The following piece is cross-posted here. As it argues, Twilight is a rampantly heteronormative series. Yet, given its concurrent rampant popularity, why not seize the opportunity to consider the ways  the Twilight cultural phenomonon can be used to furtheer discussion about gender, sexuality, racism, classism, etc? This is the aim of my forthcomign book, Seduced by Twilght (which, by the way, I just secured an agent for yesterday — woo-hooo!)

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Ah, more proof that the U.S. is still a homophobic nation. Just what we don’t need. Maine’s rejection of a same sex marriage law earlier this week means that  attempts to legalize gay marriage have now been shot down in 31 states. As such, I thought it fitting to post a few thoughts about heteronomativity, homophobia, and Twilight.

Poking around Google, I found almost no posts that consider the heteronormativity of the series. One exception is Emily Rutherford’s “Heteteronormativity, Again; or, the Experience of Reading Twilight.” As Rutherford writes, “…there is no homosexuality in Twilight. Despite the obvious ambiguity of Edward’s sexual appeal, there are no gay couples in Forks, WA. There are no explicitly gay vampires. Bella herself doesn’t experience same-sex attraction.” As she further argues, “For all that it confuses clear-cut sexualities; for all that it builds upon and complicates our traditional notion of the innocent love story, it is still profoundly and aggressively heteronormative.”

As for the widespread heteronormativity the book upholds, all characters are represented as heterosexual and hetero-monogamous marriage is presented as ideal. Amongst other types of diversity depicted in the series – race, class, age, (dis)ability – there is not one single non-hetero character nor even a nod to the fact that not everyone on the planet is hetero. Given that Meyer’s is Mormon, a belief system that is notoriously heteronormative, it is hardly surprising that heterosexuality is represented as the unquestioned norm.

In addition to the series’ seething heteronormativity, the practice of buying the books and related products results in profits for those institutions that want to bolster heterosexism. Profits from the series are funneled to the Mormon church through the practice of tithing – such funds are used in various ways, but one of them is to prevent same sex marriage laws from passing (as with California’s prop 8). Here are some relevant portions of a piece I wrote on this topic:

Meyer has on multiple occasions stated that, in accordance with her Mormon belief, 10% of all  her profits for all things Twilight go to the Mormon church. (See, for example, The Advocate).

While she has not made any public statement regarding Prop 8, her tithing to the church supports institutionalizing discrimination against those who are not heterosexual. By extension, a percentage of the multi-billion dollar Twilight industry went towards the Mormon Church, an institution that played a huge funding role in initially getting Prop 8 on the ballot, and then kept the funding in plentiful supply in order to grow support for the Yes on 8 camp. The success of this campaign, which relied on dollars and dogma, would not have been possible without the big money that came from the Mormon Church and other religious donors.

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Meyer’s silence about the issue of homophobia in her church in general, and Prop 8 in particular, comes across as deafeningly loud –it speaks volumes, showing support for discrimination via economic buttressing of an institution that helped California, the state I live in, to etch inequality into law. So much for the sunshine state – so much for dazzling, sensitive vampires…Guess it’s ok for a lion to love a lamb, but not for a man to love another man.

Unfortunately,  such homophobia does not only exist in the USA, but plagues the globe. As evidenced by a Twi Crack Addict piece posted last week, Wales is one such place. The piece, “Wolfpack Poster Removed from South Wales Cinema for being Homoerotic,” reports that a theatre in Cwmbran, South Wales, removed the wolfpack poster because it was “too homoerotic.” Given the rampant heteronormativity of the series, this accusation seems a bit ironic, especially given that the wolf characters are the only ones to give voice to their homophobia in the texts.

For example, in Breaking Dawn when Quil says to Jacob “I don’t notice girls anymore,” Jacob jokes ““Put that together with the tiara and makeup, and maybe Claire will have a different kind of competition to worry about.” Here, Jacob insinuates that Quil’s tiara-wearing antics might lead to some non-hetero ‘competition.’ Quil laughs in response, making kissing noises at Jacob and asking, “You available this Friday, Jacob?” Ah yes, homosexuality is SO FUNNY – especially in a book that presents heterosexuality as the ONLY option with a message that screams “Be hetero! Get married and have babies!”

