much blue color correction in the movie, because it's like we got to hide the bad makeup.
Job, make it blue. Make it blue. Maybe that'd be incredible. I forget what two thousand movie we were discussing recently where I also think that the teen fashion of the late two thousands are doing nobody any favors in this because I feel like teen fashions of the late two thousands really aged teenagers. There are so many pictures of me as like a junior in high school where I'm like, my aunt could be wearing this, Like I'm wearing these like ponchos and like long vests and You're like, why
am I wearing what teachers were wearing? But also these like big fake Victoria's Secret bras that my cousin would give me, So it's like huge fake titties in like the most clothing possible.
Yeah, the bombshell bra adds two cups, honey.
I used to work in Victoria's Secrets, so I know all the secrets that was thea My cousin worked there, and so she's like, Okay, this is going to change your life, and it didn't. They do look old, though, they do, yeah with all dudes. Not the actor's fault, because I think the actors actually are younger than they look in the movie. They're all in their twenties.
Oh really, because they come on screen and I'm like, those people are my contemporaries currently right now as someone in their late thirties.
No, I think that they're all it's I mean, they're not high schoolers. I think Kristen Stewart is one of the only actual high school age actors. Yeah, most of them are in their twenties, but I think I don't know, like they were just done dirty.
Yeah. In any case, there's one single Cullen, and it's Edward, and he and Bella make eyes at each other. Then they get paired up as lab partners in science class. Except Edward is repulsed by Bella, although he also can't stop staring at her. It's this weird like disgust slash fascination thing that with understand why soon, and she notices how repulsed he is by her, and she plans to confront him about the except Edward doesn't show up at school for days on end, so she can't confront him
right away. Meanwhile, cut to the woods, there's some dangerous creature who's attacking people on the outskirts of town, so that's looming over the story. Finally, Edward shows up at school again, and he's no longer acting completely repulsed by Bella. He's actually being kind of friendly. And so now they're looking at an onion under a microscope and we're like, wait a minute, onions have layers. Shrek, Shrek, Shrek.
Wow, I didn't pick up on that. That's why you have the master's degree. Yeah, that's exactly right. Yes, Okay, So they're like now talking kind of about nothing. He also says something like, you're very difficult for me to read because he loves making creepy declarations like that.
Yeah.
And also that's so, you know, argublate because there's nothing going on. There's nothing, there's no that was fella hatred. No, I like Bella, but what is going on behind those hazel eyes? To borrow a song title?
Yeah, and speaking of eye color, she notices that Edward's eyes are a different color than the last time she saw him, and he makes an excuse about the fluorescent lighting. Aka, this is the beginning of him gaslighting her.
And kind of the most egregious ways possible In the movie, and just having reread the book, they really turn up the casualness with which the gaslighting happens up to like a fourteen because also Robert Pattinson's deliveries are so mean sounding, and I guess the way I imagined it was a little more like no, no, it couldn't have been. I mean that more the way I've experienced gaslight of like, no, no, girl with tiny brain. But he's like, no, it's de ferorescent lights.
She's a fucking casshle.
Anyways, I do love him. I would marry him.
He talks to her about the weather, and he's like, why did you move to the Like well, she says she hates the rain, any cold wet thing, Yeah, she hates. And then he like giggles.
About it afterward because he's like, I'm cold and wet, yes, and you're about to fall in love with him, yeah, So they have really rivet in conversations about such things as the weather and onions. Anyway, So one day, Tyler, one of the friends in Bella's friend group, is cruising through the school parking lot at about sixty miles per hour and he loses control of his van and nearly Krene's into Bella, but suddenly Edward is there to save her, even though he was just fifty feet away from her
like one second ago. But Edward is there and he stops the van with what seems like superhuman strength. So Bella is taken to the hospital where she meets doctor Daddy Cullen. Edward is there too, and Bella is like, what the hell happened? How did you get to me so fast? And then he proceeds to gaslight her more and says that he was already right next to her.
He said, you bunked your head real hard.
You're confused.
It really is like gaslighting one oh one lines like you fell, Yeah, you must have wonked your head. It's the lights. You're like, you've had one hundred years to get better at gaslighting than you are, sir.
Yeah, okay. So from this point onward, now Bella is like dreaming about Edward, partly because he is fully stalking her and sneaking into her bedroom and watching her sleep. He's also eavesdropped on her conversations. He's being generally cruel and abusive to her, saying things like we shouldn't be friends, but also I want to be friends, but you should stay away from me because I'm not the hero. I'm the bad guy, and She's like, no, you're a good guy.
Come to the beach with me and my friends. And he's like, I DK probably not.
He's like, I can't. I can't go to that.
Whatever man, And we're about to find out why because we cut to the beach called.
La Push La Push La push Baby, which is a real place, which is.
A real place where the quill Yet people live. Edward does not show up, but Jacob and his friends do and they're like, oh, yeah, the Cullens don't come here, and Jacob proceeds to tell Bella that the quilt people are descended from wolves, the Cullens are descended from an enemy clan, but they've established a treaty as long as the Cullens stay off Quillute land. So Bella is like, what's that all about? And she starts investigating. She finds a book, a Belle Quilliute Mythology, and goes with her
friends to Port Angelis Ever heard of It? No to buy this book while her friends, Jess and Angela go prom dress shopping because everyone is gearing up for prom, although Bella is not going to prom because she'll be out of town that weekend.
Well, van Alsa thinkause she's not like other girls.
She's not like the other girls.
She doesn't dance.
She would and if she went to prom, you know, she would be wearing Chuck Taylor. She's yes, because she is not like, Oh god, I did have the I mean, girls were wearing Chucks like no one's business at that time.
I was wearing Chucks.
I still do, as in.
Really, I just I really appreciated when that fad pass because they're just not I think my arches are too high or something. They're just not comfortable to me.
I mean, they're not the most comfortable shoe.
I bravely wear crocs everywhere I go, every single day.
I also want to point out that we see on screen that Bella could have bought this book from Amazon, but instead she opts to go to a whole other city and buy it from a local independent bookstore.
Yeah that's Bela Swan praxis y right there, buys from an independent bookseller, Yes, who we see in a single shot, right, but she does support local businesses.
Good for Bella indeed.
But name a second thing about her.
She read one book one time. What was the book? We don't know?
Yeah, she still ends up mostly googling, which I thought was funny that she went so far out of her way to get the book. She still mostly googles the answers, which is relatable. I've done that. I've been like, oh, I've made a big deal of getting the books and then been like, huh, well, I actually have run the clock and I have three days to read this paper.
I made note of that. Though she reads exactly one sentence from the book and then proceeds to google everything else.
I felt seen like, that's what teenagers do.
It's amazing. Okay, So she's hanging out in Port Angelis buying books locally. Meanwhile, there is a group of scary people and I wonder if they're vampires. They are James, Laurent and Victoria. They're on the loose and they attack a guy who we've met before. It's a friend of Bella's dad's. He's presumably murdered. Then a different set of scary people start bothering Bella on her way back from the bookstore, but Edward comes to her rescue because he had followed her to Port Angelis.
Yeah no, but it's a good thing he did kill him right right, because because he.
Saved her from those scary people who were about to assault her.
He rescues her from so many bizarre predicaments.
Yeah yeah, he heard what those low lifes were thinking.
Yeah, yes, yeah. So then Edward takes Bella to dinner, where he admits that he had been stalking her and also tells her that he can read every person's thoughts in the room except for hers. And if you're wondering if she has any kind of reaction to this, well she barely does.
We're being hard on Bella. I feel bad.
Well, she thinks that something's wrong with her because you can't read her mind, which is like so sad. It's like, no, honey, there's nothing wrong with you other than the regulate that you're boring. But there's nothing wrong with you.
What's the thing is like her boringness is her power question mark that I kept writing that down being like it's her absolute blankness that which which we'll get into too, because I think that, like both of the lead actors of this movie were like pretty thoroughly dragged through the mud in the press for something that has way more to do with the source material than the performances, where for years, I mean, I kind of remember this where
people were like, Kristin Stewart can't act. You know, she's like a total blank slate. She's just like and I'm just like, read the book. She's not given very much. Yeah, and then a bunch of very homophobic, coded criticism of Edward and Robert Pattinson because he's too sparkly and vampires are famously straight. Like I don't even know where people are going with that because that's never been a thing.
But like in any case, I was sort of like revisiting that period of like Christian Stewart's a bad actor, which you know, fifteen years on, you're like, yeah, monstrably untrue. She's not just a great actor, she's a queer icon.
Yeah.
Yeah, I find it interesting that both she and Robert Pattinson have gone on to have like pretty prolific careers as actors. And then Taylor Latner, I would say, not so much.
I am always buying the wrong stocks. I tell you what. I was all in for Taylor Latner and he did buy me a three dollars beer once.
Wow.
