[00:00:27] Speaker A: Welcome back to or. Welcome for the first time to thecosmic cafe
[email protected]. This is where we bring on guests and talk about fandom with them and how it affects their lives and the way they consume media today. And we talk about a lot of fandom history on this show. And one of the biggest moments of fandom history was of course the Twilight Saga and the real life saga about the Twilight Saga and all the craziness. So we brought Elizabeth Feist for you for Valentine's Day because it's a very romantic love triangle y story and we bought it from Boardwalk Times and we are going to talk about it.
[00:01:07] Speaker B: So. Hi there, Elizabeth. I'm so glad you have come and joined us today on the Cosmo Cafe podcast. And we are here to talk about the Twilight Saga, which is like when you think about online, like that's one of a defining moment I think, in fandom history.
[00:01:24] Speaker C: I agree. I feel like Twilight really came out at the perfect know as the internet was developing. When the World Wide Web was first invented, it was mainly used as a tool for adults and business. And you know, as it evolved, younger people started getting on. We got forums and when the first movie came out, the creation of Twitter. So Twilight and the internet go hand in hand and really propelled fandom to what it is today. And I'm so excited to talk all about.
[00:01:58] Speaker B: So yeah, I think it came with the rise of social media. I think that's when it got really kind of like they came together and so they worked together kind of. So for those of you who aren't really familiar with Twilight, it's a love story. Over the course of four books, five movies. Yes, they split the last movie into two parts as those series do.
So it's a girl who moves to Washington and she's there, and she meets this guy, and it turns out he's a vampire. And his whole family are vampires, and they're, like, hundred something years old. And so they have a romance, but also other vampires are trying to get main character Bella, and then there's these werewolves that show up, and then it turns into, like, the fans turn it into, like, a shipping war, and the books kind of went into that. And then at the end she marries the vampire, the first guy, and then well, long story short, the other guy who is after her ends up with her daughter.
[00:02:53] Speaker C: You imprinted on my.
[00:02:57] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, because they're soulmates like they're soulmated like in the universe. That's how it works. Like imprinting, that's a thing. So yeah, that happens. Oh, and Bella, the main character becomes a vampire at the end, of course. So yeah, that's Twilight for you. But it's very cheesy teen romance kind of that's the kind of thing I just barely explained it. Did I miss anything, you think?
[00:03:21] Speaker C: No, I mean our main girl is Bella Swan, our vampire guy is Edward Cullen, and our werewolf or Shapeshifter, because there are some theories that their tribe is not even they're not even werewolves, they're Shapeshifters is Jacob Black.
[00:03:41] Speaker B: Those are the three main characters. I'm glad you said their names. Like, I forgot to even say their names aside. It's like oh, yeah. Bella that was her name. I don't know. But yes, I do know the names of all these characters. But yeah, so those are our main three. And basically the main thing with the fandom connection, I think, is the shipping war between Team Edward and Team Jacob and who they thought Bella should have ended up with, or in my like, who I just liked better, I think, because okay, I'll say this, I was Team Jacob and I liked him better. But I acknowledge that I guess Edward was better with Bella because I guess because I thought Bella was kind of boring and so was Edward. So it's like they're a match or, you know, they're all yeah, I had I like Jacob better, but it's weird because I like more of the vampire characters more than the wolves on the whole, but I just like Jacob better than Edward. What about everyone wants to know?
[00:04:31] Speaker C: Yeah. For me, growing up, I was definitely a Team Edward girl.
I have a funny story. I identified so much with Bella for just the silliest reason ever. It was my stepmom, Alicia, who introduced me to the Twilight series, and we had watched them. And then with my mother, we had traveled to her hometown, which is a small town in rural Illinois. So I was like, oh my gosh, I am super pale like Bella. And I just went from Phoenix to a rural town in the north. Oh my gosh, what if I meet a vampire? I was probably like twelve.
[00:05:15] Speaker B: You are around when this was getting really popular, like, how old were you in 2008?
[00:05:19] Speaker C: So I was late to the Twilight train in 2008. I was ten. And I really don't think that I got into it until 20 10 20 11 20 08 is when the movie came out. The book first came out in 2005.