In Breaking Dawn Leah also teases Jacob about his heartfelt goodbye to Quil, snickering “Thought you were going to make out with him.” Yeah, cuz it’s so homo-esque for a male to care about his guy friends. Leah might as well have said, “Hey, wolf boy, grow some hetero balls and put your focus where it should be – on the ladies!”

The inclusion of various homophobic sentiments from the Native American characters seems to go above and beyond Meyer’s staying true to her Mormon roots into the territory of actually mocking and deriding homosexuality. Further, the fact that the Quileute characters are the only characters to voice their homophobia is ironic given that native culture is historically far more accepting of diverse expressions of gender and sexuality. Such sentiments would be far more realistic out of the mouths of Meyer’s demi-god Mormon-esque vampires.

I am wondering if the above poster would have been removed if it featured shirtless white men instead — if it depicted the Carlisle, Edward, Jasper, Emmett pack? (Who are of course not referred to as a pack – think about the racial implications of that!) I would venture a guess that the poster would be less likely to be accused of homoeroticism if those pictured were white – partly because hegemonic, normative masculinity is linked  to whiteness, and partly because (due to a global system of racism) it’s easier (and more common) to discriminate against non-white men.

The ubiquitous shirt-lessness of the “wolf pack” (written about in my earlier post here) is linked to this notion of hegemonic masculinity and whiteness. White males, more often associated with mental activities and acumen, are often less sexualized (as explored by scholars such as Jackson Katz). Raced, or non-white men, and working class men, are more associated with their bodies and bodily activities. The fact that the male Quileute, as both raced and working class, are often depicted without clothes accords to this sexualization of males who are deemed as “lesser” – either due to race or class. Yes, I know they “run hot” in the books because of their wolf identity, but this alone does not explain why all the actors portraying them are photographed shirtless far more often than their white actor counterparts…

Finally, the removal of this poster due to its “homoerotic” message is ridiculous and repugnant. It smacks not only of homophobia, but of sexism (if those pictured were half naked women, there would not be a problem) and racism (speaking to the fear of the “Other” and of women or men finding raced Others attractive). As you go about being repeatedly seduced by the series and its offshoots, I hope you will once in awhile pause and think about these more troubling aspects. By voicing our discontent about those aspects of the book, the fandom, and the franchise that trouble us, we can bring homophobia (and other discriminatory ideologies) out of the closet. And, by discussing such regulatory ideals often and vociferously we can bring some progressive sparkle to the Twilight table.

This is partly my intent with the parodies from Twi Kids Trio – many who wrote to me thus far about the first skit noted their favorite scene was Jacob sitting on Edward’s lap (and, by the way, if you watch the skit, please leave comments or feedback on You Tube!). Future parodies will continue to mock the cult of masculinity and nod to the latent homoeroticism that heteronormativity attempts to deny. As per the theories of Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, homoerotic elements pervade the majority of literary texts. They may be deeply hidden and denied in Twilight, but often that which is most strenuously resisted is also ardently, if shamefully, desired. Don’t know about you, but I find it quite fascinating to ponder a queer version of Twilight… doing so makes the hand-holding abstinence and virginal purity message seem all the more antiquated, and, yes, discriminatory.

I am torn about the new adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are. One of the beauties of that book is it has very few words, leaving much open to the imagination of the reader. Having it rendered in film will, I fear, spoil the imaginings of generations of future readers who will see the story as the film interprets it.

I have yet to see the movie, but the preview alerted me that one of the wild things has a female voice. This prompted me to ask — what if Max had been re-imagined as Maxine? Such a shift would have altered the imaginings of many readers, encouraging them to see females as viable wild leads. While some will certainly scoff at this suggestion, I would ask them:

Why are the majority of  books and films still populated with male protagonists?

What messages do you think this might send to young readers/viewers?

When over half the world’s population is female, while are only 1/10 to 1/5 of characters female?

When females are in lead roles in children’s texts, how often are they framed in terms of the princess/romance narrative?

