eclipse : more disappointing than twilight?

Now, I know I’m not the most Twilight-sympathetic person. I doubt any feminist could be. With passive female characters, and possessive, blood-sucking boyfriends, Twilight is hardly a tale of female empowerment.

However, a recently released clip from the soon-to-be-released third installment in the series, Eclipse, had me almost gagging in disgust, even more so than usual.

You can check out the clip for yourself here.

In this clip, we see Edward, the brooding, angsty vampire boyfriend of Bella, and Jacob, her werewolf best-friend, fighting over her after Jacob’s romantic feelings for Bella have been discovered.

During their argument, the boys push and shove each other in a typical display of testosterone fueled aggression, while Bella plaintively yells ‘No!’ and ‘Stop it!’.
Despite the fact that the entire argument is directly about Bella’s emotions, her view on the matter is apparently unimportant to Edward and Jacob, both of whom make claims on her behalf. Instead, she is portrayed as a passive parcel, to be tossed between the two boys until a decision is made for her.

This clip perfectly illustrates exactly what I think is wrong with the entire Twilight franchise. The way Edward and Jacob fight over Bella makes it alarmingly clear how little agency Bella has over her own emotions. Neither of them consult her (a simple ‘Bella, who do you like more?’ would probably solve the whole problem), but instead choose to argue over who would be ‘better for her’. That’s right, because Bella couldn’t possibly know what’s good for herself.

Here’s a tip – probably avoid possessive, jealous, violent, stalker boyfriends, and hyper-masculine, aggressive werewolf best-friends, if you have any kind of attachment to your independence.

Just a suggestion.