[00:05:34] Speaker B: The last book came 2008 and first movie.
[00:05:36] Speaker C: Yeah, I think I watched all the movies before I read the books, too, so I know that's different for some people because they enjoy reading the books first. But again, it was my stepmom who got me into it, so those movies are easily digestible for a tween at the time.
[00:05:55] Speaker B: One at a time, almost. Or maybe not one at a time, but I read the first book and then I watched the first movie, and then I definitely read the books before each of the movies, but I don't know exactly the order. I mean, I read the books in order and watched movies in order because when they came out, except for the first one, I didn't see the first one in theaters. I read Twilight for the first time in early 2009, so I was twelve and then I turned 13 that year and so I was 13 when New Moon came out and that was kind of new Moon and Eclipse were kind of like my fever pitch fandom of the franchise when those movies were coming out. So that was when I was in grade eight. So right before high school.
And yeah, it was crazy. Everyone was into it. And then the whole is like the paranormal romance thing, it launched that. So it launched Vampire Diaries I think came from the success of Twilight May Live, the success of that, which I don't know much about, but yeah, that's a show.
[00:06:43] Speaker C: I was obsessed with Vampire Diaries too, later on. And then I think True Blood was also honestly that's like the more adult version of Twilight. But that came out in 2008. I've never seen that because I was ten. And ten year olds probably shouldn't be watching True Blood. But yeah, it all sprouted from Twilight. And obviously before that was Buffy the Vampire Slayer. But vampires back then were more undead looking and even back then, like Nosferatu in the 1930s when that came out, those were scary. So it was really Stephanie Meyer that made vampires sexy, but also a lot of people in TikTok talk about it now. This book is just yearning like nothing happens with the sexy vampires.
We just yearn. And I think that is really what appealed to young girls at the time because they have those same frustrations and they can really relate to Bella in that way.
[00:07:42] Speaker B: Yeah, I also think it was a good time. I know it's not quite entirely the same demographic as Harry Potter. There is a Venn diagram, I would say though, and Harry Potter, like the last book, came out in 2007 and so the movies were still coming out, but there was less new story and then meanwhile Twilight was still new to a lot of people when the movie came out in 2008. So that kind of got people on the train as well. Although obviously the books were popular before that because that's how a movie even happened.
So yeah, I think that was sort of the successor to Harry Potter in a way. Although there was overlap pretty much the last Harry Potter movies in the Twilight movies. Yeah, the last Twilight movie was 2012, which was ten years ago.
[00:08:22] Speaker C: That's crazy.
I'd say the difference between the Harry Potter fandom and the Twilight fandom though was that Harry Potter it was really an even split between male and female and other audiences, whereas Twilight, it was just mainly young girls who were was.
[00:08:42] Speaker B: There a big gay male audience for Twilight? I don't think there was. I'm not sure a lot of things.
[00:08:49] Speaker C: Yeah, I'm not really educated on that. I'm sure there were like obviously I'm not saying it was just girls who loved Twilight.
[00:08:57] Speaker B: No, I know a lot of people loved it. Like a lot of things. Like girls like Glee, for example. Although there were like, gay characters on Glee too. There's more related to that was like a very female demographic that I was in right after Twilight. That was my next big thing. But the male audience, there's like a bigger male audience for Glee. Like a gay male audience and gay women too, but I'm just saying. So I don't know if there was that for Twilight as much.
[00:09:20] Speaker C: Yeah, I don't know. Something that I think is really interesting about Twilight and Fandom in general is that while young girls were really enjoying it, I think that the mockery of Twilight and young girls really liking Twilight kind of shifted into a cultural movement. Because I remember liking Twilight and boys in school or other girls really saying, oh, Twilight is stupid. But it's like, why? How do you know that? Or how do you know if you've never read it? Which I might get into seeing it through the 2022 lens. Seeing Twilight through the 2022 lens a little bit later. But I think that is something that's really interesting too. But that's nothing new, really, for culture.
