C.W.A. – Carlisle Would Approve

Whoever said that Twihards were just a bunch of crazy obsessed fan-girls? Over the past few weeks, I’ve been observing, documenting, and commenting on the enormous network of human connections that have sprouted from the Twilight phenomenon. From fan websites to Twilight Moms sleepovers to premiere camping to local library events, Twilight has brought together millions of people in a completely new and distinctive community. The point of my project isn’t to judge whether or not the fandom has been good or bad—I’m just analyzing its categories and prototypes. But, I did find something very, undeniably good about this phenomenon. And I thought I would use this opportunity to talk about it.

I first came across the acronym C.W.A. on the His Golden Eyes online store. There was an entire page of C.W.A. merchandise, including t-shirts, stickers, hats, pins, and sweatshirts. Intrigued, I thought that perhaps Twilight fans had identified Carlisle as their own personal moral compass, bringing his compassion and vegetarian-vampire philosophy everywhere they go. After adding all of the merchandise to my research database, I surfed back to the main place of His Golden Eyes and found C.W.A. again—this time, as a link. I wasn’t at all prepared for what I found, but truthfully, I wasn’t surprised.

As it turns out, Carlisle Would Approve is a Twilight inspired charitable organization dedicated to motivating people to donate blood. The organization holds Twilight-themed blood drives nationwide and spreads information about giving blood on Twilight fan media. The organization is a perfect fit for the Twilight fan base. After all, the Cullens are all about preserving blood. This gives Twilight fans a chance to follow right in their footsteps!

The slideshow on the website shows photos of proud blood-donating fans, some sporting Twilight shirts and at least one wearing a Gryffindor tee! Being as it may that the Twilight and Harry Potter fan bases overlap as much as they do, it appears that this organization has the power to reach even more people than perhaps its originally intended. Who knows? Maybe the Anne Rice readers and True Blood watchers will get involved as well! C.W.A. Has a Myspace page with information of giving blood, news, updates, and plans. It also has a Facebook group with 870 members.

When I step back and think about it, maybe this organization does tell me a little bit about the workings of Twilight cultural categories. I doubt that a similar organization would be able to spring from the deep well of Dracula or any of the older, darker vampire stories. Yes, Twilight serves up its share of darkness and evil blood-suckers, but its leading vampires are lovable characters who struggle to deny themselves human blood in search of a more humane, moral existence. Twilight has created a prototype of vampires that is much different than the traditional prototype, and to Twilighters, all other vampires must in some way measure up to the Cullens. Twilight has also put forward a prototype for what is “good” and what is “evil.” The Cullens’ constant struggle to preserve human life is the height of “goodness.” Their concern for human life, their ability to rise above their own destructive natures, and their personal sacrifice for others are all part of the Twilight prototype for “good.” It is no wonder that fans of such a culture would hold similar values, and would sacrifice their own blood for the health of other human beings.

And so, although I have indeed crossed he line of anthropological neutrality in declaring this organization as “good,” I would venture to say that Twihards would also classify it as good, according to their own cultural values. To them, helping others through personal sacrifice is the epitome of loving and living. Carlisle would approve.

The Day After…And Also Friday Night

The day after the midnight premiere, I slept in late. I gathered my thoughts, wrote a few blog entries, and prepared to see another showing of Eclipse at 4:20 PM. I thought that there would be a huge crowd at this showing as well. Afterall, there had been hundreds of fans at the theatre the other night, and those were only the ones who had the willpower to stay up until two in the morning! That is why I was shocked when I showed up at the movie one hour early to find an empty waiting room, and then an empty theatre. Perhaps 4:20 PM on a Wednesday was just a bad time to go. Afterall, it was vacation for school-age and college-age students, but they had probably gone to the midnight premiere. Those who had not gone would likely have to wait until their parents got home from work to drive them to the theatre in the evening. And of course, it was not vacation for most adults in the world. Still, because of the magnitude of the phenomenon, I had expected a crowd.

After waiting in the theatre alone for about forty-five minutes, a group of about ten little girls came in. They appeared to be no older than ten, possibly younger. Behind them was one set of parents, lugging a huge bag of Claires merchandise and trying to keep the group organized. One girl was wearing a sparkly tiara and it appeared to be her birthday. The parents seemed to have their hands full, and I didn’t want to interrupt the little girls’ fun by coming over, a stranger, to talk to them. So, I resigned myself to sit back and simply observe the fact that Eclipse was being used as a birthday party for elementary school aged girls.

