Kristen Stewart explains why she thinks ‘Twilight’ is ‘such a gay movie’
(From left) Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart in 'Twilight.'
By Alli Rosenbloom, CNN
(CNN) — Kristen Stewart has some afterthoughts about the “Twilight” movies, one of the biggest movie franchises of the aughts in which she starred alongside Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner.
The Oscar nominee, who is openly gay after coming out in 2017 while hosting “Saturday Night Live,” told Variety in an interview published Thursday that she feels as though the story of “Twilight” – based on author Stephenie Meyer’s book series of the same name – leans into LGBTQ+ territory.
While she allowed that she doesn’t “think it necessarily started off that way,” Stewart said “Twilight” “is such a gay movie.”
“I mean, Jesus Christ, Taylor (Lauther) and Rob and me, and it’s so hidden and not OK,” adding that the story is “all about oppression, about wanting what’s going to destroy you.”
She added, “That’s a very Gothic, gay inclination that I love.”
The “Twilight Saga” takes place in the Pacific Northwest and follows high school student Bella Swan (Stewart), a meek, angsty teen who falls in love with her heartthrob classmate Edward Cullen. Cullen – along with his family – eventually reveal themselves to be 100-year-old vampires.
It’s worth noting, in the context of Stewart’s observation about the franchise’s inadvertent gayness, there aren’t any LGBTQ+ characters in Meyer’s story. It did, however, become popular within the LGBTQ+ community if not for the imagery of its beautiful characters alone.
And in 2018, ten years after the first film was released, there was a “Twilight” renaissance of sorts on social media where fans of the franchise – known as Twihards – celebrated the anniversary by opining about whether every character in the series was, perhaps, gay.
Stewart said in Thursday’s interview that her perspective on how gay “Twilight” seems to be to her is something she can only see now, and that she while doesn’t think it started that way, she argues, “the fact that I was there at all, it was percolating.”
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