I was listening to a podcast and people have said it before, but I just heard it again. It was, listen to what teenage girls scream about, like the Beatles. Teenage girls screamed about the Beatles and now they're one of the most famous bands of all time. And I think that those are some cross connections that way too. What do you think of that?
[00:10:31] Speaker B: Yeah, I agree. One thing I was thinking about just now is that usually the things girls are obsessed with or whatever, like teen girls, it's like a boy band or something, right? There wasn't really like a huge boy band of the time where Twilight was going on that kind of maybe replaced that because the Jonas Brothers were kind of big right before Twilight was big. And then Justin Bieber, who's just like one guy, but I don't know because he got the same ire the boy bands did.
I love Twilight, but I was very much against Justin Bieber and I still don't think he's that great or anything. I don't know. I think he was too hyped up for me, for my friends. And I'm like, this is it. This is who you're obsessed. I'm sorry, but yeah.
So I think Twilight was almost like because you had the different kind of types, like the boy bands and the different types of guys. Like, you had the vampire guys and you had the werewolf guys. So it's like filled the boy band void in a weird way.
[00:11:29] Speaker C: I get where you're saying with that. But also One Direction was kind of starting to be big.
Yeah, something like that. So it was kind of like that. It was like twilight and then one direction.
Speaking of One Direction, super weird connection that I'm making in my head. Fan fiction. Did you ever read, like, Twilight fan fiction?
[00:11:52] Speaker B: I read a bit, yeah. I found most of the Twilight ones weren't as well written for some lot. I still do. And I've read a lot of fan fiction in the past for certain fandoms. But I have to find ones that are well written. But I've read a few I read a few Twilight ones. I read ones for I don't know, a lot of the best written ones were Bella, Edward, and I just didn't find that. So, like, I don't know. I never found them interesting. But did you? Because I know there was Twilight fan fiction and you're talking about Rundirection fan fiction, right? Those are kind of two different things for me because one's about real people, and I'm like, yeah, on that necessarily.
[00:12:29] Speaker C: Like I said, I got into Twilight a little bit later just because I was a little too young when everything first came out. But I was curious about your fan fiction experience, especially because, like, 50 Shades of Gray, it's like a Twilight fan fiction, which is crazy, but obviously you can see it there because I feel like Christian Gray and whatever the girl's character are both super boring and Edward and Bella are kind of boring.
[00:12:54] Speaker B: Yeah, my fan fiction experience in general is like, I was reading a lot of fanfic at that time, but not Twilight. I was literally reading Disney Channel fix. Total drama and those kind of shows. Whereas, like, kids shows. But the fan fiction was actually written pretty well because I guess the adult fans wanted to do more with it, especially the cartoons, like Kim Possible and all that. They had really good I just I don't just maybe it wasn't well written as I remember. It was just like better stories or more interesting stories. Yeah, I feel like I was into fan fiction, but not Twilight fan fiction for the most part, which is really weird. Although I could go back on my old fanfiction net site and see if I had any Twilight.
[00:13:33] Speaker C: Yeah, I maybe read Twilight fan fiction. Like I said, there was like that summer where I was like, oh my, like, I am Bella because I am in a small town.
But yeah, I don't really think of any that really stand out to me because I was on the One Direction train hard. So it was like One Direction fan fiction. And maybe I'm exposing myself too much, but like, once upon a time, fan fiction girl, I was all over that.
[00:14:06] Speaker B: Okay, so I'm actually pulling up my old fanfic account right now just to see. So I may edit this part out if we don't find anything. But yeah, so I didn't write any Twilight fan fiction. Let's see if I have any favorite stories. If I do, I'll just put this back.
Um, okay. Yeah, it doesn't look like so I actually this is where I'm going to cut back in. So Julia, cut back in here. So I actually just found a Twilight fanfic I read, and I recognize the author because he was a total drama author for the most part. But it was just called. Never was a mother. And it's just how Bella doesn't okay, this is the description. It says, in honor of Mother's Day, bella does not have the heart to attend Renesme's Weding because she feels she was never her daughter's. Mother can esme change her mind. So it wasn't a romantic fanfic. I just thought it was like a cool idea, I guess. I remember this one. Yeah, but I found this one. I didn't write this. It's saved under my favorites on one of my old fanfic accounts.