Quick, here is a fun feminist Friday brain excercise for you, name, as quickly as you can, ten children’s films with a female lead who is not a princess…

The way that we codify and react to rape in the U.S. is utterly bizarre.

I do a classroom activity in my Intro to Women’s Studies classes where students read different crime scenarios and then debate who is to blame, who is innocent, if the blame is shared and by how much, etc. Invariably, in the rape and sexual assault scenarios, a majority of students partially or fully blame the victim, especially if said victim is female.

In contrast, in the scenario in which a man has something stolen from his car after leaving the doors unlocked, students more often place all or most of the blame on the thief. Sometimes I hear comments to the effect “It shouldn’t matter the doors were unlocked. It’s a matter of trust.” Why do I rarely hear comments of this ilk with rape scenarios? Why not “It doesn’t matter that she flirted/kissed him/was drunk/ etc…It’s a matter of trust”?

Another interesting factor is that in relation to the car story there is a tendency to espouse the idea that you should not steal or destroy someone elses “property” regardless of whether the opportunity arises.  Yet, in contrast, a woman apparently does not own and control her own body (as so cogently made clear in the battle against reproductive choice)—rather, her body is up for grabs. She, according to the parameters of patriarchy, “belongs” to men (and all the more so if she is young, a person of color, a sex worker, etc – as rape cases repeatedly show, blaming  the victim goes on hyper-drive the further a woman is from the “ideal” white, hetero, middle to upper class ‘good’ woman).

This cultural context of framing women as booty (and some as property for all while some as private property) is why, of course, the term “cock blocker” is so well know and so often used, with hetero males framed as if in virtual cock fights over who will “tap that.”

Now, the Polanski rape referred to in the title occurred before the term cock blocker was part of the cultural lexicon, but it too revolves around the premise that men have some sort of right to women’s bodies, and moreover, if they are talented, artistic men, we need to overlook their “faults,” even when those faults involve raping a child.

In reading around a bit, I have come across numerous comments to the effect “but he makes wonderful films” or “he is just a tortured artist, we need to cut him some slack.” Or, in a different vein, “it was a different time; we can’t judge him by today’s standards.” Oh yes we can, and indeed we are. We are judging him by the rape apologist ideology, the rape myths, and the blame the victim strategies that are our standards – or, more aptly, that reflect our lack of standards when it comes to preventing, punishing, and eradicating crimes of sexual violence.

Tellingly the 13 year old Polanski raped, a woman now in her 40s, is derisively framed as having had aspirations to be a model, as if wanting to be famous or successful is the equivalent of “asking for it.”

Now, imagine if Catherine Hardwicke had drugged and then sexually assaulted 15-year-old Taylor Lautner. The reaction would be much different, no? As the infamous Lorena Bobbitt case so forcefully clarified, we react far differently to female violence, and particularly when it is perpetuated against men.

To consider another contrast, let’s take the Kanye West microphone stealing incident. In the September 25 issue of Entertainment Weekly, 93% of people polled said they do not forgive Kanye. And yet, people are falling all over themselves to excuse Polanski.  So, insult a fellow artist and block her acceptance  speech and you are beyond reproach, but drug a 13-year-old, rape her, and then abscond from the country for decades to avoid punishment and that’s just fine. Cuz, come on, he’s an ARTIST and that Piano film was just super. (Plus, unlike Kanye West, he’s a white dude and we tend to forgive white dudes far more readily…) I’m not saying what Kanye did was alright, but it was a FAR cry from drugging and raping a 13-year-old girl. How sad that we seem more able to forgive a rapist than rapper…

We live in a culture addicted to the idea of weddings, marriage, and babies. TLC is just one of the smorgasbords where we are encouraged to stuff ourselves silly on a veritable buffet of shows touting white poufy dresses and perfectly planned pregnancies.

The other evening, a quick exchange left me reeling. “All my daughter wants is to get married and have babies. It’s all she talks about,” a mother told me as we chatted during a concert intermission. Said daughter is eleven. ELEVEN! It is bad enough that each semester so many of my female women’s studies students share in their introductory speeches something of the variety “Yeah, I’m in college, but my real goals are to get married and have kids. I dream of being able to be a stay at home mom.” But – ELEVEN? Makes me want to move to another planet.

