The Racial and Romantic Politics of The Twilight Saga's Midnight Sun

I’m personally not sure about the “based on mythological lore, vampires are technically only white” argument for a few reasons. 1.) Stephanie Meyer did no research on vampires and states herself that her vampires are not based on historical folklore. So her vampires don’t follow that logic. 2.) what happens to dark skin black people who are bitten by a vampire? Do they just die? And only white people are turned? Or does no vampire bite poc? 3.) in an assumingely made up, not real, entirely fictional universe where vampires somehow exist, the most unbelievable thing to y’all is a black person being one? You can tolerate mythological creatures but you draw the line at black people?😂😂

I think the film successfully either through makeup or through sfx, portrayed laurent as pale and drained of colour while still obviously black. the skin tone they chose for him is this greenish-grey colour that works really well to render an undead black vampire. i don't see why they couldn't have done that for more POC vampires.

I could not even finish midnight sun it’s the same story told differently and 800 pages long

I recommend people look up “banned Mormon cartoon /extended version” regarding Mormon teachings of those with Black skin

I thought we all knew Edward was a freak??

Love the Bella outfit!

I still don't buy the author's argument in regards to Edward's "psychological age". Because it's literally IMPOSSIBLE to develop various parts of your brain (becoming a polyglot, or starting to know everything about world's history & politics), have this whole ass evolution going for you, and still remain mentally equal to a teenager. Something doesn't add up. I honestly think it's more of an excuse from the author's and Edward's part so that neither Bella nor readers would see him as a p**do.

oh, they definitely believe that dark skin is a curse and it's still in their book of Mormon. I read it when a copy was foisted upon me. I almost vomited reading it. So to denounce racism... they gotta renounce the book of Mormon.

Side note/tangent here, but Stephanie Meyer appeared in a documentary for the tabletop RPG setting "World of Darkness" (the setting of vampire the masquerade and werewolf the apocalypse etc). In this documentary, she had the utter balls to call the setting an "inspiration" for the twilight series. A move that, in my opinion, is tantamount to defamation.

It's also a bald faced lie, as she never before mentioned the setting.

So, uh, yeah, in case you needed another reason to dislike Stephanie Meyer.

Sigh. For a second I thought you were an ok person and I liked your first review.

Then you had to delve into "any1 that chooses not to include all races of the world, especially African American is racist no question asked".

Meanwhile African Americans are spitting at Eminem and reject his talent because he's white and because the style of music belongs to African American only.

TL:DR the artist isn't allowed for the personal vision. Praise Southpark for criticising this attitude recently.

Who's more racist, a person writing their story... or a person reading it and being like "Not enough races, you racist".

cheers.

Even as a white person, my understanding of vampires since I was little was that they are 1) like people but with fangs 2) blood drinkers 3) were human at one point but aren’t anymore

By extension, POC vampires just always made sense to me like if regular people can become vampires then surely not all vampires are white, right?

This isn’t supposed to be virtue signalling I just genuinely find it weird and dumb that some people think this way when nowhere in vampire fiction does it say vampires can’t be people of color

Imagine someone being like “only white people can be zombies” like why tf 😂

I would like you to know I am citing you as a source in a paper I'm writing in my gender and sexuality class about the phenomenon of Twilight and Stephine through an intersectional feminist lens. I am so excited about this topic, and you did great with this video. I can't wait for my professor to watch this video.

OMG the bit about the white skin!! It makes 100% sense in the worst way possible. Mormons are EXTREMELY RACIST, maybe not mormon individuals but the mormon lore is HORRIBLY racist. I don't remember the exact details so feel free to correct me but basically being white/pale mean you're good and God rewards you with white skin and if your skin is darker it means you're being punished. I've heard of horrific heartbreaking stories about KIDS trying desperately to be good and wondering why they were not white, the specific story I remember this little girl would wear long sleeves all summer to avoid tanning. Absolutely heartbreaking. And black people were not allowed to be mormons until a few decades ago. It all makes sense and it's disgusting.

I love the victim mentality lmao BLdM, not even to each other.

off abla issiz misin? beyaz olsalar nolcak ya? siyahi de vardi ayrica

...are we just forgetting about laurent?

