Academics Sucking the Blood From Twilight

Once again, here are my totally fallible notes from sessions at the Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association Annual Meeting
April 2009, New Orleans.

There were a number of Twilight papers, and I attended several, despite not having read any of Meyer’s books, because often these papers discussed Sookie Stackhouse as well.

“Dying to Grow Up: Coming of Age Via Vampirism in The Lost Boys, Twilight, ‘Cherry’, and Others”, Tracy F. Lander, CUNY-Brooklyn College

Adolescents find vampiric behavior as key to finding their identity.

Romance as a means to self-identity with vampiric transformation as a side

Ex. Lost Boys and Twilight: Michael and Bella are both isolated, both new in town.

References Millie Williamson’s (excellent) book on vampires – importance of family for motivation to becomes vampires

Direct entwinement of Michael’s becoming a vampire and losing his virginity
Same for Bella. She wants to become a vampire so she can be with him.
They both conduct behavior that is unusual for them
Bella’s coming of age linked to giving birth, not losing virginity, as ultimate sign of maturation for women

All these characters are outsiders: broken home, move, rejection by peers and or parents

Isolation contributes to their seeking a nontraditional coming of age

May seek romantic partner or father figure. Achievement of family though partnering or patriarchal status.

Illustrates how teens follow path of vampire when have weak families.

Accepting vampirism amounts to a rejection of the life the have had so far.

Like greasers, hippies, goth. Same thing.

“The Vampire Sublime: How Vampires in True Blood and Twilight Unify Man and Nature”, Sarah Maitland, The University of Rhode Island

[This once was the most interesting to me, although I had problems with the Kant bit. Maitland's claim that vamps are the "earth"/"nature" is in direct contrast to the usual pitting of urbane, superhuman, deathless vamps against nature]

Ex. Treetop scene in Twilight.

Relationship of vampires to nature has changed. Vampire heroes are no longer unholy, unnatural undead.

They enjoy nature, and also are interwoven with it

Puts vamp mythology in dialogue with romantic poetry.
Wordsworth and Coleridge struggled with division between man and nature

Kantian Theory of Sublime – humans perceive world sensibly, but when our senses cannot do it, they return to the mind with no sensory data. [Wha?]

Romantic poetry heals chasm through imagination.

Twilight and True Blood take up this work via vampires.

Vamps are more connected to nature than humans. They inhabit space between man and animal. Have all of reasoning ability of man, but have predator/prey relationship, enhanced sensory abilities.

Edward and Bella travelling to mountain, where he can be viewed in daytime, natural landscape is like Wordsworth in Preludes.

Edward and Bella get to know each other in nature – rocks, water, trees. Edward is more capable of interacting with nature.

Edward makes nature accessible to clumsy Bella.
Edward equals power of nature, allows him to interact with it on equal terms.

Compares Kant’s discussion of thunderstorm as sublime – more massive than humanity, who are powerless to resist. But Edward doesn’t have this problem.

True Blood – discussion of vampires as sleeping in ground, burying of newly turned is necessary part of transformation. Earth fosters transformation like a plant.

[My note: Vamps do not need to be buried to turn in the novels. Werevamp in Hadley’s closet.]

Use of vampire blood as narcotic and healing agent is very natural, medicinal. Makes humans feel more healthy.

True Blood – Jason’s hallucinations on V are of nature, natural settings. Jason is referred to as “nature’s greatest gift”. After V, Jason and May listen to trees – he says he has never done this before.

Kant’s formation of the sublime – fear as failure of senses

Vamps look and reason like man. For Kant reason is distinguishing feature of humans. Yet has closeness and equality to nature.

Vampires undo the problem of the sublime.

“Fangs for Friends: Demythologizing the Vampire in Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight.” Todd Aldridge, Auburn University (Master’s candidate)

Some say, if vamps in Twilight go out in the daylight, don’t bite humans, and don’t have premarital sex, they are not vampires.

Attempts to find essence of vampires are ongoing.

Meyer strips away myth behind vampires.

