Besides its icky handlings of gender roles, Twilight also has icky problems with race
So it’s basically an entire mythology surrounding these “gorgeous”, pale, sparkle-in-the-sun, radiant-eyed bloodsuckers versus these “swarthy”, brown, roar-in-the-dark, black-eyed wolf-people.
And the way in which they interact, given the fact that the majority of the bloodsuckers are White and the majority of the wolf-people are Indigenous, just kinda… huh. Some of the slurs the bloodsuckers have for the wolf-people are not borderline racist. They’re just fucking racist.
Hm. Let’s sit here and think about why that’s problematic. I’ll wait.
And then Stephenie Meyer inaccurately represents the belief systems of the Quileute Nation and its people on top of all that and just… Ugh. We should all just rally outside Meyer’s house and judge her.
Stephanie Meyer is a Mormon, and Mormonism has its roots in racism.
The end.
Let me also add these points, since I have unfortunately read this whole series twice.
1) One of the vampires fought for the South in the Civil War and this is not criticized at all; instead it’s made to look glamorous.
2) It is canon at least for one vampire, though I imagine it’s for all of them, that even though she is Mexican, her skin turned pale/white when she was turned into a vampire.
3) In Breaking Dawn, Edward and Bella go to an island off the coast of Brazil (that one of the characters owns WHAT THE HOLY FUCK) and the only time we see any native Brazilians is in the form of the hideously stereotyped, superstitious maids.
4) In Breaking Dawn, when Bella goes to visit that lawyer to get papers for Renesmee and and Jacob (AKA the scene where she tries to act sultry and it’s such an utter failure), there’s a lot of barely-coded racism about the part of town she’s in. Like, it’s seriously that whole EW POOR PEOPLE AND BLACK PEOPLE, HOW SCARY shit we’re all so used to.
5) The vampires refer to Jacob and his family as “mutts” quite often. I’m sorry, you have to be horrifically ignorant to know that word is not used as a slur against brown and black folks.
In conclusion, Stephenie Meyer is fucking gross.
Don’t forget that the novels suggests that the swarthy, dark people are literally hot and sexually tempting but are ultimately not the people the heroine is supposed to be with.
Oh wait, let’s also not forget that the Volturi (AKA the worst disguised metaphor for the Catholic Church and the Pope) has to step in to stop the naturally destructive vampires that all live south of the US, heavily insinuating that northerners are more civilized and peaceful than all those brown folk south of the border.
just lovely!
Lest any of us forget how fucking terrible these books are on every level.
