In Defense of Twihards

(I’m baaaaack…)

Yes, it’s April Fool’s Day. No, this isn’t a joke.

This is me writing about what I’ve come to think is one of the most common problematically expressed artistic criticisms on the Internet: the vilifying of Twilight fans manifested in everything from the Star Alliance to the “Still a better love story than Twilight” meme*.

To be clear: do I think Twilight is sexist? Yes. I also find it poorly written and boring.

(And do I think is George Takei awesome? Yes, yes, a million times, yes!)

But here’s what else I think. The enemy of my enemy is not always my friend. Delegitimizing the fantasies of thousands of women and girls by dismissing them as TwiMoms or Twihards and doing so in the name of feminist ideals is not feminism. It’s still sexism.

A lot of the time, Twilight-bashing gets conflated with Twihard-bashing. It seems obvious, right? Here is this awful series with so many horrible messages and WTF sparkling vampires — clearly anyone defending it or who, Nosferatu-forbid, actually enjoys it, is stupid, pathetic, and/or sexist themselves.

There are tons of great reasons why one might not want readers to absorb many of the themes in Twilight. But there are also problems with telling them that there’s something wrong with them for finding the series appealing, no matter how ideologically offensive it is.

First of all, telling anyone that what appeals to them is stupid or wrong is demeaning, not empowering. Even if I one-hundred-percent believe that someone’s else’s fantasy is harmful to them, that it teaches them to assimilate unhealthy ideas, and that it equips them with poor models for living their life, bashing them for having that fantasy doesn’t magically take away all these negative messages. It just adds another on top of it all: what you like is wrong. You’re so inferior that you don’t even know what’s bad for you — and, one might conclude, any bad consequences are partly your fault.

The major inconsistency with treating Twihards in particular as “the enemy” is that most commentators rightly criticize Twilight‘s positive portrayal of controlling romantic partners and its implicit suggestion that “getting a man” should be the only important thing in a woman’s life. These commentators — again, rightly — see this message as misogynist. But what’s equally misogynistic is fighting these messages so strongly only in media with a strong female fanbase and ignoring what really should be the problem: a broader culture of abuse.

For instance, we should be coming down just as hard and just as loud on fans of stories that romanticize the qualities of abusers. It is equally horrible to tell guys to imagine themselves as douchebags as it is to tell girls to imagine themselves as victims. Yet few anti-Twilight movements suggest that punch-a-bad-guy-bed-the-hot-chick action flicks or treat-everyone-like-shit-then-meet-the-girl-who-finally-sees-your-hidden-heart dramas are just as harmful as meet-a-hottie-let-him-rescue-you romances.

We can condemn the sexist messages in Twilight without condemning or patronizing the women and girls who find them interesting, entertaining, or even enticing. Because, frankly, if one of the problems with Twilight is how denies female characters agency, assuming that its readers also lack that agency to decide what’s best for themselves and run their own lives is the same kind of problem, not a solution.

The other main reason I find a lot of online anti-Twilight sentiment problematic is because often emphasizing the poor quality of Twilight winds up masking the faults of other works, especially in memes and arguments that compare Twilight to other popular stories. The series held up as great alternatives to Twilight also contain elements of sexism. I love Harry Potter and Star Trek as much as the next nerd — I admit I’ve never been a big Star Wars or Lord of the Rings fan, but I’d still rather watch or read those stories a hundred times than pick up anything related to Twilight again — but seriously? Not a single one of these guys** passes the Bechdel test. Hermione, Uhura, Leia, and Eowyn are more positive female role models than Bella, but each still has issues.

The Harry Potter series, for example, has major problems with a good mother=good woman/bad mother=bad woman dichotomy and with random unconscious things like Hermione naturally doing all the cooking, packing, and cleaning while the Trio are on the run, despite the fact that Harry is canonically a good cook and Hermione is canonically a bad one. The Star Wars original trilogy famously has almost no female characters who are not either sex workers or forced to dress as sex workers at some point in the story. The presence of Uhura, Rand, and Chapel on the Enterprise is a great first step, but please don’t tell me being space telephone operators, secretaries, and nurses is the epitome of the convention-smashing roles for females in speculative fiction.

For goodness’ sakes, just look at the ratio of male to female characters in each of these stories. Eowyn is nice, but in the 9-person-strong Fellowship of the Ring, how many are women? Hint: zero. (I guess that’s not so much a hint as the answer. But that’s not even taking into account the other sausage-fest main characters like Gandalf, Gollum, and Sauron.) If one of your characters is “the” woman, the story can do more work toward gender equality.

Okay, fine, you might want to say here, maybe there are problems with these other stories too. But isn’t Twilight just so much worse? Isn’t glorifying abusive relationships several steps below any of the problems these other stories have? After all, Hermione may be problematic, but she’s still smart and capable. Uhura is still brave and competent. Leia is still a heroine. Eowyn still kicks butt.  Let’s protest stories like Twilight — stories without these redeeming qualities — first.

And really, I would like to argue this properly, but since I’m already waxing long, let’s just consider an analogy. You live in an apartment plagued by ants, cockroaches, and rats. Do you really, really announce a united insect front against the rats, or do you just acknowledge that maybe the rats, being a bigger and worse problem, merit your full attention at the moment, but that doesn’t mean the ants and cockroaches are welcome either? Does pretending the ants and cockroaches are OK for now actually help the overall health problem of vermin in your living space?

Because sexism is a health problem. A mental health and hygiene problem for our society, one that worsens other social illnesses like racism, homophobia, classism, etc.

So, sure: maybe friends worry when friends read Twilight. But friends don’t let friends hate on Twilight without thinking hard about the reasons why.

* Although running a close second is “Har har, Justin Bieber’s stupid, he looks like a girl, and I bet he’s gay!!!” I am not a fan of Justin Bieber’s music either, but: people who don’t like him, you need better ways to make fun of him than questioning his gender presentation or sexuality. Because if he did get mistaken for a girl? If he were gay? THAT WOULD BE TOTALLY OKAY. And using those things as insults is NOT okay.

** I know, as soon as I said that, half of you racked your brains and came up with one or two lines that might qualify. I know I did as I was typing it. But how hard are you thinking to come up with an example? How many examples would you be able to come up with if the genders were reversed (named male characters talking about something that isn’t a female character)? Right: STILL. A. PROBLEM.