Yeah, I think I told that story on the first version. Is like right after I moved to La went to this cheap o bar called the Cha Chaw Lounge, and for some reason, Taylor and his wife to be also named Taylor were there and he was like, next round on me. But all the beers cost three dollars, so he couldn't have spent more than like thirty dollars. But it was nice of him. I appreciated it. Yeah, So I guess I got a three dollar return on setting all my style and Taylor Latner three dollars plus tip.
I hope, wow, I mean could be worse.
Yeah.
Anyway, So Bella returns home and this is the scene where she looks through her book for one second and then looks everything else up online.
I love a good googling montage. It's so pat but I find it comforting.
M hm. And what she's looking up is information about vampires, and she realizes that Edward is probably a vampire based on his super speed and strength, his cold skin, his ability to read people's minds, since that's famously a vampire quality.
I love how they just wave aside the I do appreciate Stephanie Meyer just waves off the tropes about vampires she's disinterested in and adds the stuff that she wants You're like, yeah, sure, it's your book.
I guess She's like, they can be out in the daylight. It's just that their skin is sparkly.
They just have this body glitter kind of thing.
Yeah, exactly.
And they're also Professor Xavier from x Men.
I've never seen an x man. Wow, I'm not like you've never seen an x man. Oh, I was gonna say, I made a special note in a very late two thousand's not. The Papyris font is indeed featured in oh Bella's googling sequence, which it wouldn't have been in two thousand and eight if she hadn't come across you know, homespun HTML layout papyrus font website. So I appreciated that.
That was important visibility.
Yes for the papyrus part. Well, No, the papyrus font's one year away from being the avatar logo. So the Papyrus font did oh perfectly fine for herself.
True. Okay, So one day at school, Bella and Edward go into the nearby woods together and she's like, so, you're a vampire, right, and he's like TI, yes, and she's like, don't worry, I'm not afraid of you. Even though you desperately want to kill me and drink my blood. You're a killing machine who has previously murdered people.
This is the skin of a killer Bella.
Oh yeah that light I so, y'all. I didn't tell you, but I'm wearing a shirt. This is the skin of a killer. I will show you. It has like the meme of Probert Pattinson. Incredible And yeah, it's a T shirt and I made it into a half shirt because I love me some half shirts. And this isn't the only Twilight half shirt that I own. I also own one that is New Moon based. It's the scene where Jacob says, Bella, where the hell have you been? Loca?
Yes, that is that half shirt.
So yeah, I do rock some some Twilight apparel still, even though it's not a Team Edward shirt.
Our producer Sophie is a big fan or like was a huge twyhard back in the day, and they recently screened near her and the like the whole audience in Unison did the bello where have you been? Look up together? Ah. There is something just so powerful about the memes that keep us together. This is the skin of a killer Bella. That line read really holds up. It's so funny.
She's like, you're beautiful skins like diamonds.
Diamonds, everything about me draws you in. Like, we'll talk about like how Robert Pattinson, I feel like, almost in a defensive way, came out against the Twilight movies because he wanted to have a quote unquote serious career. In starring in movies that are marketed at teen girls is quote unquote unserious. And so he would sort of be like, these movies suck, but I'm in them. They but I hate them. But he would do it in a funny enough way that it's hard for me to be mad
at him. But yeah, imagine having to perform that monologue. It's really really wild that he basically pulls it up.
Yeah, So now Bella and Edward are irrevocably in love with each other. He tells her some of his backstory, which I forgot to write down.
He am in start of the flu Yeah, he had Spanish influenza and Carlyle saved him and yeah bit him and turned him into into a vampire.
Right, and something that really struck me on this And we can we can and should talk about this later. But that Carle. Like Carlyle's code of honor is that he'll only turn people into vampires when they are already
about to die. But as ties into a lot of the like undertones of white supremacy and like Mormonism specifically in this franchise, he mysteriously only ever seems to have an interest in saving white vampires or eventual vampires specifically, including even though I think that this is a discussion for a future episode because it doesn't come up I don't think in this movie. But Jasper's fighting on the wrong side of the Civil War canonically.
Yeah, he's a Confederate soldier.
Yeah, and there is really I mean, we'll talk about it in I don't know if it's the second or third movie where that like there's like a full flashback sequence I remember, and it is just not drawn attention to as something that's wrong. And I know Princess Weeks made a great video about how Confederate Vampire's Soldiers is like this very scary trope that exists across vampire media. But yeah, doctor Daddy only ever saves white people on the verge of death.
Yeah, so we learn that as Edward's backstory, we also learn that the Cullens have kind of sworn this oath to never hunt or attack or kill humans. They live off of the blood of animals, but there are other like vampire clans who do kill people, and that's what's going on with James and Victoria.
And you can tell by their eye color too, of the vampires. Their eye color, you can tell if they are vegetarian vampires or if they hunt humans, because the vegetarian vampires have like golden eyes, and then the human hunting ones have red eyes.
So like, yeah, yes.
Yes, exactly. So Edward tells Bella all of this. Then he invites her to his house to have dinner with his vampire family. Rosalie has a little outburst about it.
She breaks a salad.
We're gonna be tension between her and Bella throughout the series.
Oh boy.
Also, Jasper is thirsty as fuck for Bella's blood, but he's exercising restraint. Then we get the spider monkey scene.
Great that was added for the movie. Also amazing that Robert Pattinson says it without laughing, so good.
That's a skill.
That's followed by this like montage kind of thing where they're just sort of like canoodling in the tree tops, as if that's like so romantic and I'm so afraid of heights that Like I'm like, who who would find that romantic? Like is this exciting for people?
I don't know, I would find that terrifying. Yeah.
What struck me about that scene was that presumably what's happening in that scene is they're getting to know each other better and they don't show us that where it's like it would actually be I mean, and I know to some extent and this is like ten years ago kind of styled this course around Twilight, but I think it would be nice to see them have more conversations to lock in what connects them as people.
Why they like each other, right, Like.
That's not too much to ask of a romance story. And it was like, I think we were watching that scene happening, like we were far away, we couldn't hear it. It's like, oh, I would have loved to know what they would what Bella would talk about? Yeah, no, I read this is so many questions about Twilight if you google them lead to a Reddit post from five years ago,
and this one is no exception. But later on, Stephanie Meyer would write sort of rewrite Twilight from Edward's perspective, called Midnight Sun. I almost was like, should I read it? And then I saw it was a thirty six hour long audiobook, and then I thought, maybe I know, there's only so many days of your life.
Yeah.
Yeah, But I guess in that she does get into some of the conversations she has that Bella has with Edward, and she at one point gives her list of favorite movies and books, which are baffling given Bella's personality. She says her favorite movie is Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Interesting, which is coming from a character I don't think we ever see laugh, is like so confusing. I was like, there's no way.
Yeah.
Anyways, I guess in the source material in the book, we find out that she reads Jane Austen books, which you know, they're great books, but there couldn't be a more bland thing assigned to a teenage girl character than likes Jane Austen books.
Oh okay, So then there's a scene where Bella introduces Edward to Charlie Swan, her dad, and Charlie's like, you better watch out, young man, I've got a gun. Then we get the baseball scene, which is an amazing scene, mostly because it is seven people total playing baseball, which is not enough people to play baseball.
And here's two referees but not enough player.
Yeah, they don't even let Bella play because she's too slow, so they make her be the umpire. But anyway, this is when the bad vampires show up. They want to join in the fun. They want to play baseball, it's America's pastime. But they notice that a human is among them. They smell Bella's like blood for something or human flesh, and James in particular wants to just eat Bella to death and he is now going to hunt her down. So Edward and Bella have to leave to lure James
away so that they can basically eventually kill him. They have to cut him up into pieces and burn the pieces.
Right, which is always like there's always these like suggestions of violence like that in Twilight, but they never like they ordinarily don't really have at least in the first movie. There's a lot of like, I'm gonna do this, but then it happens off screen. Yeah, yeah, yeah, because Mormons.
So then there's a scene where Bella and Edward are fleeing, Bella goes home and like has to hurt her dad feelings to protect him. Then Bella and Edward split up to hopefully trick James into following. Edward and Bella goes off with Alice and Jasper all the way to Phoenix, where Bella receives a call from her mother, who James has kidnapped, and James tells her to meet him at her old ballet studio. Now Bella shows up, learns that her mom was not actually kidnapped, it's just James there,
and he's like taunting her and throwing her around. She gets badly injured and she's bleeding, and Edward shows up and he and James fight a bit. James bites Bella and his vampire venom is coursing through her veins.
And it hurts, but it hurts so good question mark. Yeah, the gnarliest moment in this movie to me is always when pony Hill vampire break Bella's leg like that. That to me is like the actual scariest part of the movie. It's so yeah, But then how would she go to prom without her quirky leg cast, So in a way, it had to happen ponytail vampire had to do so she could look quirky or from.
Yes, yes, But before that happens, the rest of the Cullens show up to deal with James and they kill him off screen. Meanwhile, Edward goes to suck the venom out of Bella, but oh no, will he be able to show restraint and stop in time, or will he suck all the blood out of her and kill her.
