Twilight's vampires or humans ... are all teens the same?

By guest bloggerJennifer Zwahr-Castro, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Psychology

I knew the new film based on Stephanie Meyer's Twilight series was predicted
to be a summer blockbuster; knew the books were wildly popular as they were
the first my college-aged niece ever sent me to read (usually the book pipe-line
goes the other way), but I don't think I ever realized just how well-known the
series was until my elementary school-aged son asked me if I was team-
Edward or team-Jacob. If Meyer's characters and cliques have trickled down to
the vernacular of the Pokemon-crowd, you know you have a genuine
phenomenon on your hands.

Superficially, there are many reasons for the popularity of the films (think
gorgeous/handsome stars). On a deeper level, the books and films appeal to
adolescents in many ways one might predict based on our understanding of
development. First, we see Bella struggling with many typical teen issues, such
as the short-comings of her parents, fitting in at a new school, and discovering
who she is--all classic issues according to psychological theory and research.
According to Erikson's eight stages of psychosocial development, the major
conflict of adolescence is establishing one's identity, a theme I see reflected in
the human-vampire love affair. After all, Bella's love for Edward is bound to result in at least a little (not-so)
innocent blood-sucking and the resulting transformation is bound to alter her identity a bit.

We also see an excellent example of Elkind's personal fable: a belief in one's

uniqueness and invulnerability, a requisite for those silly humans who chose to
dabble in the vampire world and a virtual reality for lucky vampires. Perhaps
which is most interesting to me is that the series gives us adolescent vampires
who are obviously past the chronological age of adolescence (Edward was born
in 1901!) yet retain the interests, emotions, and beliefs of typical adolescents. In
effect, Meyer's work suggests that, as I assumed as a bright-eyed 16-year-old
would, the way teens view and experience the world is the way they will always
view and experience the world. Research corroborated by real-life suggests this
is untrue, but I am not yet so decrepit that I have forgotten believing it was so.

In short, the series is so popular because vampires, especially Meyer's good

vampires, are essentially what adolescents aspire to be: unique, wildly-popular,
powerful, forever young, and, of course, gorgeous. As for Jacob and his wolfy-
friends....ahhh, but that will have to wait for another day....