Sarah Seltzer: That's What Vampires Are For: Fangs, Sex and Society

Teen vampire flick and pop-culture juggernaut Twilight , like Mama Mia ! and Sex and the City before it, shattered records this weekend and made female moviegoers hard to ignore.  Twilight is far from a feminist triumph, though: it's been interpreted by more writers than this one as a purity allegory perfectly tailored for a (hopefully fading) era of abstinence-hype and hand-wringing about "hook-up culture." With a heroine who yearns to both be ravished and bitten, and a hero loath to rob her of either soul or virginity, the Twilight plot arc sells a pseudo-empowering fantasy (men as the sexual and moral gatekeepers, leaving women free to express their desires) while wholeheartedly embracing patriarchal norms.  The film somewhat mitigates the book's rabid antifeminist message, providing more room to chuckle at the smoldering pouts of its young protagonists (whether that campiness was intended is unclear) and downplaying the extent to which human Bella's ... (link)