Twilight of Empowerment: Bella Swan's Fantasies and Desires
Kathy Mac
Narrative views of sex and desire in the Twilight tetralogy are traditional to the point of archaism. For example, the only orgasm that matters is Edward's, inside Bella; she spends most of the books wrestling him to that point. (The series could have been much shorter if Alice had given Bella a vibrator for her eighteenth birthday.) Furthermore, Bella isn't transformed from defenseless prey to a formidable warrior until she is a mother; despite her dreams and desires, as a girl she must rely on the men in her life to keep her safe, and all that protects her from them is her own intuition. This presentation is part of a longer project exploring the fictions of popular culture, which also includes “Omar Khadr is not Harry Potter,” presented at Terminus in 2008.
In case you are interested their web site is:
http://www.sirensconference.org/ The topic will be: women warriors