Tagging along with the group of girls was a pair of slightly older boys, perhaps twelve years old. They were probably somehow related to the birthday girl and just here for the ride. They chose to sit right in front of me, and although I felt like a spy, I did enjoy listening into their conversation. One boy said, “They are going to make zero profit on this. The place is empty. You know, they spent a lot of product on this movie. So much for that!” I giggled, wondering what he meant by “product” and if he had heard about the crowds at the midnight premiere. This boy then instructed his friend to only eat popcorn when Edward came on screen. As the other boy put a piece of popcorn in his mouth, the first boy quickly snatched the bag away. “What did I tell you? Only when Edward comes out!”

After the girls settled down, and the parents chose  a seat about five rows behind them, a pair of young adult women came in and sat right behind me. I decided to turn around and start a conversation, and then to let them know about my project. I’m not typically very talkative, but at this point, I didn’t really have a choice. It turned out that these two girls were college students, a little bit older than me. They had both read Twilight, but their friends thought they were weird for liking it. Both of them had seen the other movies but did not proclaim to be big fans. They didn’t have much to say, except for the fact that they liked the books and wanted to see how they turned out as movies. It seemed that I wasn’t going to find very many dedicated fans at this showing, so I just relaxed and enjoyed the movie. This time, without the screams and laughter, I actually heard all of the lines. Knowing what to expect, I was able to stop analyzing and just enjoy the emotion. It was a nice, calming experience.

I skipped Thursday, deciding to catch a crowd on Friday night. When I did go to the theatre, again, it was pretty empty. But fans began to come in around half an hour before the movie, and there ended up being around fifty to one hundred people there. Since they came late rather than lining up hours in advance, I didn’t have much of a chance to interview them. One pair of college aged girls gladly obliged me to have a discussion about Twilight.  I didn’t really have to guide the conversation—they were happy to tell me anything and everything about their relationship with the Twilight Saga. One girl said that she was depressed while reading the second book, New Moon, because Edward left Bella. That is why both girls were Team Jacob. In their opinion, Bella never gives Jacob a chance, Edward leaves Bella, and anyways, Jacob has a hot body. Both girls said that they like Edward, but emphasized that Jacob was always there for Bella.

One girl continued, saying that she had pictured Bella differently. To her, Kristen Stewart is blank in the movie, while Bella displays a variety of dramatic and deep emotions in the book. She then went off on a hysterical tangent about how Taylor Lautner had once friended a bunch of people from her high school on Facebook, before he became famous, and his profile picture had been a photo of him from Sharkboy and Lavagirl. Then, after the Twilight movies, this girl had checked to see if she was still friends with him. Unfortunately, it appeared that he had unfriended her and her other friends. I’m not quite sure why she told this story, but it does go to show the celebrity power that Twilight has bestowed upon these young actors. This girl would not have told the story if her previous association with Taylor Lautner meant nothing.

After launching into the Facebook story, this girl explained that she had read the books all four in a row in about a week. It was a suspensful story, and she said that the love triangle pulled her in. But, after she was finished, she calmed down and hadn’t read them again. When I asked about the Short Second Life of Bree Tanner, she said that she might read it some day. In terms of the upcoming film, she was most excited to see the fight scene with the newborns. She said that there is a difference between the books and the movies, and that, like her, some fans were just there to compare. I’m not sure how this came up, but she also made sure to tell me that she absolutely hates Harry Potter. That interested me, because many Twilight fans are also Harry Potter fans, and vice versa. The points of similarity and difference between these two phenomena would be interesting to explore.

With only about ten minutes left before the movie, I quickly approached a mother and daughter sitting together. I was expecting an interesting tale of intergenerational love for the Twilight Saga, but what I got was much different. The daugher said that she had read Twilight recently, after seeing an ad for it in a magazine. The mother hadn’t read the series, but she had seen Robert Pattinson on television. The only thing she could say about him was that he is a “bad interviewer.”

The daughter hadn’t liked the first movie at all, mostly because it was low budget and poorly made. That was the reason why she stopped reading the books. When I asked why both of them were drawn to the saga, and why they had come to the movie, the mother quickly responded, “It’s the hype.” In fact, she stays up to date on Twilight by following interviews and programs on the telvision, like Jay Leno. Perhaps fan communities, once they become large enough, have a multiplier effect. The more noticeable they become, the more others simply want to know whats going on to feel like they belong. Has Twilight become like that?

Neither woman could decide which team they were on. Still, they mostly talked about Jacob. They mentioned his looks and said that they felt like they were looking out for him. Predictably, they were excited for the Tent Scene. I certainly hope they enjoyed it!

Student L

The Twilight Saga’s Eclipse: Midnight Premiere Part VI (Jacob Black, Sirius Black, and Professor Lupin)

It was around 11:15 at night. Almost time for the long awaited film to begin, but still early enough to get in a few more conversations. I decided to change up my location, so I switched from the very front of the theatre to the second to last row. That is where I found a group of some of the most effervescent, fun loving, and articulate high school girls I have ever met! There were almost ten of them, and ask I spoke to the group about my project, I began to feel like a camp counselor. About 10 seconds into my shpiel, a girl towards the center of the row jumped up and screamed, “I’ll do it! I’ll do it! I’ll do it!” She made her way across all of the other’s girls laps, and ended right in front of me.