[00:15:06] Speaker C: So that is cool.
[00:15:07] Speaker B: So, yeah, I did read some Twilight fanfic, I guess. So that is neat. So I will link the fanfic wherever I link things. I don't know. We haven't even launched this podcast when we're recording it yet. So we don't know the semantics or how it's going, logistics, how it's going to work. But yeah, so I will link that because that is neat.
[00:15:24] Speaker C: That is super cool. And I think what's so cool, speaking of fan fiction and the Twilight universe and fandom at the time and honestly, fandom now, fan fiction is alive and well. We could talk about but just the way that we can expand on the foundation that Stephanie Meyer created and take it into totally new and wonderful and, you know, it's fan fiction, so not so wonderful things at the same. Like, that is such a cool concept.
Sounded like a little one shot, but also it could be like an entire yeah, it is.
[00:16:01] Speaker B: It's just a little one shot. And I like little one shots like that for all kinds of fandoms that I write for. Just like a read for just little things. And I tend to do like little one shots like that when I write too, a lot of the time. Just like little ideas I want to see in the canon. That wouldn't happen. That probably won't happen. But I did and I wrote fan fiction as a kid. I write it now. I'm not going to share my account or anything because I just want to keep that separate from everything else.
It's like for me and working through things. So I'm just going to keep that separate. But that is kind of how I write. And I do find that interesting because I would read tons and tons of romantic picks and then I just found that one in there and that was just like a random one shot. And it's cool because Twilight is so romance based, you'd think I'd be reading more romantic stuff, but I did the other things. And I did like the other characters too.
We've talked about Edward Jacob and bella, like Edward the vampire, jacob the werewolf or shapeshifter, and Bella the human turned vampire. But there was a lot of other cool like I think everyone, no matter what side you were on, you loved Alice, right?
[00:16:59] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:17:00] Speaker B: One who could show you was it reading minds or showing oh, showing the future. She could show the future. She was like this little Pixie girl, kind of not a literal Pixie, but played by what was her.
[00:17:15] Speaker C: Name?
[00:17:15] Speaker B: Ashley something. Yeah.
[00:17:16] Speaker C: I was like her name starts with an A.
Yes.
[00:17:19] Speaker B: Who dated Joe Jonas of the Jonas Brothers we mentioned.
So yeah, Ashley Green. Yeah, she played Alice Cullen and she was really good. Esme like we said, she's a cool character. I liked Carlisle a lot. I think with the new fandom, a lot of people are into Carlisle.
[00:17:35] Speaker C: I was just about to say.
[00:17:39] Speaker B: It'S like everyone's coming back, it's now Team Carlisle, but not with just they just ship him with themselves, I think, which is a different and I mean go for it.
[00:17:49] Speaker C: Yeah. I'm really loving this whole resurgence of the Twilight fandom because I think back in the know we were kids, we just were yes. Like vampire romance will they won't like honestly tropes that I still like like yearning.
It's so good. And we love a slow burn, but honestly, Stephanie Meyer is just like the queen of the slowest burns ever. But going back to I call it like a TikTok resurgence, but I feel like it really happened at the beginning of Quarantine in March 2020. People were stuck at home just trying to figure out what to do with themselves. And a lot of people went back to things that they enjoyed in their youth and that was Twilight. So now people are talking about it through a modern lens. We're seeing the true issues with the plot and characters and the way people were portrayed. And so I think that is something that's really cool, especially with TikTok, because it's a great platform for people's voices to be heard. All different kinds of voices.
[00:18:57] Speaker B: Yeah. What's crazy is I just went and tried to find this YouTube video. This is from May 2019. So the Twilight renaissance started a little bit before that, but the TikTok thing made it explode, I think. But it's called Twilight is woke now. It's by Strange Young's, one of my favorite YouTubers and just going through Tumblr, she does a series called Tumblr Deep Dive. And all the Twilight posts from now are more recent. This is from almost three years ago now, but it's similar to postar and yeah, it just goes through. It's like wholesome it's fun, it's just people looking back at their childhood or teenagehood or whatever.