And give him vampire blue balls? Yeah, this movie is so edgy.
Well, he manages not to bust a nut or whatever the metaphor is, and Bella live.
Yeah.
She wakes up in the hospital. Her mom is there. Bella doesn't remember what happens, so or she I don't know if she's like pretending not to or what. But her mom relays the story that the Cullens probably told her, which is that Bella fell down two flights of stairs, broke her leg, and crashed through a window.
Okay, if I'm Bella's mom, I'm like, excuse me, Like how But I think that because that same excuse is given in the book. If I'm remembering correctly, it's a very long book. But I was like, is that why they mentioned that she's so prone to falling because people have to believe this ridiculous story that she could just fall down two flights, like a Looney Tune style fall. Sure, Renee, I'm not her fan. If Renee has one fan, it's not me, it's not you. I like, your daughter's a junior.
You can wait two years to go on the road with your sorry whatever. But like, if I was a teen girl and my mom was like, actually I'm going off to fuck this guy, I'd be like, all right, well, I hate you, you know.
But now her mom is encouraging her to move to Jacksonville, Florida, to like hang out with her mom and her new husband, and Bella's like, no, I want to stay in Forks. But Edward is like, no, Bella, that's a good idea. Actually you are safer away from me, and you should move. And she's like, no, I'm never leaving you and you can never leave me, So don't say things like that, and that's love. And we cut to prom and Bella
and Edward are there together. Jacob just kind of randomly pops out of the woods.
He walks out of the woods. They did not do a good job of making it like Why can't we see him get out of a car? Why is he have to I know that he's probably I know, I know that that's what they're implying, but it looks so silly.
It's goofy as hell.
Yeah, it's so silly. I love it.
And he like dresses up. He's like wearing a button down shirt and tie, like rolls up sleeves and.
Stuff, as if he's about to go to prom. But he's not a question.
She's like, no, my dad gave me twenty dollars and I'm like, okay.
He's like, my dad paid me to tell you to break up with Edward and that will be watching you. And we're like cool, cool, cool, tight tight tight.
At very least in the book, Jacob like they danced together and there's like a clearer friendship established, and not what happens in the movie, which is like Edward appearing out of nowhere and being like, get away from me, and then they gave each other like Bruti boy eyes monster boy eyes, and then Jacob walks back into the woods like that's where.
He came from.
So I hope he got that twenty dollars.
Yeah, yeah, I hope. At very least because it's like, that's a very humiliating task to dispatch your sixteen year old son to do.
Anyway, So then Bella and Edward are slow dancing and she's like, you should have let me become a vampire so that I can be like you. And he's like, no, I'm not gonna let you be a monster, and she's like, but this is what I want, and so he moves like he's about to bite her neck, but JK, he's
just teasing slash edging her. And the movie ends with a shot of Victoria, the bad vampire who's James's his girlfriend, leering at Bella and Edward from a distance because she wants revenge, and that's partly going to be what some of the other movies are about.
I think maybe I was really bummed I forgot that the Vultore don't show up in this movie because they're so funny. They're the funniest part of all of the vivies where they're because it's just like this didn't fully connect for me until like going through the Twilight rehash discourse that's happened in the last five years. But it's just how Stephanie Meyer views Catholic people, which is like gay and evil No, Italian gay and evil.
Yes, it's just so.
Weird, I forget. Yeah, yeah, but you're gonna have to wait for Dakota Fanning Italian villain.
Yeah, yes, indeed. So yeah, that's the movie. Let's take a quick break and we'll come back to discuss.
And we're back, Daneli, I want to sort of pass the buck to you here. Where would you like to start with discourse of Twilight.
I don't know, I don't know. Where's what it feels like a good place to start, as far as like things that you all wanted to cover as well.
Yeah, I mean, I think we didn't mention this, Caitlin, but we also during actually during Lockdown, I want to say it was summer twenty twenty, we did a fundraiser where we did a reading of the Twilight script with
past guests from the show. Jess Berwin was a part of that conversation, and they and many Native writers have been intensely and rightfully critical of the way that Twilight presents indigenous culture, which I think we reference in our first episode, but certainly not in depth because we were also under educated on the issue at the time, So
I think that's a good starting point. And then also just again for our listener's reference, we're not going to get into every facet of that in this particular episode, because I believe that it's New Moon that really kind of doubles and triples down on these really dangerous tropes around indigenous people, and Jacob is not in this movie very much. But I think that it is at least to me like the unequivocally valid criticism of this franchise.
Yes, friend of the show Ali Noddy has spoken about this in depth, and I've learned an awful lot from posts that she's made and videos that she's made.
She made a great video essay on the topic, definitely.
So Yeah, the glaring thing here because this movie does go a little bit into some of the lore that's basically at foreshadows a lot of what happens in New Moon. But there's a scene where Jacob Black again played by a non indigenous actor. He is a member of the Quillute Nation. The character is again not the actor, and.
The Quiliate nation really does live in Lapushe. I think at the time that the movie came out, there were only about seven hundred members of the nation, so it's also a quite small nation.
Yes, So what we learned from this movie is and this is something that Jacob mentions, but that his people are descended from wolves, which is part of Quiliute mythology, like that's part of the creation story. But basically what happened is that Stephanie Meyer probably did one second of research, learned that and then basically conflated that with Quillute people are where wolves.
Right to like serve the pre which again it's just I mean, there's so many issues with how Stephanie Meyer dealt with writing a Qualiute character in general, but the fact that she's also like equivocating a very real group of people with a completely made up group of people, you know, inventing a treaty that is presented very matter of factly, as if most of the treaties that have been quote unquote made with indigenous tribes have not been
completely disrespected or later renegged on. The movie has no interest in this. I also was reading that she didn't. I mean, it reminds me of how we talked about Robert Eggers in the vivich oh where there was that interview he did where they're like, how did you research the movie? And he's like, I went to the library one day like that, and that was all he admitted
to doing. She does seem to be borrowing from the Robert Egger's School of Higher Education and that she clearly googled a couple of things, never consulted with the quil Nation, right, it doesn't seem like visited, like did no due diligence
in writing that character. And that also she still somehow got it wrong where I'm pretty sure that at least I was seeing this because there's been a lot of art exhibits and pieces written about it that the tribe is said to have been turned to people from wolves and not like it's not a back and forth thing, correct, So she's just projecting, you know whatever, making everything work in favor of the story. The thing that stood out to me and the Taylor Lotner thing is absolutely glaring.
And there's also this very I think it was more in the New Moon press cycle, so we can talk about it more in that episode. But there was a like round of discourse where Taylor Latner did like a round of press where he was like, actually, I do have some indigenous heritage. I just didn't know before. And on my mom's side, I have some indigenous heritage, which
is like, don't do that. Like, and he's a teenager at the time, Like, I'm more inclined to blame the producers of Twilight that probably put pressure on him to do that, to put out a fire. It's all very ugly. The thing that stuck out to me the most, though, that I wasn't fully aware of, or I guess I hadn't been reminded of in some time, was in terms of how the Quali tribe was able to benefit from the success of Twilight. There was a lot written about this.
The most in depth piece I was able to find was in Highcountrynews dot com, which is a local paper. It is from twenty twelve, so towards the end of the Twilight movies, in which the Quali tribe was holding a public powow and was inviting people to become better acquainted with their culture. And I think we might have
talked about this years ago. But what the piece illustrates essentially is the fact that a because the Twilight production was not required to give the Qualia tribe any sort of public acknowledgment or financial compensation, they opted not to, and that this tribe, which again consists of around seven hundred people, had to in response to the success from Twilight and have all of a sudden all of this tourism, which we should just link the piece because it is
very interesting. On one hand, they're like, you know, having tourism money come in is a net positive, But on the other hand, they're coming in because of misinformation, and so they had to develop, you know, for a small group of people who have been historically persecuted, they had to develop a pr job within the nation to sort of not overtly condemned Twilight, but also work to correct the misinformation that Twilight had created. And it's created this
entire like net of issues. And something that isn't mentioned in this twenty twelve piece but feels worth mentioning is the fact of, like, why do indigenous groups have to rely on tourism money from you know, majority non indigenous people because of the same capitalist system that is disenfranchising them in the first place, And it's cost all of this genocide and the fact that that is even something that tribes need to interface with is like the result
of something far uglier. So just I have one quick passage. I'm sorry, I know him going along. It's just no I love it. This piece is I want to shout out the writer that not an indigenous writer, but who attended this powo and spent a lot of time and spoke with the pr advocates. All this stuff from writer Brint Nelson in July twenty twelve, rites the Quilliad has struggled for centuries to retain their land and culture amid
outside threats. In eighteen eighty nine, the same year a treaty squeezed the tribe onto a fraction of its ancestral lands. A settler who had fraudulently claimed the remaining plots burned all twenty six houses to the ground. By nineteen twenty, the last of the peninsula's wolves had been poisoned, shot or trapped, severing another vital link to the past. They also mentioned how there are many places in the surrounding areas, but not on their reservation or land, that profit off
of the twilight. You know what it was the word being adjacent adjacent fairness. In twenty ten, a volunteer advisor Angela Riley, director of the American Indian Studies Center at UCLA wrote an editorial in The New York Times, Sucking the Quill Dry, which blasted the ongoing exploitation. In perhaps the worst instance, an MSN dot com film crew working on a virtual Twilight tour filmed the reservation cemetery without permission, pairing grainy images of the gravesites of respected elders with
a creepy soundtrack. Deeply offended, the tribe secured a quick published ecology and removal of the footage, but the incident prompted a new level of vigilance. Now the Quilliut Nation has an etiquette guide and photography policy, both prominently displayed on its website. So it's just this examination of how this small tribe has had to respond, deal with and try to essentially make the best of this situation that's been thrust onto them by this franchise. And I don't know, Yeah,
I'm curious what you both feel about that. I mean, it's obviously very gross and it takes Stephanie Meyer kind of, I think, a very nasty amount of time to even acknowledge this.
