Screening Twilight Critical Approaches to a Cinematic Phenomenon

by Clayton, Wickham; Harman, Sarah

• ISBN13: 9781780766669
• ISBN10: 1780766661
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2014-05-29
• Publisher: I. B. Tauris

Summary

The Twilight Saga, a series of five films adapted from Stephanie Meyer's four novels, has been a sensation, both at the box office and through the attention it has won from its predominantly teenaged fans. As popular cinema, the series has had its share of criticism, even from fans. However, it also offers rich opportunities for critical attention, which the contributors to Screening Twilight provide with energy and style.

The book unpacks how this popular group of films work as cinematic texts, what they have to say about cinema and culture today, and how fans may seek to re-read or subvert these messages. Chapters address Twilight in the context of the vampire and myth, in terms of genre and reception, identity, gender and sexuality, and through re-viewing the series fandom. Screening Twilight is a revelation of how a popular cinematic phenomenon can reward close attention from scholarly, critical writers on cinema and culture.

Author Biography

Sarah Harman is a PhD candidate at Brunel University, UK, working on Femininity, Feminism and Masochism: The Female Masochist Body in Paracinema. She is also Peer Editor for Roehampton University's journal for performance and creative research, 'Activate', as well as for Goldsmiths' Cultural Studies department magazine, 'Nyx, a Noctournal'.

Wickham Clayton's completed PhD thesis for Roehampton University is on the aesthetics of the Friday the 13th film franchise. He has contributed to collections including Tainted Love: Screening Sexual Perversities edited by Donna Peberdy and Darren Kerr (I.B.Tauris, 2012).

Table of Contents

1. Mute Monsters and Vocal [Fan] Critics: Genre and Reception 
2. Guilty Pleasures: Twilight, Snark and Ironic Fandom 
3. 'Cue the Shrieking Virgins'?: The Critical Reception of the Twilight Saga 
4. The Twilight Saga: Genre and Reception 
5. Werewolves, Lions and Lambs: Creating and Subverting the Myth 
6. Why Twilight Sucks And Edward Doesn't: Contemporary Vampires and the Sentimental Tradition 
7. The Lore of the Wild
8. Northwest Small Town Gothic: Location and Space in the Twilight Films 
9. Romancing the Tomb: Gender and Sexuality 
10. My Distaste for Forks': Twilight, Oral Gratification and Self-denial 
11. Of Masochistic Lions and Stupid Lambs: The Ambiguous Nature of Sexuality and Sexual Awakening in Twilight 
12. 'Venus in Fangs': Negotiating Masochism in Twilight
13. The Politics of Pallor: Post-colonialism and Racial Whiteness 
14. The Cullens: The Mimicry of the Post-Colonial Vampire 
15. Racial Whiteness and Twilight 
16. Slash and Burn: Deviating Fandom and Re-writing the Text 
17. Twilight's Queer Communities: Family and Fandom: Projected Interactivity and All Human Twilight Fanfic 
18. Normal Female Interest in Vampires and Werewolves Bonking: Slash and the Reconstruction of Meaning 
Index