The Unremarkable Bella Swan

I'm not anti-Twilight.  There's a bizarre, one-sided, rivalry between Harry Potter and Twilight fans, where the latter's fanbase has something to prove as to why it's considered a piece of popular, modern literature.  I'm, obviously, on team Potter, but I haven't read Twilight not because of a fervent hatred, but because I've always had another book I've wanted to read more.

However, I've read enough plot summaries and analyses to understand Twilight's gist.  It can be summed up easily: the new girl in school falls in love with a vampire, they break up, then she falls in love with a werewolf, then they break-up, then she marries the vampire, gets pregnant on their honeymoon, dies in childbirth, and is resurrected as a vampire.

There's more drama, but that's the purest's takeaway.

There's countless opinions by feminists that reveal allusions to domestic violence and pedophilia (the werewolf falls in love with a baby!) but to me, the most interesting thing about the books is why teenage girls are enamored with them.

Bella Swan is never described in detail.  I googled "Bella Swan Physical Description" and this popped up:

Bella is described in the novels as being very pale with brown hair which is often described as mahogany, chocolate brown eyes, and a heart-shaped face. Beyond this, a detailed description of her appearance is never given in the series.

She's a blank slate. She likes to read books and never really fit in at her old school.  She's the faceless mannequin in a store window that are used by visual merchandisers to help women visualize themselves wearing their clothes.

Now, imagine every situation that makes a teenage girl feel insecure (moving to a new town, being ignored by the school's resident hottie (the book's "David Cohen" of my high school years)), and have everything come up roses.

She immediately becomes accepted by the popular crowd and David Cohen was ignoring her because he's a vampire who thirsted for blood and was in love with her (if only, David.  If only). Oh! And the whole thing about being a child of the undead is that you get to live forever.  When he turns you into a vampire, you live happily, literally, ever after.

Honorable mention goes to adding a second hot guy (the werewolf), who fights the vampire for Bella's affection.

How does a casting director fill the Bella Swan role for the movie adaptation when the character has no defining characteristics except for her pale skin and dark hair? They find an actress who, similarly, has no discernable personality with pale skin and dark hair.  Enter: Kristen Stewart.

Something fascinating happened with Kristen that hadn't happened to past female protagonists in past cinematic love triangles (Rachel McAdams in the Notebook, Emma Watson in Harry Potter, Jennifer Lawrence in the Hunger Games).  That's right, DEATH THREATS.  Pure, unadulterated jealousy from millions of scorned young women who spent years imagining themselves riding on a vampire's back through a forest (I saw that in the trailers).

This is why boy band members are contractually obligated to not take their girlfriends out in public.  Crazed fans can't know the love of their lives' bland, factory pop ballads could be about someone who is not them.  Two members of One Direction went public with their relationships, and guess what their girlfriends received? DEATH THREATS for stealing away the unripened, cherub-faced heartthrobs from every adolescent girl on the planet.

When Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson (the actor who plays the vampire, Edward) became a real life couple, she did a big no-no and cheated on her sparkling shadow of the night with the forty-year-old, married with children director of Snow White and the Huntsman.  Even I view that as a slight to the Warrior of Darkness.  If that illicit affair was as exciting as Snow White and the Huntsman, then it would've peaked when a flight attendant refilled my coffee on my twelve our flight from Seoul to Dallas, but without the saving grace of Chris Hemsworth.

Twilight fans went nuts. Most of them had lucid daydreams where the Bringer of Handsome confessed his realization that she never would've broken his heart.

Juxtapose this with Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling in The Notebook, where fans were rooting for their real-life relationship to work out (it didn't).  Or rooting for Jennifer Lawrence to end up with her Hunger Games co-star Josh Hutcherson.  These are insanely popular books and movies where the male characters have huge fanbases, but those fans lack the sheer ferocity of the Twilight Saga.

Stephanie Meyer, Twilight's author, is a genius if she created this character intentionally.  No one can deny the books are well-loved and have reached every corner of the globe, and I am definitely not the person to judge if it qualifies as brilliant literature.  But, I feel sincere empathy for teenage fans because I know how anxious a celebrity crush can make you feel, and how a book can create a world of escapism to make up for the short comings or real life.

I can, however, confidently say that Bella Swan is not a role model.  That's because being a role model requires the possession of human characteristics that aren't associated with a love interest. Bella Swan is...wait for the Harry Potter reference...The Mirror of Erised.  Girls "see" her and she reflects back the ideal of what they want.  But, I want those girls to really see that having popularity and a boyfriend aren't personality traits.  The person they were reading about -- the object of their jealously -- was, ultimately, themselves.