Yeah, and it's funny though, because going through Twilight and pointing out what was wrong with it, whatever, and doing actual analysis and it's not like not through a lens of oh, I'm better than Twilight. Oh my like, not through that anymore. Just like, oh, yeah, wow, that was huh, like more chill. I feel like something similar happened with the show Glee, which was my obsession after Twilight. And I don't know. I don't know if I'm ready to go back and be super, super critical. I was somewhat critical of it at the time, of course, when things got weird, but I don't know if I'm ready for that yet. But I want to do an episode on that, I think, at some point when I'm ready to do that, because.
[00:20:03] Speaker C: That would be amazing. I will definitely tune in.
[00:20:06] Speaker B: Yeah, a lot of change stuff. Like, I'm sure people are going to be doing that with Riverdale soon.
People already are, but I mean, people who watch it, I guess, I don't know. Does anyone watch Riverdale unironically? I'm sure some people, but I feel like that's even crazier than anything Twilight or Glad did. But yeah, just like kind of yeah. I don't think it's harmless. I mean, sure, I don't think people can't really go date vampires, so it's okay.
[00:20:30] Speaker C: Right. And I think something that's really interesting about Twilight fans now versus back then or people who aren't fans, I feel like back in 20 08, 20 10 20 12, it was like, I either love Twilight or I'm a hater of Twilight. But now I feel like, yeah, now I feel like you can be both. You can really love Twilight for what it was and how it made you feel. But you can also look at it from this modern lens, which.
[00:20:59] Speaker B: We just.
[00:21:00] Speaker C: Know what's going on a little bit more now these days. But we can look at it and be like, wow, this was really problematic. And I think people are doing the same with Glee. It's just taking it all with a grain of salt, and that's really hard. And not everybody can take it in and digest it the same way. That's what's great about just the fandom in general. You can really find your place.
[00:21:22] Speaker B: What I also think about Twilight now is people who hated it back then actually sat down and watched it and be like, oh, this is kind of fun. They don't take it seriously.
I feel like you said very serious business whether you loved it or hate it back then, and then even the people who love it were fighting with each other because of Ship Wars. I lost a friend because of it, because my friend took it way too seriously and she didn't want anymore because I was trying to change her, convert her to my side. Even though I wasn't trying to do that, I'm like, what that?
Yeah, I never took it that seriously. I didn't want to stop being friends with people over it.
[00:21:59] Speaker C: But yeah, again, seeing it through a modern lens is super interesting. And I love again that people can be fans but also be critical of it, especially as Stephanie Meyer is working on a novel about Renesme and Jacob, which is I don't know how to feel about, like you like kind of a interesting, weird dynamic in the Twilight universe.
[00:22:29] Speaker B: Pointed out that in the book.
[00:22:33] Speaker C: I.
[00:22:33] Speaker B: Don'T want to say if they got away with it or not. Like, your mileage may vary, but they did say he's going to be like Jacob, who is imprinted on Renesme. She's his soulmate from when she was born.
He's going to be whatever she needs him to be at the time and feel about her. So he doesn't feel in love with her already as a baby? I feel like we should point that out. Yeah, he feels very protective over her and whatever. And then as she grows up, he will turn out to love her. But he does not feel that way about her right now. This is not actual pedophilia, I don't think.
It's really weird and creepy, kind of, but especially because he was, like, dating her mom. I think that's the worst part of and like, there's this weird part in the last book where Edward's, like, he has to awkwardly calls Jacob his no, no, this is too weird.
[00:23:21] Speaker C: Like, they were literally fighting over a TikToker. Pointed out too.
I think her name is Elizabeth. I think her username is like, Twilight Talks or something like that. But she pointed out that the series, the four books, takes place in less than two years, and Edward is gone for like six or eight months of all of that.
