In defence of Twilight, a teenage dream of excess and melodrama

Anne-iversaries is a bi-weekly column by writer Anne T. Donahue that explores and celebrates the pop culture that defined the '90s and 2000s and the way it affects us now (with, of course, a few personal anecdotes along the way).

One summer day in 2010, something changed in me. After face-palming through Twilight (such strong high school drama class energy) and side-eyeing through Breaking Dawn, I went with my best pal to see Eclipse. The movie was over-the-top, lacked emotional depth, and seemed to vehemently reject logic; the dialogue was clumsy, the acting was painful, and the story perpetuated the franchise's myth that a young woman requires protection by men who know better than she does. But it finally clicked for me: the series represented the exact same teenage feelings that basically all of us grapple with before growing up and into cynicism. And while the movies were objectively terrible, the Twilight franchise still remains one of the most defining pieces of pop culture of the second half of the decade — and it deserves to be recognized as such.

Eclipse in particular felt like a classic teen romance repackaged for a new, vampire-obsessed generation. In it, Edward (a teen vampire) and Bella (a human teenager) continue their quest for eternal love, but Bella begins struggling with her feelings for Jacob (a teen boy who can morph into a werewolf), who hates Edward but — twist! — must learn to work with him to protect Bella from an army of vampires heading her way. On its surface, this story is entrenched in the supernatural, playing on themes of age-old rivalries and grossly inaccurate folklore. But at its heart, it's like any other teen film that uses a love triangle and/or forbidden love to tap into coming-of-age inner conflict. After all, it's during these years that many of us try to figure out who we like and why, and what we expect or want from our partners.

As far as critics were concerned, Twilight was both a phenomenon and a cinematic franchise that was laughably unique in its corniness, nonsensical plot devices, and strong Mormon parallels (author Stephanie Meyer is a Mormon). And, of course, they weren't entirely wrong. But what's easy to forget as an adult is that to its young audiences, the series dared to explore the agency of an ordinary-ish young woman who is being desperately sought after by two boys whose sole focus is on her (and lest we forget how invisible so many of us feel during our teens). It made being a regular person seem magical and full of possibility — and then amplified these feelings with the highs and lows that accompany Meyer's interpretation of love, loss, and what you may (or should, according to her) be willing to fight for.

If teen melodramas are going to exist, they need to commit to running the gauntlet of emotions experienced by the young audiences who watch them.- Anne T. Donahue

It also wasn't actually that unique: ultimately, Bella's narrative provides a porthole into a genre of overdramatic, ill-fated teen romance that's been thriving since Shakespeare. And Eclipse in particular romanticizes the tried-and-true teen cinema notion that to truly understand love and relationships, one must be willing to risk it all. It's not realistic, and it's certainly not healthy to explore in real life, but these kinds of stories offer an outlet for the emotions we need to wade through to make it all the way to adulthood. An all-or-nothing approach to love is a bit terrifying and obsessive — but tragic teen romances weren't built for grown-ups or for anything outside of a small sliver of time.

It's the Romeo + Juliet effect. In 1996, Leonardo DiCaprio starred as Romeo in the Baz Luhrman masterpiece and, together with Claire Danes, romanticized the myth that true love is always worth dying for — even if said love sprung from knowing each other only a couple of days. Then, Leo did it again the following year in Titanic, where he played Jack, a drifter who wins the heart of Rose (Kate Winslet) and sacrifices himself to ensure her survival after their ship plunges into the icy sea. Again, they'd hung out only a handful of times, and over the course of only three nights. But it didn't matter. Through Jack, Rose learned how to be independent. And through Rose, Jack...well, he died. (He died after being reminded repeatedly by everybody in Rose's life that he barely counted as a person and after being accused of stealing a diamond necklace. Someone please give me a few thousand words to explore this.)

But as a teen first tapping into the intensity of first crushes and first loves, none of this mattered. When I saw Romeo + Juliet and Titanic, I sobbed because neither couple could be together. I cursed the adults who thought they knew better and prevented these soulmates from embarking on their destiny. These movies were my mainline into a world where relationships defined everything, where love was about losing oneself in someone else's world and doing whatever it took to stay there. I was so excited to be the one who would obviously and inevitably fall in love with my buffet of crushes, who'd each bring a similar intensity to the table, I was sure (I was also wrong).

The thing is, this window of intensity isn't permanent. Young love in the do-or-die realm — love that exists so largely and so all-consumingly — isn't meant to last. It's meant to teach you something. You learn to separate emotions from logic (even if only a little bit) to ensure that what you're doing is healthy. And the older you get, the more you begin asking questions about who it is you've decided to love. Are they kind? Do they respect you? Do you feel safe to be yourself and confide in them? Are they willing to put in the work? Do you like who you are when you're around them?

Growing up, those are the questions you don't ask until after watching a movie like Eclipse and letting it help you escape into soap opera melodrama. Bella and Edward's relationship isn't even remotely healthy (he's domineering and wildly misogynistic), but movies like Eclipse serve to create a safe space that doesn't shame viewers for feeling out of control, over-the-top, or obsessive. And thank heavens: the period of time before adulthood begins dumping its cold, hard lessons onto your heart is a precious one that ends quickly. So why not root for a vampire and his human girlfriend? Why not hit play on the movie soundtrack at home and relive certain scenes, or cry because you're Team Jacob and the way Bella treats him just isn't fair?

If teen melodramas are going to exist, they need to commit to running the gauntlet of emotions experienced by the young audiences who watch them. And Eclipse did so magnificently. Yes, the franchise itself is problematic at best, but that's for viewers and readers to determine on their own — kind of like the moment you realize Jack Dawson may be cinema's most tragic character ever written. The Twilight franchise, in all of its excess and melodrama, was exactly what its teen audience needed it to be: excessive and melodramatic. And evidently, it's what I needed, too. Because otherwise how can I justify having seen it more than once in theatres that summer? I don't even like vampires — I just needed an excuse to emote.