Love it. Hate. Read it. How to be a modern ‘Twilight’ fan

For fans like Sarah Gallagher, associate dean of students and operations in Clark’s School of Professional Studies, to love “Twilight” is to also hate it.

Gallager was introduced to Stephanie Meyer’s saga in 2008 while she was a doctoral student at Boston University. She read “Twilight” in one night and felt an immediate need to devour the rest of the series. The novels and movies exploded in popularity and then mostly faded into the background in the early 2010s. When “Midnight Sun,” the story of “Twilight” from vampire heartthrob Edward’s perspective, was released in 2020, Gallagher jumped back into the currents of “Twilight” fandom but also noticed some serious problems with the story.

The saga depicts an unhealthy relationship between Bella and Edward and features a problematic treatment of race, she says, most notably when juxtaposing the white, rich Cullen family with an inaccurate portrayal of the Quileute Tribe. In her forthcoming book, “Why We Love (and Hate) Twilight,” Gallagher unpacks the saga’s characters, explores themes of power and identity, and examines the cultural impact of “Twilight,” which is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. In addition to her book, Gallagher has a TikTok channel in which she analyzes the series for more than 379,000 followers.

In a podcast interview and Q&A with ClarkNow, Gallagher shares a glimpse into her obsession with “Twilight” and why she was motivated to write her book.

Q: What’s one thing you were determined to highlight in your book?

A: I think it’s important to have textual evidence that outlines how bad this can be. To have it in print is to have a coherent argument as to why the Quileute tribe has been wronged.  All the bad things [in the books] about these young native boys spring from their native heritage — one of them permanently scars his girlfriend because of a transformation that happens to him that derives from him being a Native American. I don’t think Stephanie Meyer ever thought about it that way.

My hope is that people who don’t know about their situation, or that the tribe is real, will now know and donate if they can or talk about it. I think in terms of any kind of change, the most important piece of the book to me is the chapter on the wolf pack and the real Quileute tribe so people can stop dismissing it.

Q: What’s it like to contend with your clashing admiration and disdain of “Twilight”?

A: I think that it might be a good time to at least think about how we’re engaging in media as opposed to throwing it out entirely. I’m not anti-cancel culture, but I do think that it stops a lot of conversations. If we take them off the table entirely, if we say, ‘This is really racist and we’re not going to talk about it anymore,’ then no education happens. We can’t try to help the Quileute tribe in any way if we pretend that “Twilight” never happened.

The question is: How do you love something and also feel deeply uncomfortable about it? How do you wrestle with this feeling of nostalgia that you have about something that deeply shaped you as a person, as a fan, knowing that you love it and hate it?

The project of being a modern “Twilight” fan is still loving it, but I think that there’s a responsibility to talk about all these things if we’re not going to cancel it — which I guess we’re not going to do because everyone’s still talking about it.

Q: How has the experience of being a “Twilight” fan evolved over the last 20 years?

A: I got a lot of pushback in my Ph.D. program from women who were like, “You can’t call yourself a feminist and like these books,” even though they hadn’t read them.

I do think there was a lot of cruelty toward “Twilight” fans. One of the other reasons why I really wanted to write the book is because “Twilight” is treated like tripe for teen girls and has been for years. When we talk about these themes and the problems in “Twilight,” it’s saying this is important enough; it is a piece of art and we can talk about it in that way.

It’s been basically five years that “Twilight” has been back in the zeitgeist (following the release of “Midnight Sun” in 2020) and it doesn’t seem to be slowing down at all.

Q: What do you hope readers — either fans of “Twilight” or its haters — will take away from your book?

A: What excites me about the book is that I really do think it’s for anybody. If you don’t know anything about “Twilight” at all but want to be able to participate in some sort of conversation, or you just want to rubberneck at this point, it will tell you everything.

I think if you love Twilight and you’re a huge fan, it’s a place where you can come and feel validated, particularly when we talk about the fandom and the parts of the story that I think are good. I think if you’re someone who hates Twilight, you can also come and you can feel validated.

I think what I hope most of all is to start a conversation about what it means to be in a fandom and what it means to love something critically. If we can start being critical about things that we love, then it will be a lot easier to be critical about terrible things that are happening. If you’ve never thought about “Twilight” critically, I hope that this is a start, and, if you are the same kind of fan that I am, I just hope that it’s a wonderful nostalgic ride.