Twilight Breaking Dawn's Bella Swan is No Role Model

Writing for Big Hollywood, Lauren Veneziana poses the proposition that the "Twilight" series presents a conservative role model for women in the form of Bella Swan, the human lover of a vampire named Edward.

On a superficial level, one supposes that there is some merit to this idea. Bella does wait until marriage before losing her virginity to Edward, the hundred year old vampire in a teenage body. But that is only because sex between a vampire and a human is often fatal for the human. There is an amusing couple of scenes in the latest movie in the franchise, "Breaking Dawn Part 1" in which Bella's and Edward's marriage bed is trashed by the frenzy of their love making. Edward, being a gentleman, is also distraught over the bruises he leaves on his bride's body.

Veneziani is on more solid ground when she mentioned how there is never any serious consideration of getting rid of the vampire/human hybrid child that Bella winds up carrying, even though it poses a clear danger for the mother. That does constitute a pro-life message.

However, as someone who has written a story about a female vampire, one wonders how is it that in Bella's case, conservative has to equate to boring. To be sure, Bella is pretty and has good values, but she is emotionally stunted. This may be a testimony to the lack of acting skills on the part of Kristin Stewart or perhaps the character is just written that way. But in any case there are much better role models for conservative women than Bella Swan, even though none of them have ever carried on with a vampire.

If only Bella could have had the feistiness of Ann Coulter along with the grit and determination of Sarah Palin? She would have then have something she now lacks, but most conservative women do not. That is a personality.

It is not as if there are not models for human lovers of vampires who are most interesting that Bella. One only has to remember Buffy Summers and Sookie Stackhouse. Neither of them may be entirely chaste and one does not know of their views on abortion (though it is implied that Sookie is a church goer), but both of them make better role models for anyone, right, left, or center than the already dead inside Bella Swan.

Sources: 'Breaking Dawn' Provides a Conservative Role Model for Young Women, Lauren Veneziana, Big Hollywood, Nov 26, 2011

'The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1' is Excruciating Tedium, Mark R. Whittington, Associated Content, Nov 19, 2011

Dark Sanction, Mark R. Whittington, Amazon Digital Service, 2011