Before I could even ask a question, this girl began to explain that she does not love Twilight for its literary style. She said that it was “unsophisticated,” and that she was drawn to it only because of the raw emotion. When I asked her to give me an example of what she would consider to be “sophisticated,” she answered with certainty, “Harry Potter, The Alchemist, and The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel.” This girl really knew what she was talking about.

Back in camp counselor mode, I found myself trying to give each girl a chance to speak. I could no longer hear my own thoughts as they unleashed a steady downpour of Twilight insights. One told me that the exchange she most hoped to hear in the movie was one between Emmet and Bella.

Emmet: Fall down again, Bella?

Bella: No. I punched a werewolf in the face.

I told this girl that she was definitely not alone; I had heard calls for that line all over the internet. All of the girls exclaimed that, of course, the most important scene in the movie would be the Tent Scene. Again, another fan desire that I had heard before.

Coming back to the enthusiastic girl who had travelled across the row in front of me, she began to explain the subtleties in how girls and women identify with Bella. She said that Bella is not a real character. Stephenie Meyer specifically wrote Bella so that any girl could place herself in Bella’s shoes. As a a result, fans were not identifying with Bella’s personality traits, but inserting their own identities into the story. Still, she said, one could could relate to Bella’s experiences. This explanation was intriguing because it suggested that fans were not identifying with Bella as she experienced true love and friendship but rather that fans were actually living their own experience. The difference is subtle, but real.

This same girl then described to me the paradox of Kristen Stewart. Like many of the fans at the theatre, she felt that Stewart was a bad actress. She explained that Stewart is “both overdramatic and blank at the same time.” This statement reflected her sense that Stewart tried too hard to express Bella’s emotion, but in doing so, fell flat. I asked if it was possible that Stewart was purposely blank, attempting to mimic Meyer’s creation of a universal character. She replied in the negative, saying that Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson just don’t work well together.

Soon, the girls were telling me all about the Twilight merchandise they had. They don’t like to buy posters and jewelry in the store. Instead, they prefer to make their own Twilight merchandise together, adding creative touches along the way. I laughed out loud when they told me about a particular “Team Werewolf” shirt that they had created. It featured Jacob Black and Professor Lupin, tying Twilight and Harry Potter into a tight knot. They then expounded upon a theory of theirs that Jacob Black, Sirius Black, and Professor Lupin were all somehow related. The word “love child” was mentioned, but I didn’t quite catch the whole story. As my mom suggested, maybe Black is just a popular last name in the werewolf community?

Once we were on the topic of Harry Potter, the girls began to complain about the changing nature of Twilight fandom. One said, “At first, it was all Harry Potter fans. Now, it’s crazy, stupid blondes.” They’re ditzy and only obsessed with Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner. That is a complaint that I’ve heard often from Twilight fans. With the release of the Twilight movies, the fandom has grown to incorporate different types of people than were previously involved.

Finally, one girl told me that in fact, she’s not the most obsessed Twilight fan. Yes, she did re-read the saga in order to prepare for each movie. And yes, she does create her own Twilight clothing. But for her, (at this point the other girls nodded their heads in agreement) Twilight was about hanging out with friends and having fun at midnight premiers. “Can I give you a hug?” she asked. “Of course!” I responded. Twilight fans are awesome.

Stay tuned—even more to come.

Student L

Dreaming Twilight tinted with Harry Potterisms

Last night I had an interesting dream that made some connections between Harry Potter and Twilight. As do all dreams, this one mixed up aspects of different worlds in order to figure out if they should be categorized in a similar way. Here is the dream, and then I will tell you what I think it was doing

I was with the Cullens at their home, which was a huge Victorian mansion in a large city. It stood out by looking different from everything around it which was industrial and modern (exactly the reverse of the movies and books!). We were getting ready to fight a combination of the local people and their zombie army which was being ssent to destroy us. I was not one of the cahracters from Twilight but I was definitely friendly with them. In a later scene I am noticably taller than Carlisle. I have a teenage son.

I am worried that nothing is being done to protect us from this approaching horde and Carlisle assures me that we are safe. I suggest we get baseball bats and guns but he laughs and says it won’t work on zombies. Jasper comes in with a small jar of paint laughing. We notice as we look into one of the old bathrooms in the house that it is wrecked and that a faucet is twitching weirdly. I can’t  figure out how this happened. It turns out that using this magic paint and some magic powers the Cullens have painted their house to look like it is a wreck, long abandoned. When I look at it from far away, I think it looked like a child painted a haunted wreck but I hope it will work to protect me and my son.

