Bloodlust: Why the fuss over Twilight?

I opened to the first line: “I’d never given much thought to dying – though I’d had reason enough in the last few months – but even if I had, I would not have imagined this.” And I was hooked. Along with, it seems, an entire generation.

Now, vampires are, in a lot of senses, nothing new. Disregarding ancient cultures like Rome and Mesopotamia, we can trace the bloodsuckers’ media origins to 1897, when Bram Stoker penned a novel called Dracula and another writer, Rudyard Kipling, produced a poem called “The Vampire". “The Vampire” inspired Robert G. Vignola’s 1913 film of the same name and Bram Stoker’s work has since produced over 200 film adaptations to date. As of 2005 Dracula became the subject of more films than any other fictional character.

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Unless you’re a member of the (rather popular) undead, you'll be aware of just how huge the bloodsucker can be. Overwhelmingly popular vampire films to date include: Interview with the Vampire, Van Helsing, the Blade series, the Underworld series, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Nosferatu, Queen of the Damned, From Dusk Till Dawn, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, just to name a few. The vampire phenomenon is certainly nothing new.

The 1992 Buffy film isn’t to be confused with the Emmy Award-winning American television series starring Sarah Michelle-Gellar. Buffy, probably the most Twilight-comparable to those listed above, ran from 1997 to 2003, averaged four to six million viewers for each episode, and featured themes such as “high school is hell” and, of course, vampire-human love.

Ah, sweet, bloodthirsty love: Buffy’s character had no less than two trysts with vampires through the course of the show. Her first, Angel (the “vampire with a soul”), lasted for the show’s first three seasons as the monster was killed, resurrected, and fled Buffy, “so that she may have a normal life".

...sound familiar, Twilight fans?

It’s clear that Twilight doesn’t represent anything innovative - so what’s making this franchise tick? And what's making it sell at such a monstrous rate - a rare boom among the bust?

Is it a well-oiled marketing machine? A population of grieving Harry Potter fans grasping for a new literary sweetheart? A ravishing leading man (who beat out 5,000 other actors to gain the role of Edward)?

No. I don’t think so. I believe I am prepared, ladies and gentlemen, to proclaim the means behind the ways of Twilight’s massive literary and film success: sex.

Shock, gasp, horror! Certainly not the in the film industry!

But, honestly, what makes Twilight tick (boom) is its unique portrayal of sex – it’s about uniquely teenage longing. Abstinence. Hormones. Over-inflated idealization of true love. Grandiose imagery. The agony of desire. Time magazine proclaimed it all “the erotics of abstinence." Only within the vampire formula are the time-honoured selling points of sex and death so ingeniously intertwined.

Author Stephenie Meyer, who lists Pride and Prejudice among her most cherished literary works, has harnessed the timeless tale of love and desire between undead and living, and aimed it at a new audience: the teenager. And she’s made it absolutely relatable to them.

Booklist wrote in its review of Twilight, “There are some flaws here – a plot that could have been tightened, an over reliance on adjectives and adverbs to bolster dialogue – but this dark romance seeps into the soul.”

“Seeps into the soul” - this isn’t just another in a long roll-out of cliché vampire films. Twilight has captured the collectively-pulsing heart of teenage girls the world over.

This movie is about their frustration, desire, and passion as they see it all projected onto the big screen through a stunningly handsome pale-skinned immortal and the “normal girl” he falls desperately, life-threateningly in love with, just as they hope their future Prince Charmings will with them.

Twilight’s lifeblood is the teenage condition and that, just like our dear, beautiful, vampiric hero Edward, is eternal.

 

 

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