Why Black folks don’t like Twilight

The internet is all agog over vampires with the release of New Moon, the second movie release in Stephenie Meyer’s popular Twilight book series.  The film has broken box office records.  New Moon devotees have taken over social networking sites, declaring their allegiance for “Team Edward” or “Team Jacob,” the two males vying for the affections of Bella, the story’s quirky protagonist.  Teens, tweens, and middle-aged moms alike pine for the movie’s male stars Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner.  Missing from the shrieking fracas are the young Black women swooning over Lautner’s swarthy good looks and washboard abs.  Where, among the Twitter updates in French, Tagalog and – oh yes – Indonesian are Tweets from Sheniqua and Tyrone about their third visit to the cinema?  Black folks are talking about New Moon but, like Baratunde Thurston of The Onion who held a live hate-tweet of the film, we’re just talking smack.

Here are a few reasons why my people can’t really get on the Twilight bandwagon:

Bella is weird:  She’s the quintessential nerd, doesn’t fit in, and generally acts and looks as such.  African-Americans have enough to worry about, enough reasons not to fit in without adding “I’m a dork” to the mix.   We tend to hide our social discomfort behind nice clothes and bravado, so Bella putting it all out there for everyone to see just turns us off.  Identifying with Bella’s geekiness is pretty much the key to Twilight fandom.  Looking like a nerd is cool when Kanye does it; acting like a nerd is just not gonna happen.

We don’t like the cold:  Edward is cold, like dead people. It’s not a generalization to say that Black people like warm things, since we’re usually the first people to break out a coat when the temperature drops.  Not too many Black women will “cozy” up next to some cold, hard dude night after night, particularly when its cold outside.  And even though Edward has cool amber eyes and the whole sparkling-in-the-sunlight skin, he’s also deathly pale.  Its not really a popular look with the sisters and, therefore, hard to imagine him inciting suicide-level longing and lust.  I’m just putting it out there.

Vampires are supposed to be violent:  For better or worse, the African-American experience has been fraught with violence of some sort: slavery, integration, the ghetto.  We kind of expect that things are going to turn bad in some situations, like when a family of vampires move into town.  But it never happens in Meyer’s world!  The Cullens are above – or beneath – the usual vampire blood-sucking, and the books and movies barely hint at the flesh-ripping scenes so common to the genre.  For a Black audience raised on The Godfather, action movies and NWA lyrics, pacifist vampires are as boring as My Little Pony.

Perhaps there exists a legion of underground African-American Twilight fans lurking in the blogosphere, pining after inter-species love of all kinds.  Until they reveal themselves, expect us to make merciless fun until the DVD release of Breaking Dawn.

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