I had come across a piece called Truth Versus Twilight, which was a collaboration between the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture and the Quilute tribe. And it goes through a bunch of different talking points, many of which revolve around the representation of the Quillut nation, and one of the big points made was that the tribe received no compensation to bite. The movie, making over four hundred million dollars at the box office, made back its budget,
like by over tenfold, Like made so much money. Obviously we know what a cultural phenomenon this saga is, and the Quilli nation saw no direct compensation from that. Again, there was no consultation that Stephanie Meyer did, and I meant to look into this further, but I would doubt that the film production did much in the way of consultation.
So from what I can tell, no, So there's actually it's mentioned in this piece, okay, from the same High Country news piece. When the Twilight craze first erupted, the Quillia lacked a public relations contact and events coordinator and Penn Trials, a community leader who helps run the weekly drum and healing circle, says producer of the first movie randomly called villagers in hopes of securing permission to film a scene on First Beach it was ultimately shot on
the Oregon coast instead. The producers eventually visited so eventually, well into production, the producers eventually visited La Push to get a better sense of the community. Tribal Secretary Naomi Jacobson says their idea of Qulio kids were upended when
they visited her cousin's home. They didn't expect them to be modernized teenagers with iPods and we she says, So this was just like, as with so many depictions of Indigenous culture well into now and thankfully there has been more representation of but nowhere near what satisfactory, as we've talked about in many episodes. But just like this is an overwhelmingly white crew coming in based on I'm assuming the false version of history they learned and never re
examined in American schools. Yeah, there was no compensation given that I was a well to find and it seems like the first literal person to say hey, could we come to the Push and speak with you was well into the production of the movie, which would have been at least three years after the book came out.
And it's like just the age old story of like appropriation and benefiting from you know, other people's culture. It saddens me, it outrages me that, you know, the Quiliit people were not consulted, they were not compensated, and like that happens so often, especially as a person of color, like we often are not compensated for our work, for
our labor. And this could have been an opportunity for the production crew to be educated on the Quiliad tribe and they could have been compensated for their time and
for their information. But it is sad that the research was well into production and Stephanie Meyer didn't do a lot of that work on her which is again, like I'm so outraged by that, and like I I think that when I was younger, I didn't I didn't know this information, yeah, you know, and I just thought about like, oh, the romance, the story of you know, Edward and and Bella falling in love, and there's so much I mean, this is a problematic fave, sadly, but there's there's so
much to really dive into. And again, like so many, so many issues that could be discussed about this movie. And you know, the books that made this movie happen, you know, absolutely.
I mean, and and well this is like an issue well return to as we cover more Twilight movies, because it's like Twilight is a problematic fave for millions of people, and again, like we're our show is an every fun about like if with very few exceptions, there's a few movies where it's like, if you like this movie, you might be a horrible person, but The Twilight is not
one of them. I don't think. I think that there is so much important, valid criticism that was not being had at the time that is important to have now. And I'm I mean that's why it's like Ali Natty's work is so wonderful and yeah, well we'll revisit that in our New Moon episode. But just to establish like I know for sure, I was not educated to the point where I could have told you when this movie came out if the Clearly tribe was a tribe that was based on real people or not, because we're so
under educated about indigenous issues. And also, Indigenous people aren't a monolith as this movie. I think there's a lot of stuff in New Moon that really, you know, turns Indigenous Americans into a monolith. So we'll go back to that. But did anyone else have anything on that issue before we forge ahead to the five hundred other things to talk about.
Let's forge ahead, I suppose so well. I think a big talking point on our first episode was the discussion around the predatory romance between Edward and Bella being framed as this grand, romantic, beautiful love story and the effect
that that had on its audience. Sure, now watching this movie eight years later and like having done this podcast for eight years and like talking about so many movies that do just that as far as framing an abusive relationship or a predatory romance as being romantic, watching this again for the first time in a long time, it felt so heavy handed to me that it almost felt like I was watching satire or like some kind of farcical thing, because I was like, oh my gosh, because
I think that we have come long enough of away culturally, like the initial release of these books in these movies that I think, or at least I hope most people watch this relationship now and realize just how predatory it is and they're like ooh oh, no, yeah, Because I feel like on our first watch, I was kind of still in the mindset of like, well, I don't know, I've always been conditioned that if a man stalks me and love bombs me, and.
To me, fair, I don't think that we were like, it's actually cool that he's we weren't that brand dead in twenty seventeen.
There no, but we were coming off of being conditioned by other media that, at least for me, I was like kind of still in the process of like undoing, sure, unlearning a lot of that, and now I'm like, oh my gosh, like WOWI wow, this seems this is so
outlandish that it feels satirical to me almost. But yeah, I mean, obviously, there's all the things of Edward gaslighting her, incessantly stalking her, showing up in her bedroom unannounced, watching her sleep, love bombing her, blaming her for his reaction, like kind of like any angry outburst he has, he's like, well,
you made me so angry. The implication that he's intrigued by her because she's the only person whose thoughts he can't hear, but he's still desperate to know what she's thinking. And just like all these weird, bizarro, predatory, scary, abusive relationship dynamics. Also that he's like one hundred years old and she's seventeen. You know, the list goes on.
Yeah, yeah, I mean that's honestly, the main initial criticism that we had of this movie that doesn't hold up for me is the age gap, because well, I do agree that a hundred year old shouldn't date seventeen year olds. That's not something that happens, and I don't think it's like something that we're risk to do. I guess there were a few things that as I was like revisiting some of the criticisms that I pre I mean the fact like, it's to me impossible to and this is
not a brave stance. It's impossible to look at this relationship and be like, seems healthy. Yeah, it's definitely not. There's absolutely stocking. The gaslighting, like you're saying, Caitlin is like so over the top that it feels like literally a handout of like this is what a gas lighter might say of like you don't know what you're talking about. You must have bonked your head, like you know, just really really unsophisticated stuff. And the thing is, like I
still feel that way. I know that there's been a lot of history that looks at the original backlash I guess I'm curious, Yeah, where we all stand on that, because there are still a lot of the initial criticisms that I felt about this movie. I still feel like, I, you know, I'm not gonna be like after eight years,
I think that they actually have a great relationship. And also the thing that is never gonna sit quite right with me, even with the reflection on some of I think the more extreme criticisms of Twilight at the time is that this is media that's you know, marketed at middle schoolers and high schoolers, so it's marketed at impressionable people, right and with all due respect to the youth, I saw Juno and my takeaway was I have to get pregnant right now because I like Juno and Juno was pregnant,
and so if there's even a risk that someone is like that and this is, you know, something that you're very emotionally invested in, I think that that is very up for debate, despite what the intent of the author
might have been. I think that something I've moved on is movies that a very clearly marketed and intended for adults having unhealthy relationship dynamics, where it's like, Okay, you know, if a movie is fully intended for adults and mainly being consumed by adults, and you see an unhealthy relationship
dynamic and you say, I want that. To some extent, that's on you because you're a grownup, and not every movie can model perfect relationship dynamics, But when you're modeling them to an audience that are probably entering their first relationships, it is I think still right. You know, I stand by and I think it is a valid discussion to have.
Yeah, absolutely, I think, like definitely, Like when I first read the books, and then also when I first watched the movie, I was completely convinced that this was a beautiful love story. And I was convinced then too that everything that he was doing was because he loved her, And I didn't find it to be controlling or gas lighty. But really, you know, what I mentioned before at the beginning is that I grew up in a very sheltered environment.
I grew up in a religious cult, very like Pentecostal adjacent. So the misogyny was, you know, real thick. And you know, for me, this was not so far off from what I had known and already experienced, so it was easy for me to make that leap from this very religious upbringing to then you know, Edward being very controlling and gaslighting and stocking her. It just was an easy transition
for me. I didn't really question it, which is when I look back at it, very scary to think about, and you know, like it was you know, not only was I a part of a religious system, I also lived in an abusive household. So these were you know, things that I was seeing often and it was just a mirror of my own experience and that was really all that I knew. But it's it's sad that this is what was being sold to, you know, young girls and being told that this is what true love looks like.
