CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY SAN MARCOS THESIS SIGNATURE PAGE THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULLFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE MASTER OF ARTS IN LITERATURE AND WRITING STUDIES THESIS TITLE: True Love's Bite: The Twilight Saga as Fairy Tale and Media Virus AUTHOR: Colette Marie Murphy DATE OF SUCCESSFUL DEFENSE: November 17, 2010 THE THESIS HAS BEEN ACCEPTED BY THE THESIS COMMITTEE IN PARTIAL FULLFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS IN LITERATURE AND WRITING STUDIES. Dr. Martha Stoddard Holmes THESIS COMMITTEE CHAIR Dr. Heidi Breuer II I I,.., I '0 THESIS COMMITTEE MEMBER ~ Dr. Natalie Wilson dtdJk til JfrL 11117/10 THESIS COMMITTEE MEMBER SIGNATURE I DftE 1 Abstract Regardless of whether or not we read fairy tales or horror stories, we are acculturated with the structure, motifs, and moral expectations and lessons that accompany these genres. As the traditions morph over time, society learns and maintains assumptions about the characters and the plots that are featured within both types of stories. In the Twilight saga, Stephenie Meyer creates texts that feature supernatural characters most commonly associated with horror stories; however, the saga's plot structure is easily mapped onto Vladimir Propp's thirty one functions of the fairy tale. By manipulating our expectations of the vampire story and turning it into a fairy tale, Meyer has written her texts to be consumed by a culture that is primed to be receptive of this familiar plot structure, which allows Meyer's moral and cultural themes to infiltrate consumers cultural DNA, and positions the Twilight saga to be what Douglas Rushkoff defines as a media virus. As the virus spreads, questions arise as to how the Twilight saga will infect its audience, particularly the young adult females that make up the primary fan base. Keywords: Stephenie Meyer, Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, Breaking Dawn, Midnight Sun, vampires, fairy tales, media virus, Bella Swan, Edward Cullen 2 True Love's Bite: The Twilight Saga as Fairy Tale and Media Virus Colette Marie Murphy 3 There must be possible a fiction which, leaving sociology and case histories to scientists, can arrive at a truth about the human condition, here and now, with all the bright magic of the fairy tale. Ralph Ellison 4 Dedication To Kelly McKinney, Colleen Hosking, and Shawn Murphy For every ticket you bought to see one of the films with me For every page of the saga you read or listened to me read aloud For every crazy Twilight-themed adventure we embarked upon For every rational and irrational idea you listened to of mine For every tear you dried and every laugh you inspired I thank you 5 Acknowledgements Part of the joy and part of the humor of writing the acknowledgements section is that it has been as much of a process as writing the thesis itself. In fact, in many moments it provided a nice avenue for procrastination. But the truth is that this thesis would have never been written if it weren't for the people mentioned in this section. To kick it off, I have to thank the woman behind the saga, Stephenie Meyer. I've never met Meyer, but I am eternally grateful to her imagination. I'm also thankful she published her "playlists" that she listened to when she wrote the saga; those same playlists served as my background music while writing this piece. So Stephenie Meyer, thank you for bringing Bella, Edward, Jacob, and the rest of Forks (and Voleterra and Isle Esme) into the world and, subsequently, into my life. I am a changed woman because of it. I would like to thank my compatriots in the graduate program for their feedback, insight, and most of all, support. I have learned so much from each and every one of you, both in and out of the classroom. To all my fellow consultants in the Writing Center (and of course, to Erin Goldin): you also somehow got dragged in to this. Thanks for letting me read aloud sentence 6 after sentence, paragraph after paragraph, and for asking me insightful questions along the way. Next I need to thank my dear friends who were a part of this process whether they wanted to be or not! To Alexis Barry, April Anderson, Cassie Lochard Brown, Colleen Hosking, Jamie Ward, Lauren Kubota, Lauren Mecucci, and Maya Cano - thank you for giving me an outlet outside of school and away from Twilight (no matter how many times we ended up talking about it anyway). You are such amazing women, and you inspire me on a daily basis. I also have to thank all sides of my family (McKinney, Cross, Murphy, Tillman, and beyond) for