[00:23:45] Speaker B: Yeah, I do think they get married in the last book, by the way, like, when Bella's 18 or whatever, so she can become a vampire. Whatnot? And then she has like a kid right after that. So yeah, I do think they got married too fast, probably. And they had like they probably yeah, it all happened way too know.
But yeah, I think I don't know. Do we think that girls and women mostly I mean, gay men, too, I guess. But do we think people took the messages of the relationship, saw the relationship between Edward and Bellentro and tried to have that in real life with like, let's get married real fast, or whatever, let's obsess over someone so deeply. Bella becomes very depressed in the second book when Edward goes away, and it turns out it's to protect her.
[00:24:27] Speaker C: But yeah, it's super interesting.
Know, during the time that the books were coming out, I feel like at least in the like, our president, president Bush at the time was really pushing the abstinence education in schools, and Stephanie Meyer herself was Mormon. I'm not really sure what her affiliation is now, but she was really pushing that agenda within Bella and Edward. Like, Bella and Edward couldn't have sex because Edward was so strong it would kill Bella. So it pushed that agenda anyway before.
[00:25:01] Speaker B: She becomes a vampire. Spoilers.
[00:25:03] Speaker C: Yeah, but they're oh, yeah, they're married, so it's fine.
[00:25:07] Speaker B: Even though it hurts, it's fine. But so it's like was it really because of that, or was it because they had to be married?
[00:25:11] Speaker C: Exactly.
[00:25:12] Speaker B: Although in the third book, I think Bella was like, she wanted to have sex before they were married, and then Edward insisted they didn't because I guess that's why. Yeah, that makes sense. I forgot about that. So, yeah, I guess that's why they married so young.
[00:25:25] Speaker C: And also Bella didn't want to age.
[00:25:27] Speaker B: And be older than yeah, because he didn't want to turn into a vampire until they were married either. So was that supposed to be a metaphor for sex too? I mean, real sex happens in the book, so I don't know.
[00:25:38] Speaker C: Yeah, probably. It's all a metaphor, really.
[00:25:43] Speaker B: It was this weird thing. It was this very sexual, overtone series, but it was appealing to people of the Twilight moms as well. And a lot of them were more conservative women, just like, obsessing. I guess it was like their outlet, because if they were unsatisfied with their husband, maybe I mean, I'm sure a lot of them were just having fun. I'm just saying.
I'm so awkward this episode. I don't know why. I'm sorry. You guys listening? If anyone's listening?
[00:26:07] Speaker C: No, I love this discussion. This is great.
Going back to what, 2010 me. This is a really awkward conversation, but obviously I'm a lot older now and could talk about it a little bit.
[00:26:20] Speaker B: More, I guess, and I'm still in, but like, less of when I can appear respectable in public now. But that's all I'm going to say about that. What else about twilight?
So, yeah, just like, what are some other iconic moments from Twilight? Just so we like the fandom or the stuff? Like, just how crazy it is and it gets there's one that kind of stands out for me. But I want to know what you think.
[00:26:47] Speaker C: That is such a good question. I feel like there are really so many iconic moments. I mean, we already talked about the Team Edward, Team Jacob thing and people toting around their T shirts and their merch. As for the movies, I just feel like watching them.
I don't know if I'd call this like, an iconic moment. I guess it's just my thoughts of watching it. I watched them a year ago, like, how awful Bella is as a like, I think that my friends and I were watching together, and we were trying to side, like, team Edward, team Jacob, and at the end of the four movies, we were like, team, which which is awful because we would have rooted for her the whole time.
[00:27:27] Speaker B: But honestly okay, so here's another thing. If Twilight was a thing now, people would be shipping Edward and Jacob. That'd be the main ship, probably.
[00:27:35] Speaker C: Oh, yeah, 100%. And have I seen that online? Yes.
[00:27:37] Speaker B: People are like, again, a lot of mainstream things where people really want. They really want gay reps. They do, like, gay shipping, and I'm sure they're legit shipping, but they also want rap is a big thing now, too. And that became, like, a big thing. I feel like right around Twilight was ending. So, yeah, I didn't really see a lot of Edward Jacobshippers, but yeah, that'd be huge now, I guarantee.