Now, far those of your raising your pitchforks in the air and shouting “Shut up you feminist baby hater!,” step back. I do not hate babies. I had two of them. Still love them both even though they are far beyond the gaga baby phase our culture fixates on. I don’t hate stay at home mom’s or see them as feminist sell-outs. This fabricated “mommy war” (so fabulously explored in Susan Douglas’ work) is yet another tool of the patriarchy that hammers away at women, keeping them firmly divided and conquered.

If you wanna have you some babies, fine. If hetero monogamy is your slice of pie, eat up. These choices are not the problem. The problem is that our culture does not present them as choices, but as imperatives. We live under what I have elsewhere called “the woman as womb paradigm.” If you don’t got or don’t want a baby and hubby, you ain’t squat.

Perhaps nothing more vividly captures our accelerating descent into this regressive paradigm than the final book of the Twilight saga, Breaking Dawn. Bella, our intelligent, klutzy heroine drawn to danger and adventure, mutates into a pregnant cyborg, her body bruised, battered, and broken from the parasite within. Gone are her college plans, her motorbike-riding-self – in their place, a fetus-incubator fixated on how much she loves, loves, loves the growing BOY inside her. Of course, said boy turns out to be a girl, but how typical that she transfers her fixation on Edward to what she envisions as mini-Edward! Like a good patriarchal daughter, she envisions the perfect child as male. When the baby is female, she then names it after her mother and mother-in-law, combining Renee and Esmee into Renesmee. Ah, what a potent symbol of this human/vampire hybrid’s future – she too can be a mommy, her name a metaphor for her future role! And, as she ages so far beyond her years, maybe she can aim for mommyhood at 11 rather than Bella’s 18. She already has a wolf-boy to call her own to help her produce the pups. Yuckety yuck yuck yuck.

As a current fan of So You Think You Can Dance and a former fan of Solid Gold, Top of the Pops, and the original movie Fame, as well as the spin-off tv series, I was well and truly disappointed in the 2009 Fame re-make. It would have been better to stay at home and watch SYTYCD reruns. But, given the name recognition the title evokes, as well as the tie-ins with the popular SYTYCD show, I can imagine others were similarly sucked into the movie theatre this weekend – only to find that this was new version was NO match for Leroy, Doris, Bruno, and Coco.

As soon as I heard the techno-fizzed up version of the title song, originally belted out by Irene Cara in fem-power fabulousness, I knew I was in for a let down. I should have known that the movie I watched repeatedly as a kid (in rotation with Flashdance, Footloose, Saturday Night Fever, and Grease) couldn’t live up to my (admittedly nostalgic) feelings for the original.

But, did it have to be so dripping with woman are weak rhetoric? Did it have to be so bad as to make the female leads timid, under-talented, and naïve?  Did Denise’s mom have to wait until the end to stand up to her over-bearing husband and defend her daughter’s decision to branch out from classical piano? Did the stand-in Leroy’s mom have to be the typical, 3 job, stressed WOC who doesn’t see her son’s talent, cruelly asking him “Who in the world told you you were so special?!?” And did the marvelous Megan Mulally have to sing a squeaked out version of “You Took Advantage of Me,” written by Lorenz Hart and Richard Rodgers circa 1928? While contemporary music has more than its share of misogynistic lyrics, there are far more proto-political songs (and outright political ones for that matter) that don’t include ‘romanctic’ references to sexual assault.

Here are some of the lyrics from the song Mulally sang in the film:

“A mental deficient you’ll grade me.
I’ve given you plenty of data.
You came, you saw and you slayed me,
And that-a is that-a!
I’m a sentimental sap, that’s all.
What’s the use of trying not to fall?
I have no will,
You’ve made your kill
‘Cause you took advantage of me!
I’m just like an apple on a bough
And you’re gonna shake me down somehow.
So what’s the use,
You’ve cooked my goose
‘Cause you took advantage of me!
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Here am I with all my bridges burned,
Just a babe in arms where you’re concerned,
So lock the doors
And call me yours
‘Cause you took advantage of me.”  (find full lyrics here)

I thought the song was questionably icky when I heard it at the theatre, but when I looked up the lyrics once I got home, I was truly dismayed. Ah, the wonderful way music can make rape sound so romantic!