your constant encouragement and your willingness to pick up these books so you could be informed about this crazy project I kept talking about during gatherings and holidays. Thank you. To my awesome little brothers, Jay and Michael McKinney- having you both at CSUSM with me during this process has made this experience all the more memorable and worthwhile. I love you guys. To my amazing mom, Kelly McKinney, I can't possibly begin to explain how much your support has meant. Thanks for always believing in every single one of my ideas, no matter how irrational or far-fetched they may seem. And of course, to my 7 amazing husband Shawn Murphy, I have to say thank you for not running away screaming during all of the stressful moments of this process! Even more than that, thank you for feeding this wild obsession and for being okay with Twilight merchandise crowding the shelves (and sometimes walls) of our apartment. Most of all, thank you for showing me what true love looks like outside of a novel and that fairy tales can come true. I love you. Last, but definitely not least, I have to give thanks to the members of my thesis committee. Sincere thanks go to Dr. Heidi Breuer and Dr. Natalie Wilson, who spent much of this process encouraging me to think bigger and write better. I have changed so much as a scholar because of your feedback and direction. Thank you both for being part of the journey. Finally, to the chair of my committee, Dr. Martha Stoddard Holmes- there aren't enough words to describe my gratitude for your patience, understanding, support, knowledge, guidance and all around help during the past 2.5 years. Thank you for being a mentor and friend (and for feeding me shortbread cookies!). I hope one day I can change students' lives the way you have changed mine. -Colette Marie Murphy, Fall2010 8 Table of Contents Introduction "What if it's All True- the Fairy Tales and Horror Stories?": Becoming Addicted to Twilight and Finding its Place in Popular Culture Chapter One "And So the Lion Fell in Love with the Lamb ... ": Edward Cullen and Isabella Swan, Fairy Tale Heroes Chapter Two "Every Cell in My Body Ached to Deny It": Pop Culture's Love Affair with a Vampire and the Transmission of a Media Virus Conclusion "The Venom Had Burned Ahead": The Irreversible Transformation and the Continuing Twilight Conversation Works Cited 9 Introduction 11What if it's All True? The Fairy Tales and Horror Stories?": Becoming Addicted to Twilight and Finding its Place in Popular Culture I am terrified of vampires. I have been since I was eight years old and I attended the birthday/slumber party of my two friends, Caitlin and Cory. Around 9:00 p.m., in order to get a group of rowdy second graders to quiet down, their mother turned on the movie Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Despite the fact that the movie was a comedy, and despite the fact that we eight year olds spent most of our time trying to memorize the "How Funky Is Your Chicken?" cheer, I internalized a grave fear of the undead. 1 From that moment forward, I hated being outside alone in the dark. So I am still unsure of what compelled me, twelve years later, to enroll in a course at the University of California San Diego titled "Vampire Films." I enrolled in the course with my roommate Colleen. We made it through the original Nosferatu and Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula. Then we dropped the class, openly admitting we were simply too scared to continue. 2 Needless to say, I 1 No pun intended. 2 To this day, we both claim that we would have continued taking this class if it had been at a different time (it was originally 7:00-9:50 p.m. in Winter Quarter) or in a different location (it was in Center Hall on the edge of the campus Eucalyptus Grove). But I actually doubt this to be the case; we were really frightened. 10 never would have expected that the thing I feared the most would become the central focus of my graduate thesis. In late 2007, I heard about a trip my friend Erin had taken to Portland, Oregon to try and crash a film set of a new teen vampire movie that was going to be released in 2008. I was interested only because I have always wanted to be on a movie set; the topic of the film did not interest me one bit. When Erin returned she posted pictures of her trip on the social networking site MySpace. The only person I recognized in her pictures was Peter Faccinelli who had starred in the 1998 film Can't Hardly Wait. I could not comprehend why she and four other women drove the California coast to see someone who had not had a hit film in almost ten years.