You know, if he loves you, he'll he'll follow you and make sure that you're protected. Oh nayneh.
He'll cut you off from any potential friendship that you could possibly have with anyone of any gender, which is like so egregious, right exactly.
And there's just this you know codependence that they have. I mean, thinking about like the end of the movie, the thought of moving to Jacksonville just completely like Bella's
like freaking out. She's like absolutely like you could never never leave me, and I think about the line in the movie you know, so the lion fell in love with the lamb, and it's like so so predatory in nature, you know, he is he is a lion and she is this this lamb, And I'm thinking about how I don't know if you all knew, but there were a lot of hot topic came up with like a line of like jewelry around the movie.
Oh I bet they did.
You'll notice some of the jewelry, like in the scene in the science class when Edward like moves the kind of the slides over to Bella. He's wearing this like leather bracelet with the colin like crest on it. So hot topic was selling all of this jewelry to young kids. So not only was there a jewelry with the crest, there was also a pair of rings that had lion and lamb on them. And who owned them? I did.
My first boyfriend gave them to me. And like most like first relationships, it was not a healthy relationship at all. There was so much you know, codependence and controlling behavior from both of us. But we were again a part of a system that just ingrained that in us, So it was that much more I guess dangerous for that
message to be continually like drilled into my brain. So like when I think about like my relationship to the movie now, it's it's very strange, and it's layered and it's convoluted, and I have to think about, like again my experiences that I had before watching the movie, and then how I was as a young adult watching this movie thinking that this was, you know, the love that I was chasing, and then now after as an adult, fully understanding that that type of love is so damaging.
And I myself have been in you know, abusive relationships later on in my adulthood where there was stocking and like restraining orders and it was just a really really difficult time for me. And this movie, I do feel, like what you said, Caitlin, you have to watch it with the eye of that this is satire. Otherwise, like the indoctrination is again a very very damaging thing.
Right, But that's the thing, Like it only feels like satire now in like twenty twenty five because when it came out in two thousand and eight, right, it was coming out in the context of this culture that's still very much normalized this type of relationship dynamic, which is very abusive and predatory as being actually romantic. It was coming out in a culture that rewarded men's predatory behavior
like that. So it doesn't fly now it feels so ridiculous, at least to me now, But in the context of it coming out, it was different enough that it did feel very like, oh my gosh, well this is love. I have to model my relationship after this.
Yeah, and I hope it say something positive that this does Riada's satire now, I really hope it does, because I think about, even though Twilight wasn't a complete like hallmark of my youth, I think of like, how many abuse of dynamics that you end up with in your life, And you're like, what was modeled to me that made this okay? And then you can trace that up as far as you like of like, if this is something I saw modeled in someone in my life, what was
modeled to them? Was it? Media? Was that people? What was it like? And you just and it's usually some really bizarro mix of everything, like media that's withheld from
you with media that's given to you. At dynamics, you see dynamics, you see projected like it's also very like extremely complicated, and this is like not the relationship as a twelve year old to aspire to like that is so clear, and I think that that is like a lot of who was reading this book is people who had not you know, I generally feel like media about seventeen year old girls is mainly being consumed by twelve year old girls because they're looking for a model of
who do I want to become? Right and what? I don't know. It's so tricky because I think that like Stephanie Meyer is a piece of shit for so many reasons. But I always sort of, I guess, struggle with all of these cultural issues that have been around for literally hundreds of years falling onto the back of one work like which I do think there is a tendency to
do that I know I've definitely been guilty of. Is like there is this very broad, clickable take of like Twilight is making a generation of young women want to enter abusive relationships, where it is a facet of a much larger problem, which I feel like ties into Stephanie Meyer's background, which is as a devout Mormon, and I didn't know anything about Mormon culture in twenty seventeen when we recorded this episode, and I wish I could go back,
but I can't. And I do know a lot more about Mormonism now and about how a lot of Mormon values are sort of telegraphed in this work, and how Stephanie Meyer, you know, I think like a lot of authors who are women. We literally just talked about it last week with Judy Bloom, but she was a stay at home mom when she wrote this book, was not
anticipated to be successful. It was wildly successful. But you can see a lot of sort of themes of her life come out in this book in a way that is presented as romance, because that's how Stephanie Meyer has been conditioned to understand romance. So the way Stephanie Meyer talks about indigenous people is a completely different issue that I think there's absolutely no defense of her on definitely in the romance department. I do think that there is
a like multi generational thing going on. I don't think Stephanie Meyer is sitting in her in like Dexter's lab, petting a cat, being like I'm gonna write the most toxic story ever. I do think that this, like she would repeatedly say this is a story that came to me in a dream, and that to some extent, this is an expression of a fantasy that she has based
on her lived experience. As I mean, she went to Brigham Young University, like she was full Mormon, And you can see I think in the like edging like relationship between Bella and Edward, through which a lot of the violent and controlling things we're talking about comes through, are pulled from this, Like I mean, I didn't I knew very little about Stephanie Meyer's biography, but she met her future husband as a child and they had this like long standing crush on each other, but they did not
spend any time alone until they were twenty. So it's a very like chastity until marriage kind of culture. Yeah, you can see that in Bella and Edward very clearly, absolutely down to the point where if he quote unquote busts, Bella will die.
That's what happens when you have sex, you.
Die, right, like because they're not married. But then when she's married, she becomes a vampire, and then she doesn't die if he busts, right, but you still don't see him bust but it's implied, you know, like it is bizarre.
I mean, and there's a lot of the contra Points video essay that came out on this topic sort of gets into the history of romance novels and how there has been you know, I think those just like really really complicated, really and it's so tricky because it's like I I look at a lot of this and I'm like, I still feel basically the same way I did in twenty seventeen. I think this is a toxic relationship that is mainly being modeled at preteens, and I don't like that.
And the one thing I do like is that this sort of wave of pop culture gave way to like dystopian teen fiction, which tended to have women characters in more politically aware, active roles and not bella swan who's like a human screensaver, no offense. But then also the whole idea that there was this undeniable appeal to this story to a lot of very sweet, wonderful normal people people on this call included.
And people of multiple ages, because I mean, your mom, yeah read these books as a full adult.
There were moms specific Twilight forums because moms didn't want
their kids knowing how they felt about Edward Cohen. This is like the history of romance novels too, is like there's always been an implied shame and enjoying them and the ContraPoints video I say, God, Lover, it's so long, but I rewatched a portion of it to get ready for this, and the thing that stuck out to me that kind of like shifted the way I view this a little bit is the sort of like push and pull that happens between and this is like a pretty
heteronal root of structure, but like of feminine fantasy versus what men tend to take away from feminine fantasies. She talks a lot about the idea of surrender as a theme in romance fiction, and you know that is sort of predicated on this idea of there is this expectation
of women to take care of everybody. And the part of the idea behind surrender is, you know, while it does read as someone telling you what to do, it can be interpreted and a lot of the appeal of it, based on research, is the idea of not having to do things for everybody, and that explains a lot of
the moms who are into this. Right, is like someone who spends a lot of their time, likely because of how domestic work tends to be split up taking care of everyone else, having someone be like, this is what
we're doing, and your pleasure is the priority. And so while the romantic dynamics, if you're a twelve year old and you have no understanding of how a relationship you know, should, quote unquote be, can be very dangerous, I do understand the appeal of it in a different context, and like, so that's part of why it's so hard to talk about.
Right, So I watched the whole ContraPoints video bravely, all three hours, basically the same length as Titanic. It's hard to summarize because of its length and how in depth it is, but basically, it looks at Twilight through the lens of sexual desire and fantasy by way of prescribed gender roles, social conditioning, power dynamics, human psychology, and how nuanced and complicated all of those things are. Where yes, she acknowledges, the relationship dynamics portrayed in Twilight can easily
be considered problematic and predatory. But when you take all of these different things into consideration, and you especially consider
patriarchy and something that she calls default heterosexual sadomasochism. I'm not sure if that's a term that she coins or if that's an existing thing, but it's basically this division of sexuality in sexual dynamic into these binary roles such as like masculine and feminine, top and bottom, dominant and submissive, lover and beloved, predator and pray, like all these things, but lumping several of them together in a way that is very very prescriptive of cist gender roles, which is
extremely reductive and problematic and ignores the fact that like people can be both masculine and feminine, people can be
a switch. They're not just submissive or dominant, you know, you can be both, Like all these things, like all the facets that one person can be or that a relationship can be, where it's not just like this person assumes this role and this person assumes this opposing role, and that's how it has to be, Like things are far more fluid than that, And counterpoints basically comes to the conclusion that maybe actually Twilight is kind of a rejection of this, which like I don't know if I
fully agree with. But and then also for me, like it is all about the audience consuming this.
Right, That's the main thing that was like hard for me, Right.
