Frankenstein, Ghostface, Count Orlock are all prime examples of Monsters found within the genre of Horror. Within this genre “the monster is a dangerous breach of nature, a violation of our normal sense of what’s possible” wherein they might be “violat[ing] the boundary between the dead and the living”, “unnaturally large”, “an ordinary human who is transformed”, or “something wholly unknown to science” (Bordwell and Thompson 341). Stephanie Meyers employs the usage of vampires and werewolves – monsters found in horror films such as Dracula (1958),Nosferatu (), Red Riding Hood (2011), Underworld series (2003-2016) – in an unorthodox manner in her best-selling Twilight Saga. Rather than being monsters, they are written as love interests to the human protagonist Bella Swan thus classifying the books as Young Adult, fantasy and romance and the movies as romance and fantasy. Though this distinction is made, Meyers inevitably uses the horror concept of the Other – one that must be “tamed, rejected, destroyed” – in her representation of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) — though our focus will be on Black male representation — which was then replicated in the films and permeates in social media websites such as FaceBook thus adhering to and perpetuating systems of white supremacy logic. 

Black Male Representation

            Bella Swan, the main protagonist, spends a vast majority of the series wishing to become a vampire. However, before this occurs in the last installation of the series, Bella is your run of the mill damsel in distress. She’s clumsy to the point of people believing that she fell through a window as a valid reason for her being hospitalized, after almost being killed by a blood thirsty vampire. Tyler Crowley, a star basketball player in Forks High School, represents one of the things that almost kills our protagonist. While Tyler has no racialized description in books, he is portrayed by actor Gregory Tyree Boyce, a black man. In the context of the film, Tyler, a Black male teenager, is portrayed as a nuisance. On her first day of class, Bella is portrayed as a “shiny new toy” with the boys fawning for her attention. Out of all the boys, however, it is Tyler who infringes on Bella’s bodily autonomy. The first instance occurs in the cafeteria, right before our introduction to the Cullens, wherein Tyler kisses Bella on the check and proclaims that she is his girl, in response to the other boys’ claim. This violation of consent portrays Black teenage boys in a negative manner adhering to film archetypes placed upon Black masculinity stemming from films such as Birth of a Nation, wherein the Black men kidnap, rape, and kill the White women. Tyler’s second offense is that of almost running Bella over on an icy day thus being catalyst to Bella and Edward’s eventual romance. This once again reinforces Jim Crow archetypes of the big scary Black man out to destroy the innocence of white women who in turn need the protection of heroic White men. P. Collins states, in Booty Call, that in “some representations of Blackness become commonsense ‘truths’, thus creating a framing of Black masculinity as monolith – within the context of Twilight, a violent monolith. 

            The casting of Laurent, like that of the P.O.C, in films was highly contested by Meyer, according to Catherine Hardwick. Meyers had intended, allegedly, to only include white characters. It was on the behest of the Hardwick that characters such as Eric and Angela were played by actors of color. Laurent, in text was described as olive-skinned, is a member of James and Victoria’s coven. The trio, unlike the Cullens, are bloodthirsty dangerous vampires. It is in New Moon — the second installation of the books and the films — that the savagery of Laurent is explored. The Cullens have abandoned Bella — after she is gravely injured by Edward as he attempts to prevent our resident Confederate soldier turned vegetarian vampire, Jasper Hale, from draining Bella of blood due to a paper cut — and in her attempt to find an old meadow she and Edward frequented, Laurent stumbles upon Bella in woods. He calmly explains to her that he plans on killing her as retribution for Victoria — who was hunting Bella due to Edward killing James, her mate. As Laurent taunts Bella about the disappearance of the Cullens, Bella hallucinates Edward and lies to save her life, the audience is granted the first look of the werewolves. Though it is the wolves who inevitably save Bella, it is the hallucination of Edward that gives Bella the wherewithal to lie about the Cullens abandoning her. Edward, though not present, still plays the role of the protector. This instance exemplifies Iris Young’s notion of the contraction of the logic of masculine protection. This contradiction being that “good men can only appear in their goodness if we assume that lurking outside the warm familial walls are aggressors who wish to attack them” wherein the men are both the perpetrators as well as the knights. A layer of nuance is added when the Black identity is viewed as the violent perpetrator and the white identity as the knight thus equating Blackness to violence. This equation of violence is also reinforced due to the nomadic lifestyle of Laurent, a former member of James’s coven, as well as his red eyes. In Twilight lore, red eyes — described as a “deep burgundy color that was disturbing and sinister” — belong to the non-vegetarian vampires. The imagery of the nomadic vampires is one of wildness and lacking civilization whilst the Cullens are likened to angels thus enforcing the binaries of civilized v. wild and untamed, safe v. dangerous, clean v. dirty. Hannah Wood states that Hollywood makes culture thus creating “social dimensions of cultural concerns.” In the depiction of the Cullens in comparison to vampires like Laurent, the heteronormative familial structure holds firms and right whilst the deviations result in the ultimate demise of the “Other”.

