Twilight’s Edward Cullen: Romantic or Creeper?

What if Edward Cullen is not the hero? What if he’s the bad guy?

My eleven year old sister received the movie Twilight as a Christmas present. She was overjoyed and wanted me to watch with her, knowing that I have never seen the movie before. I obliged.

On its face, Twilight should jive with my tastes. I love Buffy the Vampire Slayer. But, Twilight was different.

The movie lacked character development. To be fair, Buffy is a TV show, which has more time to allow for more character growth over episodes and seasons.

Besides the lack of depth, I found Edward Cullen to be majorly creepy. The dude awkwardly stares at Bella Swan (not sure if that’s in the script or if that Robert Pattinson’s “artistic interpretation”). But what takes the cake for giving me the wiggins is that Edward admitted to secretly breaking and entering into Bella’s room each night for two months to watch her sleep.

After I watched Twilight, my sister asked me my thoughts. Being the honest brother that I am, I told her, “Edward is a creeper.” Man, did I say the wrong thing to the Twilight fan. She protested the whole night.

My sister defended Edward’s action. She argued that because Bella liked his stalker-ish behavior, it was acceptable.

Now I could have simply dismissed her passionate defense as some teeny-bopper reaction but I also know quite a few friends in their mid-twenties who would bite my head off for criticizing Twilight/Edward/Pattinson.

But am I right to characterize Edward as a creeper? Should society be promoting this type of behavior? Or am I missing the romantic nature of a vampire that glows in the sunlight?

Comments

[Naomi]

In real life, if any guy acted toward his girlfriend the way that Edward acts toward Bella, we'd label their relationship as abusive. I get that women find Edward's dedication (obsession) romantic, but this is certainly not the ideal that teenage girls should aspire to.

[JA]

I'll go ahead and say it...Twilight sucks! I've heard fans say the books were better, but the movie was horrible. I could care less about the underdeveloped characters and when I saw the vampire sparkle...I straight up started laughing. As Naomi mentioned, their relationship is strange (aside from the obvious vampire-human differentiation)and borderline abusive. A creepy obsession should not be confused for "love." I watched the DVD with my 15 year old sister and her comment was, "It's not creepy, it's emo."

Whatever.

I had a 26 year old co-worker make a comment on how the movie promotes "good morals" to young teens as the main characters do not have sex until they are married (based on the books & the movies so far). Personally, I'm hoping society doesn't look to Twilight for spiritual or life lessons.

[-Nick]

I agree with JA. The standard pernicious Hollywoodization of modern love that makes romance all-important/all consuming of an individuals life and identity, is made all the worse in the Twilight series with this creepster, abstinent emo approach to love.

As long as teens and tweens can keep this entirely in the realm of fantasy, and actually laugh out-loud at Bella's hapless dependence on a man for her entire meaning/identity - which many of the young woman did at a recent Ann Arbor viewing (Thank you very Much Cristina), than I think we can safely tuck this movie away as terrible fantasy-romance for young people with beautiful on-site cinematography.

[EconKid]

Amen Nick