Stephanie decided to literally whitewash the poc!? Literally, Karl!?!?

"lana del racist" killed me

All the rascism in this series flew straight over my head 💀

I remember sitting in my highschools library when midnight sun came out. I was super curious about how it was going to turn out and i laughed throughtout the entire book. He spends a good fourth of it (an exaggeration) describing and trying to figure out how to kill everyone and bella. Fucking hilarious to me.

Oh no girlie don't say "caliente girl summer". The slang use of the word "caliente" in Spanish doesn't mean "hot", it means "horny"😬😬😓😳😅

Shanspeare’s spittin’ facts! DON’T YOU DARE CALL HER AN SJW!!!

All people SHOULD STOP placing their insecurities and false beliefs into things where they're not needed. Stories with black individuals or asian individuals don't have much justice and friendly equality TOWARDS WHITE RACE. JUST STOP TOUCHING WHITE CLASSIC TALES. Not everything has to be altered just because you feel like it❤❤❤

Wait what? I could have sworn there were vampires from everywhere?

I heard about the black people = descendants of Ham thing at a Protestant elementary school... so yeah....

I grew up Mormon, and I remember a thing or two. There is also a story from the Book Of Mormon of these two people who harassed and were just terrible people to the Orginal Mormons, and God decided to punish them by giving them darker skin. Other people in the comments have described this better, and with more detail, but in a very quick summary; people with darker skin were usually the bad guys in the Book Of Mormon.

When I was younger I also heard one of the people in my church talking about indigenous people, how they were descendants of the two people who were mean to the Orginal Mormons, and how God punished them and that's why they didn't "evolve". That may just be some people in my church, though. Still, teaching little Mormon kids that people with dark skin are from "cursed" families is terrible.
I don't remember everything, though. Take this with a grain of salt.

Regarding Stephanie's...choices of casting vampires as only white actors- I'm almost sure that her Mormonism impacted this; Especially hearing the fact that vampirism turns your skin lighter- (CW. Racism & Colorism) I've heard that in the Mormon religion the lighter skinned you are the holier you are

Hey do we all remember when Stephanie Meyer created Leah Clearwater, an Indigenous woman who was the only recurring character of this demographic in the books, and repeatedly treated her as “not a real woman” because she was infertile and her entire character was reduced to being angry about that? Yeah that was fucked

i recommend vogue’s video where a gothic literature expert dives into different representations of vampires through media. Long story short the cullens are the modern evolution of traditional vampires: whereas bram stoker meant vampires to represent sexual freedom, something that people in victorian age secretly aspired to but had to refuse because of religion, Stephanie Mayer created something everyone in modern times desires to be: rich, beautiful and irresistible.
so in a sense its like if stephanie simply evolved in a darwinian sense the vampire specie, adapting it to a modern world and audience with very different values and beliefs

okay so i'm rewatching this video cause i felt like watching the movies again in honor of that one time our main nurse let us watch a twilight marathon instead of doing group at the mental hospital.

i was also just thinking that since twilight vampires don't burn in the sun, like at all, and their skin being more "indestructible" wouldn't it make sense for poc to keep their melanin? i'd say they should almost gain melanin but that'd be really fucked up. either way, what she was saying was both very racist and extremely stupid when it comes to the fantasy aspect

if a black person became a vampire, would they become albino, by Stephanie's standards? since all the melanin leaves once they turn...I mean...that's how I would picture them.

why say "allegedly" about the 60s scoop and general treatment of natives when its absolutely true? /gen - a native

I once heard that Dostoevski's Crime and Punishment becomes funny after reading it more than once. So one could say Meyer has truly created a classic.
I personally can't say if the claim is true as I've only read it once.

Yt ppl’s fantasy fiction is literally just yt ppl wanting to be oppressed and then fight against it. They don’t want BIPOC in these stories bc it would mean 1) yt ppl are not the default AND 2) that BIPOC have and will fight against oppression.