Yeah, that would just be a thing.
[00:28:02] Speaker C: What's your iconic moment?
[00:28:03] Speaker B: What you said about Bella, though? Because it's interesting because you said you saw yourself and like, I think Bella was meant to be, like this kind of empty shell for the reader to identify with.
So, yeah, that's kind of explained very passive and just, like, not having much of a personality and just being there and whatever, and just kind of experiencing things. And she's kind of like the vessel for the reader.
[00:28:26] Speaker C: I never thought of it that way, but wow. Yeah, that's so true.
What's your iconic moment?
[00:28:35] Speaker B: Okay, so my iconic moment I didn't realize this I guess it was this iconic because I guess my theater wasn't like but so Lindsay Ellis, a former YouTuber, now still an author. She did a lot of cool videos about media and everything. She did some Twilight ones. So one twilight one she did. Like when breaking Down Part Two came out. So in Breaking Down Part Two, at the end of the book, it's the vampires and the werewolves team up against the evil vampires to protect Bella and the baby and Edward and everybody. And there's these evil vampires that are there. They basically just talk for a while, and then they're like, okay, well, the baby isn't dangerous because I thought the baby was going to be dangerous. And then they leave. So in the movie, they have a fight scene. This does not happen in the book. They have things like characters. Diet goes crazy. And it's like while apparently people were screaming in theater, like, this is not happening in my theater. I feel robbed of this.
But, yeah, it's different than the book. They wanted to add some action, I guess. And then at the end, Alice, who shows visions of the future. You see it's a vision of the future. It's like, that's what will happen if you don't leave us alone. Or like, I don't know, some people, like Lindsay, who's a bit more critical of the media and Twilight and stuff, is like she's like she wishes that was the actual canon thing because there were actual consequences and people really died because no one really dies in Twilight or anything like that. It's just kind of know stuff happens.
The consequences are all very romantic based and whatever.
Edward almost dies a couple of times, I think, and so does Bella. They're trying to save Bella's life, but no one actually dies. I think some of the evil vampires did in the earlier ones, but that's it. So, yeah. Do you remember seeing that in theaters.
[00:30:10] Speaker C: In your reaction to that at don't, but I remember watching it, but I honestly don't know if I saw any of them in theaters. Now that I'm thinking about it.
[00:30:19] Speaker B: I think it was all I saw all the first one in theaters. Okay.
[00:30:24] Speaker C: But I do remember seeing, like, head in the hand of a Voltori and being like, oh, my gosh, that was.
[00:30:33] Speaker B: Kind of scary for me. Yeah. And then like, other yeah, I think Jasper died.
[00:30:39] Speaker C: Well, let's talk about Jasper and how he was a Confederate soldier.
[00:30:43] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. Okay. So this is another part of Twilight I wanted to mention. So in the third book, you get a lot of the backstory of the other vampires. You get Edward and Edward's siblings, we call them, even though they're not actually just they have the parents, Carlisle and Esme, who are older when they became vampires. And they have the kids, like the teenagers who were younger when they became vampires. So there's Edward and then there's Alice and Jasper, who are a couple, and Emma and Rosalie, who are a couple, and they all have their backstories and they're more interesting than what Twilight was actually about. Any of those could have been booked.
[00:31:17] Speaker C: They would have been amazing.
[00:31:18] Speaker B: That was like the whole, like yeah. What did you think of that? Do you remember any of those stories that appealed to you?
[00:31:25] Speaker C: I remember Rosalie's more specifically from the movie, just because that was super emotional. And I know they made her out to be just like this horrible character at the beginning, but seeing her transformation, she was attacked by men and she had always wanted to be a mother. And when she turned into a vampire.
[00:31:45] Speaker B: That was ripped away from her.
[00:31:47] Speaker C: So seeing her step into that ant role for Renesme was really cool. But then yeah, Jaspers somebody pointed this out on TikTok. I'm referencing TikTok so much, but that's.
[00:31:57] Speaker B: Really I don't really remember too much about Jaspers, so go ahead.
