The Twilight Series has encouraged a heavy amount of hype, primarily with teenage girls. Lusting over two very different portrayals of the ideal man.
Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) is the blood sucking, soulless guy. Feminine in appearance, lean in build and he plays hard to get with Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) throughout the series. He is the broken man. The emo.
Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner) in contrast has muscles, he is tanned and makes his feelings about Bella strong and clear from the beginning.
These two leading men can be compared to male stars from the past. Edward Cullen as the bisexual icon, James Dean and Jacob Black mirrors the masculine in every shape and form, Marlon Brando.
Teen flicks such as Mean Girls, Cruel Intentions and She's All That often sexualise the female body - The camera often pans from bottom to top on the leading lady's body. We see this in the sequence in She's All That when Laney Bloggs (Rachael Leigh Cook) has just had a revolutionary make over and as she walks down the stairs, the camera adopts the view point of Zack Siler (Freddie Prinze Jr).
Therefore the audience instantly adopts a hetero sexual male voyeuristic view point of the female being the hunted. Metaphorically, the male is merely at opposite ends of the camera, being the hunter.
The Twilight Series has flipped over this tradition that occurs in teen flicks and for that matter, all mainstream films. Ironically, plot wise, Bella Swan is constantly being hunted by the blood sucking hunters however, the underlining messages of the film are extremely different from this notion.
The camera sexualises the two leading men instead of Bella or any other of the female counter parts. The constant slow motion shots of Edward entering a room, is the camera adopting Bella's view point.
Edward Cullen is also extremely feminine and Bella is certainly not the archetype of the idealised feminine character. Her style is casual and somewhat dull, she is very much in the background.
The character of Edward Cullen challenges audience's notion of the ideal male and furthermore, The Twilight Series has reflected that sexuality in the twenty-first century is versatile and constantly evolving. We are entering into yet another sexual revolution and the film industry seems to be picking up on this.