If you are a full adult who has come to probably not peak emotional intelligence because you know, we're all on a journey constantly, no one's there. Yeah, it depends a lot on the age and maturity level of the person consuming this. And because this saga the series is directed primarily toward children slash tweens slash young teens. Again, it's like, yes, the source material is a product of Stephanie Meyers and so many people's conditioning as far as
what a relationship is supposed to look like. But then this movie like reinforces that in a way that's incredibly problematic, where we hopefully and definitely now are seen a lot more media that rejects a lot of the very abusive relationship dynamics we see in Twilight and posits healthier versions of young people and people of all ages in relationships.
But we just weren't there in the you know, mid two thousands and did the late two thousands and stuff when these movies and books were coming out.
Or really for like ten years after that, Like right, yeah, and maybe arguably now, like we're living in a time of regression unfortunately.
Yeah, I mean the total trad wife thing that's coming back around.
Oh trad wives. Don't even get me started on trad wife.
Yeah. So, oh god, I agree with you, Caitlin. I think that like, I really enjoyed the ContraPoints take on it, and I learned I learned a lot about the way that romance has been Again, then I think that like does pull in a valid point that I want to get into, is like the idea that media that is targeted at any like, any group that isn't CIS men and CIS white men specifically, will be presented as a danger to society, and that it really requires a close
look at the source material to determine is that actually so? But I think that what I learned more from her piece on it was understanding why moms liked it and that actually wasn't too weird. But I didn't feel satisfied as to like, well, but what if you're you know, twelve, and you are years away from having any sort of romantic connection with someone, and this is like consuming your life, which was true for hundreds of thousands of young people.
Right.
I did appreciate seeing it, but I think it did sort of not quite get to like. But who was this targeted at. Yeah, that brought me to sort of something that I wanted to touch on callback that capacious journal assay I was talking about about not just being ashamed of liking the Twilight Yes series and being like, no, I would never like a popular thing that everyone likes, and specifically where there was a resurgence during the early days of lockdown with queer communities in re embracing this.
I saw this firsthand with Wait, actually, I'm going to read my friend's letterboxed review of Twilight Please to illustrate this point. I feel like Cam will be okay with it. Okay, this is my friend Cameron's review from January nineteenth, twenty twenty five. Okay, yeah, and Cam's about my age and they're I mean, they're the best. I can't believe I've never rated this, obviously, this is one of my favorite
films in the entire world. I cannot truly explain what this film did to me as a seventeen year old virgin high school senior who had never kissed anyone and was depressed out of their gourd because they were unknowingly transcend gay and also had an undiagnosed mood disorder. The books in this film were integral to my survival, and I owe Stephanie Meyer's untalented sicko ass mind a whole lot. I think that this encapsulates a lot of people's experience with Twilight.
Honestly, Yes, Oh my goodness, thank you.
Cam.
Cam is their name?
Cam? Yeah?
Cameron, Yeah, Cameron. I feel this absolutely, like completely, I am grateful for like Sephanie Meyer's sick oh mind, because I it is like this weird nostalgic like comfort Watch that I continue to like return to again and again and again. And I think, Caitlyn, you said that you've watched the movie like fifteen times or something like that. Yeah, and I think, like fifteen that's how much I maybe watched the movie in a matter of like two months.
Like I this movie is always on my TV. It's like, oh, i'm folding laundry, let me put on Twilight. Oh I'm having a really bad day.
Twilight.
Oh it just got broken up with New Moon because oh right, this bitch likes to lean into the heartbreak. Do you know what I'm saying. There's a pity, Yes, yes, I've even wrote in a Twilight poem or two, and a friend of mine we really want to edit an anthology on poems based off of Twilight. And I think for me, like, one of the reasons why I adore Twilight with all of its problems is because it's so ridiculous at least you know again now, it's like this
expected ridiculousness that feels very very comfortable to me. It's so much of a go to to me that I can't really imagine my life without it, which sounds like really wild, but it's like to me, it's like just
as important to my survival as my wellview trend. Like I need my Twilight to kind of be a like healing bomb to the shit of the world, and it's like a satirical toxicity that I can somehow kind of digest as opposed to the toxicity that is actually happening, you know, outside of my door right that I you know, really want to run away from. So like, I'm so grateful that your friend Cameron wrote that review. It feels I feel so seen by that. That's gorgeous they were.
Brave enough to say. I mean, then I think that that is like a very common experience more recently, is that like, this is also just becoming an adult where you don't have to give a fuck what others think quite as much.
But yeah, a beautiful space.
To be in, that sweet release that we've all experienced mid thirties.
It's great.
Yeah, But there was and again I think this was about ten years ago. What the conversation stopped at was that things that are marketed to and this is a broad umbrellaturn, but at the time that things that are marketed to teen girls are universally made out to be a societal ill and embarrassing and don't admit that you like it, and if you admit that you like it, your cringe, which I do think is true, and that
is I think still to this day true. But that was sort of where the criticism stopped and where I appreciate where it's gone, and I feel like where I hope it continues going is there is clearly an appeal to stories like this to and again teen girls I'm using very very generally here, but there's still a very
broad appeal to it. And so it's like then the responsibility of their parents and mentors to talk to them about why, because again, it's like, it's very easy to be like Twilight is the problem, or I think like, you know, whichever bout of media is the problem, then actually interrogating well, where did this come from? Because Stephanie Meyer is a deeply problematic person, but she had no idea that this was going to sell millions and millions of copies. I think the more important question is why
does this sell millions and millions of copies? Why is it so appealing to us? And how can you talk to the intended audience for this without being an old loser. I don't have the answers to these questions, but I feel like they're worth asking instead of being like Twilight is bad for youth, maybe, but they like it, so we should figure it out, you know, and like and we liked it. Yeah, So anyways, we're getting into like the queer fan base, which you know, we've talked about
on this show many times. A lot of aggressively heteronormative stories have been embrace by queer audiences, and I wanted to get into I don't think we talked about this with Twilight last time, and I don't think it was really talked about because there was still Twilight enjoying stigma at that time. True, So this is from that capacious journal essay still not as gay as Twilight, which I guess was a meme. I did not remember that.
Yeah, I didn't see that.
I don't think ever, but I guess it was a very online meme from the early twenty tens, you know, And it would often be queer users would post a photo from like blue is the warmest color and then be like, still not as gay as Twilight, and that is that's the meme, basically postmodern affect, nostalgia and queer Twilight renaissance during the COVID nineteen pandemic, and a lot of this was just sort of analyzing to some extent, just the broader shame no matter what your identity was
around enjoying Twilight at this time, which we've talked about, but also their queer fandom. So just to share from that quote, a focal pillar of this comeback is queer. Many queer fans within the Twilight renaissance are quote unquote gayifying Twilight in the early twenty twenties, Twilight is gay,
but this time in a good way. One factor that may have kindled the onset of the Twilight Renaissance is when Kristen Stewart, the actor who played Bella in the Twilight film adaptations, publicly came out as bisexual in twenty seventeen. The Twilight renaissance could also be sustained by former fans resisting years of anti Twilight shame with the realization that the mass anti Twilight rhetoric was merely misplaced misogyny that
essentially vilified the interests and desires of young women. Another variable that might explain the fandom's heightened activity during the pandemic is Stephanie Meyer's release of the fifth installment to the Novels, which gets into basically Twilight from Edward's perspective, but it also looks into a lot of the queer fanfic that existed around Twilight, which I do remember was quite prolific. You know, Edward, Jacob and you can just kind of let your brain do the math from there.
Why what what happened?
Just kidding killing You're not ready, You can't You're not ready. I can't tell you.
I'm not old enough to know. I'm not ready.
Yeah, I'll tell you in a couple of years.
Tell you yeah, tell me when I'm older.
Yeah, but yeah, I mean I think that this is a story we're kind of familiar with, and the fact that Edward Cullen as portrayed in the books and movies of again, this very I think confusing, Like, no, vampires are straight scary guys. I'm like, have you seen interview with a vampire? Like, what do you mean? Yeah, what do you mean? Have you seen any vampire?
Have you seen Dracula? Have you seen most of them?
Like Edward is actually one of the straighter vampires, right, But it was literally just because you know, if you're like a socially conditioned teenage boy, you're like, vampires don't sparkle, that's not scary, you know, And that was literally it. And so the way that gaslers were thrown around on the two thousands, you can imagine how the character Edward Cullin and eventually the actor Robert Pattinson was spoken about, which we can talk about in future installments because I
know we're going along. But I do think it's interesting to revisit those press junkets where Robert Pattinson's like, actually, this movie's fucked up, Yeah, in a way that I'm sure he did feel to some extent, but it also does feel like on the defensive of having a future career, because you don't want to be the guy that's like, oh, I totally understand the appeal of this, and I really I mean, or not even that, but even just like I respect the fans of this franchise, which doesn't feel
like too much to ask, but I think it's like, if he's thinking about wanting to go on to star in a Christopher Nolan movie, you probably don't want to be Like, the appeal of Twilight makes sense to me.