Okay, so the way to work with dreams as an anthropologist (not as a psychologist or psychiatrist or a spiritualist) is to figure out where these different images came from and why they seem to be jumbled together in this narrative by an unconscious (not subconscious) mind. I don’t like any of the work that says dreams contain archetypal images as if we all shared the same symbols (for anthropology this is an impossibility). And I don’t liker the psychological work that tries to mine dreams for their fears, perversions, repressed feelings, etc. I just don’t buy it, that dreams work that way.

I like the work of Bert O. States on dreams and dreaming: he call dreams “metaphor machines” and explains how we take the stuff that has occurred to us in the recent past and how we try to arrange it to fit things we already know and remember. That is how metaphors work, too. And it is all about our continued categorization of the world.

So, first the zombie stuff comes from endless zombie books and movies I have watched (actually for decades). I also just purchased the Jane Eyre/vampire book Jane Slayre which is part of a rethinking classics series that rewrites classic novels as horror stories.  Zombies are interesting because like vampires they are undead and can’t easily fit any normal category of being. Often in the past I would have similar dreams about aliens (and I just finished teaching a course on alien movies from the 1950s and I was telling someone about it at a wedding the day before) so this is a dream structure I already have. It is always about attacks on my family or general threats. Having just spent a long wedding reception with my extended family, I can easily see why this kind of dream popped up last night.

The magical bathroom faucets I would connect with the sink in the Harry Potter 2 movie that I recently watched in which Harry comes to the Weasley’s house and sees self-washing dishes in the sink. The dream house as it is seen magically dilapidated from the outside by non-magical folk is from Harry Potter 7. I just finished listening to the recording of HP7 on my iPod. It is Harry’s house, the one his parents were killed in. Only wizards can see it as it is.

The whole dream story is also connected to the new Bree Tanner novella by Stephenie Meyer that I just finished reading (and will review in a later blog entry). So dreams can be useful when doing research because they show you what you are thinking about. I once recorded 200 dreams about Arnold Schwarzenegger that a colleague and I had while researching Arnold. But that is another story…

Twilight and Harry Potter

It seems almost uncanny that in my introductory blog entry, I mentioned the Harry Potter and Hermione figures sitting in Dr. K’s office. I’ve officially begun my research by reading through as many interviews with Stephenie Meyer as I can, and of course scanning comments online to see what Twilight fans thought of them. I haven’t gotten very far—it’s captivating to read the early interviews, when Twilight first came out, and to see what people expected of the series.

One of the most recurrent motifs in the early interviews is the comparison between Twilight and Harry Potter. Reporters, booksellers, and fans alike were buzzing that perhaps Stephenie Meyer would be the new J.K. Rowling. In fact, when Eclipse came out one month after Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in 2007, it knocked the beloved world of witchcraft and wizardry to second place on the Barnes and Noble Inc. bestseller list. (You can find the Wall Street Journal Article by Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg at this link.)

I wonder what Harry Potter and Twilight have in common that awakens such a deeply passionate response among readers. Both have an element of fantasy, completely imagined and created by the author. Both include a constant threat of danger, and attempts to overcome that danger through the power of love and virtue. As I mentioned before, an important part of my research is determining categories that are important to Twilight fans, and how those categories are defined. Is it possible that Harry Potter and Twilight both strike upon important categories that resonate with large groups of people?

Perhaps one of those dichotomous categories is nature and virtue. Both Harry and Edward must overcome the evil of their kind, and the evil of their very nature, in order to achieve a truly virtuous life. Perhaps the witches and wizards of Hogwarts, risking everything to protect the world from dark magic, are analogous to the ‘vegetarian’ Cullens, protecting Bella and the humans of Forks from vampires driven by the animalistic bloodlust of revenge or power.

In her early interviews, Stephenie Meyer often mentioned the influence of her Mormon upbringing on her novels. One specific Mormon doctrine that she felt is central to the Twilight saga is the idea of free will, the ability to make choices about our lives rather than allowing nature and circumstances determine who we become. This seems to conform to the nature/virtue set of categories, infused with religious undertones but also applicable to all people searching for the meaning of an ethical, moral, or virtuous life. I know that a huge part of the thrill for me when first reading the Twilight saga was Edward’s constant struggle to overcome his dark side in order to love Bella completely. His willingness to contend with his own nature for Bella’s sake lends the relationship an intensely romantic quality.

I still have plenty to learn about cultural categories and “prototype theory;” maybe the real important categories here are good, evil, right, and wrong. As I continue with my research, I look forward to learning more about what fans think about the relationship between Twilight and Harry Potter and why both sagas have become such a central part of our cultural consciousness.

Student L