Image used under a Creative Commons license courtesy of Storm Crypt.
Kevin Smith made some waves last week when he defended young Twilight fans, saying "That's the next generation of fans! That's what I love about a comic book convention. People will come to a convention, stand there in a Spock costume, look at someone in a Chewie costume, and say, 'Looking at that fuckin' geek.' How dare you pass judgement on those 12-year-old girls who like vampires!" His remarks set off a debate sensitively encapsulated by Judy Berman at Salon's Broadsheet about whether dedicated female and male fans experience things differently, whether there are gender-based divides between engagement with the emotional metaphors of science fiction and examinations of the universes created by talented authors, directors, video-game designers, etc. I tend to side with Judy, who argues that men and women are equally capable of getting emotional involved in the art around which various fandoms revolve. But I do think Twilight is a different phenomenon, and I spent some time this weekend thinking about why that's the case.
I say this as someone who hasn't read the Twilight books, but my question for Twilight readers has always been the following: do the girls and women who form the majority of Twilight's fan base like vampires? Or do they like Edward Cullen? I don't particularly think there's anything wrong with the latter, although Robert Pattinson is not my pale and hair-gelled cup of tea. It's probably too early to tell whether Twilight is inculcating a new generation of young readers with a long-term interest in vampires, whether a new generation of potential Buffy fans is being born as we speak. But if it's not, vampirism may be just the backdrop and device for a love story story fans find particularly compelling, not a major part of the attraction. I can understand the concern about taking concepts and tropes like vampires and werewolves that have significance for readers and viewers and turning them just into another device, sometime that Twilight has made extremely commercially viable.
The difference between Twilight fans, and fans of other science-fiction or paranormal universes is not, I think, in the degree of emotional attachment, but in the degree to which the world matters. I have a hard time imagining Twilight fans sticking with the universe beyond the specific characters Stephenie Meyer popularized, as they've done with Star Trek, and Star Wars, to name just a few of the biggest universes. Maybe I'm wrong, and I'd be fine with it is if I was. But I do think Twilight is a slightly different phenomenon. It's not one I judge, just not one that I recognize or entirely understand.