Would he be Mickey seventeen if you know years ago he was.
Like Mickey seventeen was mid But yeah, no, I mean maybe not. I don't know. And that's the last. Sorry, there's too much. One of the last things I wanted to touch on was that, as we know, Kristian Stewart Robert Pattinson go on to be huge movie stars. Yes they're Mickey seventeen, their Princess Diana, et cetera.
Their love lives bleeding, their love les bleed.
I mean, we love that, but I don't know how many people saw it, but it's great and we're gonna talk about it soon. But this movie, for all of its faults, was written and directed by women, and the director, as we've said, is Catherine Hardwick, who broke through with thirteen and this is sort of her big blockbuster movie, and she does not go on to direct any of the other Twilight movies. I was not sure why this
reason was. I guess it was because this is I'm pulling from Vanity Fair article from twenty eighteen, but that she chose not to because of just being burned out, and if she wanted to direct New Moon, she would have had to basically never stopped working for like five years or something absurd, and so she opted not to, thinking I think logically that, well, if the first Twilight movie does well, I will not have trouble finding work. And you can imagine how the story goes from here.
Because we've heard it about one trillion women directors, she actually had quite a difficult time finding follow up work. Even though Twilight made almost half a billion dollars, every other installment was directed by men, and Katherine Hardwick reflected on this later. I guess interestingly, the screenwriter that Katherine Hardwick advocated for, Melissa Rosenberg, who also wrote step up another classic, Oh yes, and wrote on Deck and the
OC so she said two thousands, girly. She went on to write all of the Twilight movies where Catherine Hardwick never came back to the franchise and had a lot of trouble sort of finding comparable directing gigs to this day, which you know, for all of the valid criticisms of Twilight, I think is like kind of ridiculous. Where you think about how many male directors we've talked about that have a movie that breaks even and they never want for
work for their entire lives. Here's someone who has. And she also, you can argue, quote unquote turned around the script because there was the original version of the script that was going to be filmed, changed so much about the source material that in some ways, I'm like, this could have been cool, but it is a different story. Bella Swan was a long distance runner, cursed and used
shotguns against vampires who killed her father. Whoa And then she wrote jet skis being chased by the FBI, And you're like, well, that's not Twilight.
That's not even the Yeah, but.
I would see that movie, but that's not Twilight. Oh yeah, So that.
Was Katherine Hardwicke's script, Like that was her interpret Oh.
No, no, no, that was some random guy who was hired to adapt Twilight being told we don't want only girls to see this movie, so you need to take this source material and make it appealing to men.
Basically, Wow, so guns and jet skis.
Jet skis from the FBI. Yeah, And I was really struggling with that because I was like, that sounds like a fun movie. But yeah, when Catherine Hardwick came on, she's just like and she read the script and she's like, I don't love this. And then she read the book and she was like, I don't understand how this is the same story. And then she advocated for a woman to write the story and write it more faithfully and
for better and for worse. I think Stephanie Meyer had a lot of input in the movie during its production.
I mean, she's in cameos.
Yeah. I was about to say, the diner scene, here's your breakfast, Steffie. Yeah.
She also in the wedding scene later on in like the later.
Movies, Yes, she's in the wedding scene. Oh and Breaking Dawn part one, Yeah.
She's m night scheimalaning all over.
She's Alfred Hitchcocking.
Yeah, it is really funny, cause I don't think I knew it once I was an adult. But the first time I saw the movie, I definitely didn't know who Stephie was. Here's your breakfast, Steffie, but it's so obvious once you know. I enjoyed it anyways. Yeah, Catherine Hardwick, I think is maybe slightly a better director than this movie deserved, and I don't appreciate that having directed it
seems to have derailed her career to some extent. Twilight didn't deserve her, but they got her, and I think that that's why the first movie is a lot of people's favorites, because she's she's pulling from the indie playbook. She's playing Radiohead during the damn credits.
The soundtrack is like something else. It really is amazing. So, you know, as a former cult kid, like I wasn't allowed to listen to secular music, and then when you know, I started to leave that system, I was watching Twilight and the Twilight movie was like the first time I'd ever listened to Paramore before.
Oh, oh my god.
That was my introduction to Paramour and Muse. It was just like this again like rum spring U this like revelation, this epiphany of all this amazing music that I'd never heard before, and I felt so like rebellious. And yeah, the soundtrack is amazing. Robert Pattinson is also on the soundtrack. He sings two songs as well.
Wait, what I didn't I don't know this.
I don't think I remember that you did not know this?
Okay, no, no, yes, Robert Pattinson sings he's a musician.
What Yes, I knew he was a musician. I didn't know he sang in this God.
So there are two of his songs. The first one is the restaurant scene with the mushroom Ravioli. His song is playing in the background, Oh my God. And then the song that is playing in the scene in the ballet studio when Edward is, you know, sucking the venom out of Bella's wrist, that's also Robert Pattinson's song playing Whoa.
That's so punk rock, sucking out blood to your own music. Yeah, so I'm seeing Yeah, never think by Robert Pattinson, never think Whoa? Good for him? Good for him? This also got so many teenage girls into Claude Debussy which does crack me up. Like the girls were playing Debussy in the car this summer, Claire to Loon, let's go it was yes, Paramore, Lincoln Park, Claude to be.
Yes, oh right, because it's that scene. I feel like that's the only vaguely specific thing that ever gets mentioned in the movie where she goes to Edward's bedroom. She's like, you have so much music, and then we don't know what any of it is except for she hits play and it's that, and then she's like, oh wow, yeah, that's.
A good shit.
Claire Daluon is great.
Yeah. Just to revisit the Twilight one soundtrack, we also have and I think it. I know that like Saint Vincent and eventually ends up there in future installments. But we've got muse Paramore, Lincoln Park, Iron and Wine and Robert Pattinson. Those are the artists that I recognize.
Iron and Wine, Flightless Bird, Like, wow, that is a song like no other. H yeah, and that song is actually then there's like a slower version of it that's then played in the wedding scene in Breaking Dawn Part one.
Why do I feel emotional hearing that? That's the paradox of Twilight. You're like, I know that this is bad for me, but it gets me emotional and what is that? What is that? And we don't know.
I don't know. I think I'm still trying to figure out why I love this movie so much, Like why do I prance around the world with like Twilight t shirts? I'm not completely sure, Like maybe I need to talk to my therapist about it next week.
No, I really do think that, like some of the most thoughtful, wonderful, progressive people that I know are obsessed with Twilight. Yes, so there's something going on, there's something in the water.
It's just so campy.
It's heroin. It's our own personal brand of heroine cannot be explained. I feel like I have a similar It's how I feel about Titanic, and that relationship isn't quite so problematic, but I would still argue that it's pretty problematic between drag and Rose. Sure, and I've seen this movie going on two hundred times now and it's my comfort movie. And I also love that Contra points in her video references Titanic constantly, so that made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
But millennial canon, you one must reference Titanic.
Yeah, I'm just like, I'm not even generally compelled by romantic stories, but every once in a while, something like Titanic or something like Twilight, I'm just like, I can't stop watching and we just don't know why.
Whether we like it or not. Twilight is a generational text. And that's not to say that it's good, right, but it is a generational touch point, and I think that it is worth engaging with. Yeah, because there's something about it that keeps some of the great minds of our generation really really really loving it. Yeah, there's something to it, and it is ultimately kind of like a weird Mormon fantasy.
Yeah, but maybe that's.
The shit we like and we should be asking why.
And that's what we've done for two hours here today.
It does pass the factel tests. It does pass the fact. The last thing I want to say is Renee is a bad mom. Yeah, sorry, she's a bad mom. Yeah. I know that she's supposed to seem quirky, but I'm like, no, this is quirky in this context. Is negligent.
Yeah, she doesn't answer her phone, she like loses her phone charger too, Like, how's your kid supposed to contact you. Yeah, call them from a payphone.
Your kid is getting run over by vans in parking lots and attacked by vampires constantly.
Yeah, especially if your kid has a chronic condition of falling down. Yeah, you're just gonna We've heard in a very slippery climate.
Slippery it's cold and wet there, slippery place.
I'm so curious if, like if Bella has what's called Ailer's DOWNLM syndrome.
Mm.
Yeah, because there's there's different subsets of it, but one of them is like hypermobility, and a lot of the times people with Ailors downland syndrome are prone to more like accidents. I haven't been formally diagnosed with Ailor's downland syndrome, but I do have hypermobility, and I do exhibit some of the clumsiness that Bella has. Like a lot of things fall out of my hands quite easily. So, like, I'm so curious about if that's like Ailor's download syndrome,
like coated you know, in some capacity. Interesting But anyways, that's just yeah, fun fact.
I guess No, I didn't know that, right, I mean it makes you wonder about different attributes that certain characters are imbued with right, right, that like probably have some underlying thing that the author.
Didn't didn't intend fully.
Understand, or just like observed in other people but didn't understand, like oh that person has a disability, or you know, whatever the case may be.