[00:32:00] Speaker C: So, basically he was a soldier for the Confederate Army during the Civil War, obviously, because that's the only time the Confederacy was ever a thing in the US.
And some ladies turned him into a vampire. And so he was fighting for the Confederate Army but as a vampire.
And then they don't really explain how he came to find the Cullens, I don't think. If I'm wrong. Whoops.
[00:32:26] Speaker B: Wow.
See, that's a good thing. I think that people pointed out as problematic.
[00:32:33] Speaker C: Yeah. Why are we talking about why are we giving sympathy to a conference?
[00:32:37] Speaker B: Why do vampires sparkle? Oh, my God, that's like my least favorite argument.
Why do you care if they sparkle? They still drink blood in this series and whatever. That makes me right.
That mad over that aspect. Go in comic book movies and get mad. A character's power changed or something. Or added.
[00:32:54] Speaker C: Right. So, yeah, definitely. Talking about Jasper is like a big thing because I don't know. That really wasn't relevant to his story at all. And somebody on TikTok was like, who do you think if he worked for the Confederate Army or if he was a Confederate, whose blood do you think he was drinking? And it was.
[00:33:15] Speaker B: Who do you think Stephanie Meyer was rooting for? Oh, my God. I'm sorry.
[00:33:18] Speaker C: Okay, here.
No, this is good. Who Stephanie Meyer was rooting for? Like, as in Team Edward or Team Jacob?
[00:33:26] Speaker B: No, as in, like, the Confederates.
[00:33:28] Speaker C: Oh, shit. I don't know if I'm allowed to say Edward, okay.
[00:33:32] Speaker B: I might be cutting this up, but obviously she was dreaming for Edward because that's what happened at the canon ending.
[00:33:37] Speaker C: Yeah. And her inspiration for Twilight was a dream where she was Bella, and a lot of TikTokers are like, she's in love with Edward.
[00:33:44] Speaker B: Good. Here's a point, though, because Jacob and the other members, they're indigenous people. They have, like, a community. I forgot what their names start with A-Q-I forgot how to pronounce it. But yeah, they were not white. They were people of color.
So, again, just how she portrays them. It's okay. I'm going to cut this whole part out. I'm sorry. I'm being crazy. No, you're totally good after this.
[00:34:13] Speaker C: Wait, you what?
[00:34:14] Speaker B: I'm doing a whole nother one after this, too. I know what I'm going to be saying about those. Like, you're talking about Pocahontas and Disney.
[00:34:20] Speaker C: That's okay.
But you're right. With Stephanie Meyer's representation of people of color, all of the good vampires are white in the film.
[00:34:34] Speaker B: Yeah, there was, like, one black vampire.
[00:34:36] Speaker C: And he died and he was a bad guy. And then with Jacob's Tribe, she represents all of them as aggressive.
I just think that she relied heavily on stereotypes there, and I think that is bad.
I'll say it here. It's bad.
[00:35:02] Speaker B: Like the romantic aspects, but, like, there's a lot of other stuff we should be questioning in Twilight. I feel like that's not that ask the real questions, people. So, anything else you want to say on Twilight? I feel like we've talked about quite a bit. We've hit all the big points. Yeah.
[00:35:19] Speaker C: I mean, I'd say my concluding words are the way we love Twilight changed. And I think that's really cool because we don't really I mean, nowadays we really do with the power of the Internet, we go back to things that we loved, but I think seeing it through a modern lens is really cool. We can still appreciate it, but we can still criticize it.
[00:35:40] Speaker B: Yep, exactly. So with that, thank you so much for joining us today, Elizabeth. This was really fun. Really embarrassing for me.
[00:35:48] Speaker C: Yeah. Thank you so much for having me.
[00:36:01] Speaker A: Big thank you, Elizabeth, for coming on this episode. You can follow her at Elizabeth Fife in the description. We will link that on Twitter. And you can also follow her
[email protected], follow more of our work at a Cosmic characterist. We got podcasts, we got TikTok, we got articles, of course. Lots of scoops. Lots good stuff there. And thank you. And we hope you had a great Valentine's Day. Or just a great day in general.
