To commemorate the 10th anniversary of “Twilight,” the first of four books in the best-selling series, “The Twilight Saga”, author Stephenie Meyer has released a retelling of the vampire-human love story.
The book titled “Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined,” was released Oct. 6 and has the same plot and character personas except Meyer swapped the genders of her characters.
Beau, a normal person and Bella’s male counterpart, is sucked into a relationship with a blood-thirsty vampire with a heart of gold, and is consequently thrown into a world of vampire clans and best friends who turn into werewolves.
Instead of Edward, the cold, incandescently beautiful vampire and boyfriend, Edythe has superhuman strength and pointy fangs.
In the foreword of “Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined,” Meyer claims she switched the roles to prove Bella was a human in distress not a damsel in distress.
Arianne Gaetano, assistant professor of anthropology and women’s studies affiliate, said while Meyer’s intentions might have been good, the gender switch was misguided.
“In a way, I do think it is kind of gender blind of her to think that you could just easily switch the roles and say that it is just a human perspective, and it wouldn’t matter the gender of the character because it does,” Gaetano said. “It means something totally different when you make the woman the vampire than when you make the young man the vampire.”
Gaetano said she wonders how the main character gender swap will affect the reader’s experience.
“It will be interesting to see what happens then, as the audience reads the second book and says, ‘Well you know what though, things are different,’ and you really just have the exact same plot scenario without changing other things,” Gaetano said.
Hannah Barlow, freshman in wildlife sciences with a veterinary medicine concentration, said although she read the books a long time ago, she remembered enjoying the story. However, she said she was sometimes perturbed by Meyer’s writing style and Bella’s neediness.
“Bella did annoy me sometimes because she was always like, ‘I need a man,’ and I was like, ‘Uh no, you don’t girl,’” Barlow said.
Barlow said if time permits she would be interested in reading “Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined.”
However William Steudle, freshman in aerospace engineering, said he has no interest in seeing what Meyer does with “Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined” and said role reversing was a decision to make more money in a short time.
“Yeah, if she wants to swap the genders she can ... but I do think it’s kind of gimmicky,” Steudle said.
Gaetano said she likes the idea of the book because it shows a dialogue between author and consumer, and because it shows the empowerment of young women.
“It’s interesting that here is an author who has an interest to address the critics,” Gaetano said. “Fans wanting to read this literature want characters that relate to themselves … I think it is awesome. I think it is a sign of young women’s empowerment.”
However, for the next book Gaetano said Meyer should consider transgender characters.
“Now, we need a Twilight with transgender individuals because if you really want to talk about the human you kind of have to maybe leave the gender role behind all together,” Gaetano said. “Really mix it up.”
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