Speaking of disability. While Gil Birmingham, who plays Billy Black, is a native actor, which is better than we can say of one Taylor Lautner, he is playing a disabled character and is not himself disabled, which I think is always worth calling out. Certainly, which isn't a criticism of Gil Birmingham, because I know indigenous actors have enough difficulty being cast in the first place, but that is again just fully a failure of the production to prioritize any
sort of inclusivity in their casting. And outside of that, I mean, it is a very white story. There is some diversity in Forks, Washington, but the characters who are not white tend to have mysteriously small roles, such as I think, Eric, Angela and Tyler I think are the three non white students, and they comparatively to like Mike and Dana Kendrick I don't remember Jessica, they get way more screen time, They get way more focus. It's the white students we're paying attention to.
Yeah, as we were hinting at earlier, the movie does pass the Bechdel.
Test not well, No, but it does not well.
But it's there. But again, that's that's nothing compared to the Nipple scale, the Bechdel cast nipple scale, in which we rated the movie examining it through an intersectional feminist lens zero to five nipples. M I wonder what we gave it on the first episode. I do not remember.
I'm gonna look it up, but you I won't tell you. You have to decide, and then I'll hold this secret.
Okay, even though we've had a much more nuanced conversation than the first go around.
It's a tricky motherfucker. It really is.
Yeah, it really is.
But I still don't think this movie has a net good impact on society, or at least not for young people watching it. I think for people who maybe watched it as a young person and took the messaging from it which was reductive and harmful, and then had to unlearn a lot of stuff. But again, as we discussed, that's not just Twilight's fault. That's a whole cluster of movies and other media that were presenting a very similar toxic dynamic and framing it as ideal and romantic and
something to strive for. So this is just one entry of many things that did that. But this was so popular and so consumed by so many people who were adversely affected by it. But it does have this weird cultural legacy. I don't know. The representation of Indigenous people is absolutely abhorrent and there's no defending it whatsoever, and I'm gonna focus on that as the basis for my rating.
Yeah, I mean, it's an intersectional podcast that makes sense.
Yes, yes, So it's gonna be one and a half for two nipples. I think I'll say one and a half nipples, but it is. I'd say it's like an eight out of ten on the Caitlin Rompometer.
I mean the baseball scene hits.
Yeah, but yeah, one and a half nipples, and I'll give them to a spider monkey, no specific spider monkey, which is spider monkeys.
I guess in general, I'm gonna go one nipple. I think, and I say that feeling weirdly defensive of this movie at different points in the episode. I think that this movie is cultural imp I mean, I can't say what the cultural impact is on the whole. I do think that this franchise has a really weird, interesting history that continues to either delight or haunt us, depending on how we feel about it. I think that, you know, it's
clearly going to be with us for a while. People still have a lot of interest in talking about it and revisiting it. And I also, you know, this is something that a lot of young people were ashamed to enjoy and therefore could not start a lot of conversations about why that was at the time. I think it is like really interesting. I mean, Bella, you know, bless her heart, she's giving nothing. She never has been, she never will be. And I you know, that's who Bella is.
And I know that someone's gonna yell at me about that. And you know, I do think that there is this very conservative fantasy to some extent that has played out throughout these movies of Bella does find some agency, but it's mainly through marriage and motherhood and you know, all this stuff. We all we'll talk about this in later episodes. For this, you know, I did see myself in Bella to some extent as a kid where it was like
I didn't feel lighting. In the book, they sort of harp on this a little more of like Bella has never been recognized as attractive or someone who's interesting, and all of a sudden, she's somewhere where she's the most interesting, attractive person in the world, and who what misfit wouldn't
be pulled in by that? And I think that a lot of people who felt out of place, that fantasy is so appealing to be desired and for you to be often in a dangerous way, but in a dangerous way that not a lot of people understood in our generation,
but like to be wanted. And I think that that's part of why I understand the appeal and part of what still doesn't sit well with me because of the intended audience, where you know, it's not Stephanie Meyer's job to raise us, but I do think it is like the responsibility of others and the larger culture to not
just reinforce someone's horny dreams, worst instincts. But there's still so much getting back to what we've been talking about, Yeah, I mean, I'm docking mainly for indigenous representation and the one visit to the library approach and no further compensation or acknowledgement of the people whose culture you are profiting off of directly and misunderstanding and misrepresenting. There's just absolutely
no excuse for that. The feminist discourse around this. I'm gonna just be like, go with God, whatever you like there. I have read every take in the world, and I don't know which is right to me. I liked Bela because I was like, I wear these shoes, but ultimately, on revisit, I do think she's boring. I think that Edward's like, I don't see what you're thinking because she's not. But ultimately I think Team Jacob was the right team. One nipple and I am going to give that nipple
to the truck. I thought the truck was cool. Oh sure, I liked the truck. I don't care if it's not like other girls truck, I would drop that truck.
Okay, awesome, Dean Ally, how about you nipples?
Nipples? I'm thinking I think I go for like one and a half basically, Like you know, for a lot of the reasons that you both have mentioned, you know, the indigenous representation is lacking so many different problems with this movie. Portraying a toxic relationship as an ideal. It's really hard to give this movie anything more than one and a half nipples. And I think for me, one of the most like iconic scenes in the movie is the baseball scene with Alice and her pitch with her leg.
Oh my god, the little kick, Yes, oh my gosh, what is she doing?
It's honestly, it's fucking beautiful. And I think that's when I realized I was bisexual, was when I watched Alice pitch during the baseball scene, and I think that's like a really beautiful thing. So I think at the end of the day, like you know, when I was younger, I was team Edward, but in reality, like I'm definitely like team Alice.
Like all the way, Alice is an awesome character.
I like her, yeah, and like even like when I think about her relationship to Jasper, which we didn't really talk about, but like I feel like she is kind of more of like the dom and the relationship she's like, I think she's like takes control and I really like that about her. And I see myself more and more in in Alice than any other character in the movie. Sadly, I cannot lift my leg like that when I pitch. I don't even pitch. I don't play sports. I do
visit the library though. But yeah, I think I'm going to give one nipple to Alice and her leg and then the other half nipple. I think I'm going to give it to mister Molina, the teacher, because it's a fellow educator.
Oh my god, you're so right.
No relation to Alfred Molina.
But I know how crazy you are about Alfred Molina. Yes, but yeah, I think I'm going to give half a nipple to mister Molina because as a fellow educator, like he's just so earnest about science and you know, really getting these students like invested in STEM. So I really appreciate that about mister Molina. Yeah, I think he says like compost is cool, and it is compost is cool. So I'm gonna give half a nipple to mister Molina.
Absolutely, hell yeah, amazing, you know, L like, thank you so much for joining.
Us, thank you for having me, yes.
And thank you for choosing the exact right shirt.
I mean I always do, but especially today.
Tell us where people can find you online? Check out your work plug.
Away so You can find a lot of info about me on my website at dnlliantigua dot com. You can follow me on Instagram at nowfel thirteen and that's n e l l f e L L one three And yes, I've had that screen name and I've used it for everything since I was thirteen. And yeah, I do a lot of like poetry readings and events locally, but I'm also traveling to like universities, and you can find all
the info about my events on my website. My upcoming events are mass Poetry Festival in Salem, Massachusetts, coming up at the end of May, and I don't know when this podcast will be coming out, but I think.
Before then, maybe before then.
Yeah, that's the thing that I do. I'm one of the headlining poets. Hey, oh my god, so come and listen to my poetry and I'll be on a panel as well with some other LATINX writers. So yeah, that's where you can find me and learn more about me. Oh also, I almost for I have two books. My first one is Ugly Music, and my second collection came out last year with Copper Canyon Press. It's called Good Monster, and you can find those where books are sold be like Bella, buy it independent booksellers.
Yes, yes, that's Bella's true triumph of Twilight one. She shops local.
Yes, yeah, she says Amazon, No, thank you, I'm going into a brick and mortar store and buying local. The best way to support our show is to subscribe to our Patreon aka Matreon, where we release two bonus episodes every single month, centering an amazing genius Brilliant plus access to the entire back catalog, which is nearing two hundred episodes, so lots of hashtag content over there at patreon dot
com slash Bechdel Cast. Also check out our link tree link tree slash Bechdel Cast for information about different things. If we have upcoming shows that'll be there. If we have, we have our letterboxed link on there, all kinds of stuff. And with that, let's irrevocably get in our rusty old red pickup truck. Uh huh and zoom zoom into the
Twilight Sky. Okay, I don't know, Bye bye. The Bechdel Cast is a production of iHeartMedia, hosted by Caitlin Derante and Jamie Loftus, produced by Sophie Lickterman, edited by Mola Board. Our theme song was composed by Mike Kaplan with vocals by Katherine Voskresenski. Our logo and merch is designed by Jamie Loftus and a special thanks to Aristotle Assevedo. For more information about the podcast, please visit Linktree Slash Bechtelcast