            In the Personal is International, Cynthia Enloe — a known feminist writer, theorist, and professor — proclaims that “the personal is political '' to depict that “relations once imagined private or merely social are in fact infused with power”. Within the context of Twilight, be it the movies or the books, the representation of Black male characters are at the hands of the dominant group, European Americans. Thus, informing the depiction of Black masculinity that is perpetuated via mass media. In her dissertation, Johnston states that the mainstream – television, film, and theater (and literature) - reflects “the same pervasive and predominant whiteness that had overdetermined what is perceived as mainstream” via the presentation of “white, heteronormative bodies as representative of the universal American subject, and by representing BIPOC and queer bodies (where they do appear0 as cultural ‘other’”.  The Cullens come to represent the acceptable vampires, with imagery of angels, statues, and paintings of old masters associated with them. Even in the meadow scene, where Laurent threatens to kill Bella, he is shown to be wearing a suit jacket with no shirt underneath - and sparkle-less — whilst Bella's hallucination of Edward wears a three-piece suit – and sparkles. Laurent, like the Quileutes who are almost always shirtless, is sexualized in a story where abstinence is upheld as a positive worthy of immortality. In a sense, Bella takes the place of booty wherein her death is the “plunder taken from an enemy in times of war” (Collins, p. 150). 

Conclusion

            Whilst a popular piece of media that some feminist claim to be a feminist work due to Bella’s supposed agency, the usage of Black male masculinity, as well as Indigenous identities and other People of Color, is one that reinforces stereotypes used to uphold systems of oppression. Characters such as Tyler and Laurent, who pose a danger to our pale, fragile, white female protagonist, are unwittingly perpetuators of violence who must be stopped by the white cisgender heteronormative male. 

Works Cited

“Booty Call: Sex, Violence, and Images of Black Masculinity .” Black Sexual Politics: African Americans, Gender and the New Racism, by Patricia Collins, Routledge, 2005, pp. 149–80.

Cossar, Harper. “The Horror Film (after 1960s or So...).” D2L, 2020, file:///Users/phebeanthomas/Library/Mobile%20Documents/com~apple~CloudDocs/Downloads/horror-lecnotes.html.

“Eating the Other: Desire and Resistance.” Black Looks: Race and Representation, by bell hooks, South End Press, 1992, pp. 21–39.

Fojas, Camilla. “Racial Being, Affect and Media Cultures.” Race and Mediated Cultures, by Camilla Fojas and Mary Beltrán, Ohio State University Press, 2018, pp. 33–47.

“The Personal Is International.” Bananas Beaches, and Bases: Making Feminist Sense of International Politics, by Cynthia Enloe, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989, pp. 195–201.

Thompson, Kristin, and David Bordwell. Film Art: An Introduction . 10th ed., McGraw-Hill Humanities, 2012, pp. 341–44.

Wood, Hannah. “Undergraduate Honors Thesis | Up Next: Representations of the Underrepresented in Streaming Film and Television | ID: S4655h060 | CU Scholar.” CU Scholar, 1 Jan. 2017, https://scholar.colorado.edu/concern/undergraduate_honors_theses/s4655h060.

Young, Iris Marion. “The Logic of Masculinist Protection: Reflections on the Current Security State.” Women and Citizenship, Oxford University Press, 2005, pp. 15–34, http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/0195175344.003.0002.

Johnston Aelabouni, Meghan, "Out of Time: Temporal Performativity and Resistance in Popular American Film, Television, and Theater" (2021). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 1950. https://digitalcommons.du.edu/etd/1950

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