Running With the Wolves – A Racialicious Reading of the Twilight Saga
by Latoya Peterson
***SPOILERS***
I would have missed the Twilight phenomenon completely had it not been for my boyfriend’s younger sisters. As the tale of Bella and Edward swept bookstores, ravaged Hot Topic, and launched a thousand live journal wars, I was blissfully unaware. It wasn’t until the book Eclipse popped up on two adolescent wish lists that I decided to take a closer look into the much debated saga.
Back in 2008, we published a piece from Alyssa Valdes-Rodriguez on the Politics of Wizards and Vampires, though this mentioned race only lightly. Most of what people view problematic with the books is based in gender. While I am certainly in no position to judge anyone else’s particular brand of paranormal escapism, I have to admit that the Twilight books don’t hold much appeal for me. The reason? Bella, herself. I can’t really deal with bland protagonists, especially women who seem to have nothing else to do but wait around to be saved.* I also have an issue reading long, drawn out virginity narratives – I’ve already had sex, so I’ve lost my patience for that kind of thing. Still, something in the second book piqued my interest: Jacob Black.
Maerhys writes about all the reasons to love Jacob Black:
I came into the books interested in the Edward/Bella romance but was happily surprised to see that Jacob Black was a prominent character, in purpose and/or dialogue, through out the entire series. I liked that these were modern Indians, the pre-werewolf Jacob seemed real enough, or common enough, a good kid interested in auto-mechanics, strong relationship with his father and friends. He had a sense of humor that made me laugh out loud often. I applauded when Meyer was clever enough to make Charlie and Billy best friends so that Jacob taking Bella on as a friend so quickly made sense to me. Of all the scenes at La Push, the time in the garage building the bikes, the Spaghetti Party with the Blacks and Clearwaters, and Breakfast Muffins with Emily felt the most authentic to me. I didn’t mind the muffins over frybread because it was morning and it would have seemed heavy-handed to me to use frybread.
Which is true. Jacob and his family live on a reservation, but they are not perpetually in a time warp. Jacob is a prominent character – he is an established presence in New Moon, is a major part of the plot in Eclipse, and even assumes some of the narrative in Breaking Dawn. However, while there was much to love about the inclusion of Jacob, Meyer’s portrayal of Jacob and the other Quileutes raised quite a few eyebrows.
Marhys explains:
Conversely, I wondered how every single Quileute was russet-colored (and if I never ever read “russet-colored” again it won’t be a moment too soon). I live in the Southeast and in my family alone we range from every shade of brown to quite pale (like me) to Black like many of my cousins and other extended family. I would be lying if I did not think we’re a good lookin’ bunch of folks but we’re not all insanely gorgeous like all of Meyer’s Indians, aside from Kim. The exotification of was heavy-handed, most likely in Meyer’s attempt to show that she thinks Indians are beautiful, strong, and we all but walk on water, *lol*, but, instead, it shoved me out of the story and reminded me that this was a non-Native writing Indian characters. [...]
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