Vampires as post-gothic. Take up tropes form traditional gothic texts and apply them in new way.

Gothic vamps were cadaverous, outwardly malevolent, monstrous.

Twilight dissolves mystic of vampires’ supernatural nature. They are basically human. Therefore is post gothic.

Notes that Bella researched vampires. Catalogs traits of “real” vampires. Becomes frustrated at lack of definition.

Paul Barber, emphasizes distinction between fiction and folklore. Folklore: vamp as plump Slavic fellow, long beard, wears a shroud, etc. Looks like a disheveled peasant.

Meyer discerns third strain of vampire, the good Italian vampire (as opposed to the two Eastern European strains)

Edward is not warded by religious objects, glitters in sun, strong moral code, etc.

Reversal of roles: Bella wants to becomes a vampire, Edward says no. Bella wants sex, Edward says no. Meyer alters tradition of insistent vampire lover.

Contrast domestic space in Dracula’s castle and Cullen home.

What makes Twilight’s vampires scary are their human traits: possessiveness, jealousy, rage.

Fear is familiar again. Post gothic.

Vampire: this is the end of the meta-narrative. God is dead. We don’t know what the afterlife is like, but we know what this life is like, and it’s pretty good. Materialist desires: sex, youth, money.

“The Twilight of Sexuality: Blood in the Bella Swan Series”, Karma Waltonen, UC-Davis

Will focus on first book.

Blood: Bella bleeds profusely in all the novels.

Her blood is a problem for vampires in terms of their appetite.

Painful for her when shed.

Metaphor for sex.

Meyer, a Mormon mom who doesn’t watch R movies has said she was tired of reading books about teens who had sex, swore, etc.

Yet created a heroine who craves all of this stuff.

We are told Edward’s drinking is vegetarian, because he is innocent.

Note it is only after the fall that humans became meat eaters. Adam and eve are not walking around eating pork chops. There was no death, human or animal, before the fall.

Bella’s menstruation is missing in first three novels, yet vamps are hypersensitive to her pricked finger.

In 4th book, finally, menstruation is mentioned but only after she is married.

Lack of familial and religious grounding keeps Bella unmoored.

Heroine is allowed to have sexual desire but not allowed to have sex.

Many critics read Bella as disempowered, self-abnegating:

Ex. Sex is a matter of life and death and men are in charge.

Ex. Contrast Buffy, whose story always belonged to her.

Is Bella the fruit in the garden? Is Edward the biter?

“The Count Made No Apologies: Why Have We Defanged Our Vampires?”
Eugenia Bryan, Georgia Southwestern State University

We used to have sexy dangerous vamps.

Now we have “Vampires with romance novel appeal of safely swooning heroines who all apparently need rescuing”

Pale vegetarian vampire won’t initiate contact with Bella because he’s afraid he’ll hurt her. Ugh. Boring.

The clumsy teenager is more dangerous to the vampire than vise versa. “Ugh”.

“Young women no longer think Dracula is hot. I am astonished. They think Edward Cullen is hot.”

Notes twilightmoms.com. Even moms like Edward.

Victorian audiences thrilled to unsafe fantasies.

[My note: The tone of this paper is condescending criticism of people who like Twilight, based on ... I'm not sure what. However, it is clear that Professor Bryan doesn’t think Edward is hot.]

Suggests that people want pabulum, something safe, given how scary the real world is.

Harris: Bill Compton won’t add to anyone’s list of fears

“Sookie and her readers want safe romance and Bill fits the bill.”

Sookie is completely safe. All she needs to take is vitamins.

Lacey Garnett series – same thing.

Old connection between vampires and sexuality reinforces heterosexist norms and passive female sexuality.

Women now prefer their vampires less aggressive. Ex. Angel, the vampire with the soul.

“They really want their vampires safe and packaged”

South Park has even spoofed this. Diff between true goth and “vampire douchebag wannabe boner” (November 18, 2008 episode)

Vampires today are more concerned with love than conquests.