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The international success of the The Twilight Saga , a series of novels by the American author Stephenie Meyer and their film adaptions, was the motive for taking a closer look at the franchise from a certain pedagogical perspective: What do teenagers potentially learn about gender and sexuality from this story? The vampire theme would lend itself to make queer gender identities and sexuality topic in an appreciative way. However, the story of a 17-year-old girl falling in love with a vampire boy conveys a heterosexual norm which structures binary and hierarchical gender relations throughout the saga. In contrast, characters and relationships not conforming to this norm are marginalized and act antagonistic to the two lovers. Instead of the celebration of the vampiric queernees, the heroes of the story are heterosexualized in a traditionally biologistic manner. Likewise, masculinity is associated with violence, and voluntary self-subordination of women to men is propagated. In the face of the tremendous success of the franchise among teenagers, another question arises: What to do with such problematic role models? The study may be of interest to parents, teachers and pedagogues.
About the author
holds a master's degree in Interdisciplinary Gender Studies and a teaching degree for high school level in Psychology, Philosophy, Pedagogics and English. She is currently researching and teaching at universities in Klagenfurt and Graz on topics related to the interface of media, gender/sexuality, technology, and education.