Yt supremacy is so bizarre like these mfs don’t even realize they’re yt supremacists/don’t like being called out for it as if it’s something that’s so far in the past. Mf just bc u can’t legally own an entire race of ppl doesn’t mean ur exempt from having/perpetuating & benefiting from those yt supremacist mentalities, systems, and ideation. Ur a direct product of those systems and u still maintain them. (When I say “u” I mean yt ppl. I don’t think I need to say that but mfs are absolutely awful at reading comprehension).

Great video. Very interesting. I agree edwards “poor me” attitude conflicts greatly with his “better than everyone” attitude. Sadly, this is real and I have seen it with many men in my life. There is so much wrong with twilight and sadly these problems will always find an audience apparently.

Why is it that you say there's a link to the Quileute tribes gofundme in the description, even going so far as to spell it, only for it not to be there as far as I can tell?

The thing is to make them look dead not necessarily pale, I feel people who expect vampires to be white have some loose screws.
From a Historical and modern day context nowhere does it say that Vampires have to be white. There are folklores about vampires all around the globe. People really dunno what they are talking about when they think that white people have a monopoly on vampires. It legit is only racism and nothing else. If they cared about history that much they would have known this...

ALSO
I'm a bit surprised that people don't mention Queen of the damned as one of the biggest vampire movies ever, I feel in the alternative circles it was always THE vampire movie along with underworld that people used to talk about nonstop, especially because of the iconic nu metal soundtrack written by the lead singer of Korn and performed by various well known artists at the time. The queen of all vampires was played by Aaliyah btw.
I miss the 90's cult movies when nobody questioned casting choices as most of my fav movies from that time didn't have a white washed cast as you see in movies these days. I don't even remember it ever being a topic of conversation. But then again I don't live in the states so I have no idea how people reacted. ALSO BLADE how da fuq has nobody mentioned blade to these morons.

There's a ton of stuff in the books that is very telling of her character, the worst of which is literally setting jacob up to groom renesme. She actually could have made wolf imprints be a family thing, or at least least something that's not always a romantic thing, but its literally a romantic thing, so sick.

Love that you add where we can donate to the Quileute Tribe. They were done so wrong by Stephanie and her books. I hate to hear that they are struggling to keep their culture alive.

Gosh, if you don't like the people in the book being white, stop complaining and write your own damn vampire book with only black people as vampires. Why do you so desperately want to see racism everywhere and keep it alive? This is why I keep away form black people who think like you. Fortunately, not everyone is so obssessed with race.

About the what happens when black people are bitten, I do agree with you, but what about Laurent 😢

I did not know twilight made a comeback in 2020 😂😂😂

I have come to this conclusion after debating this for many hours.
Jasper hale is one of my favourite twilight characters, but I can see how people would see him( or the way Stephanie Meyer has written him) being in the confederate army as racist. I COMPLETELY AGREE WITH THIS. however. During the 2nd World War Winston Churchill was England's prime minister and he helped us to win the war. He is now seen as a massive hero and there are many people who deeply respect him. But no one talks about the fact that he believed at the time that women were useless and he was also extremely racist. But this was ignored after people came to the conclusion that it was just the belief of the era and if he hadn't of have been brought up with being told that that was true then he would have different opinions. In my opinion it is the same with jasper. I think when looking at the books everyone overlooks the fact that Jasper was born before the civil War. Many people at the time (having done slavery and the middle passage in his a history lesson) believed that slavery was right. AND THIS IS BECAUSE IT WAS ALL THEY EVER KNEW OR HAD BEEN BROUGHT UP WITH.
Aswell as this, the rest of the cullens were all born before the 1950s which was a period of time where racism was at its worst in society or it had JUST been abolished. The Cullens would have all been raised in a world where this was the norm, as like Edward says to Bella, they are from a different era.
I am in no way saying that the somewhat racist way Stephanie Meyer wrote the twilight saga is right, I'm just simply giving my opinion :)

i'm 13 minutes in and i really want to add this to my growing theory on Racism in D&D. It's related. Trust Me. The Reason Is Mormons. it's not really all that surprising that fantasy written by mormons tends to be very hhhwhite. that fantasy written by mormons tends to have... certain interesting racial issues.

like given the racist history of the mormon church and the racism within their holy texts, i'm not really surprised that Meyer in particular is. weird abt race.