Bella Swan is the main character in the film and book series Twilight. She is, in my humble opinion, a perfect example of the pathetic female ‘heroines’ that we are exposed to these days. Little description of her is given, but that she is very plain looking-brown haired, clumsy, awkward around people and weak. Whilst she is barely given room to develop, her male love interest, Edward Cullen, is described, in detail, for about fifty pages, in lingering, excessive detail. He is the wonderful hero by comparison-tall, stunningly handsome, muscular and very much the dominant male. For some reason, Bella is so in awe of him that she becomes completely infatuated with him-in his presence and not she is ditsy and pathetic. She is everything a main female character should not be.

 

 

 She is so much dependent on Edward that, when he leaves her at the start of the second book she curls up into a ball-literally- and becomes a non-talking shell who ignores her family and friends for several months. Is this really the sort of role model we should be looking up to? The type who can’t even survive without a man to help her? She is completely pathetic-throwing herself at Edward and having absolutely no admirable features at all. Stephanie Meyer, the author of the series, degrades women so much that Bella is not given any development whatsoever during the series, all she ever thinks about is Edward and, to top it off, she is controlled by him-never allowed to make any decisions for herself. I find it completely shocking that ‘role models’ like Bella are still being created in the media today. Haven’t we moved on from the era where women were considered too dainty to do men’s jobs and not even allowed out without a man? Haven’t we moved on from the age when women were the less dominant sex? If Twilight is anything to go by, apparently not.