On top of the appallingly vapid representations of females, there was not an out gay character to be found, let alone a mixed-race couple among the lead hetero-romances. Fame 2009, I am not going to remember your name. In fact, I am going to erase your existence from my memory entirely, allowing only my beloved 1980 version to sing on in my head…

As reported as Salon.com, the “Values Voter Summit” this past weekend (you know with a name like that this has got to be a scary meeting of ultra-right, ultra-white, hetero-loving nuts), a panel entitled “The New Masculinity” discussed how “feminism has wreaked havoc on marriage, women, children and men” in an attempt to get “the principles and ideals for a new ‘masculinism’ right.” Hmmm, sounds like this “new” masculinity is not all that new—rather, it’s the same old “blame women while keeping all our privileges” tactic. And, who deserves the most blame? Those nasty, evil, turning-your-kids-gay-and-away-from-god feminists of course!

But, there is a remedy—at least for sons. Tell them pornography will turn them gay!

With references to homosexuality as a “malady” that is “inflicted on people” Michael Schwartz, the chief of staff for Senator Tom Coburn (of Oklahoma), shared that “All pornography is homosexual pornography, because all pornography turns your sexual drive inwards.” Whoa, now there is some brilliance of the magnitude that if you touch yourself, your hands will fall off and you’ll be headed straight to the devil. Brilliance such as this harks from the Victorian age, that era of sexual repression that brought us circumcision as a “cure” for masturbation. It is also the era, of course, of thriving not-so-subculture porn and erotica. Surprisingly enough, with all that “smut” circulating in society, not all boys were “turned gay.”

That these conversations took place is not surprising given the right-wing homophobic bent of our nation, but it is still incredibly disturbing that leaders frame homosexuality as a disease, using tired ideas that you can be “infected” with gayness. Ah, if only the world could be “infected” with the idea that policing sexuality is not the answer to any of our problems. Rather, such rigid constructions of sexuality create a multitude of harmful practices and beliefs.

More generally, if we could “infect” the world with feminism, perhaps homophobic, misogynist leaders such as Schwartz would have to hide in the closet, masturbating to images of Dr. Laura or Rush Limbaugh.

Hmmm, how best to infect the world with feminism? We need some summits longer than a weekend to figure out our plan for transmission… Maybe we could sneak a dose of feminism into the swine flu vaccination?

I just finished the first season of True Blood and am kicking myself for not jumping on the fan-wagon sooner. Now I have to wait for season 2 on DVD! This will be more tortuous even than hearing the thoughts of Andy Bellefluer…

I am impressed that the series brings the themes of social oppression even more into the foreground than the Sookie Stackhouse book series on which it is based. Touching on racism, white privilege, homophobia and prejudice against non-humans, the show offers an intriguing, culturally aware, satirical take on the various ‘isms’ our world labors under.

The “God hates fangs” sign, present in the opening montage, is indicative of this titillating look the privileged/oppressed matrix. Yet, “vampire privilege,” written about here, is more “vampire oppression” in True Blood, with vamps representing the non-heterosexual, the non-Christian, and, ironically enough, the non-white.

Too funny! Enjoyed all the oppression/prejudice metaphors going on — especially as True Blood is exploring these (albeit in a different way) so intriguingly!

Buffy vs Edward (Twilight Remixed) offers a great feminist ‘re-mix’ of the decidedly non-feminist Twilight.

As the re-mix envisions, Buffy teaches Edward a thing or two, telling him “You know being stalked isn’t really a turn on for girls.” (Come to think of it, Bella needs to hear this one too – maybe Buffy could convince the wilting wallflower Bella to respond to Edward’s bedroom intrusions with her “get out or I will drop you out head first” comeback.)

Ah, from Buffy to Bella – from strong, smart, witty slayer to oh-I-am-soooo-clumsy Bella – we are decidedly stepping backwards as far female role models go.