Kristen Stewart Says Twilight Is A "Gay Movie"

12 January 2024, 17:43 | Updated: 12 July 2024, 17:38

Kristen Stewart says that the Twilight franchise was overflowing with gay themes and subtext. Picture: Dominique Charriau/WireImage, Summit Entertainment

By Sam Prance

Kristen Stewart says that the Twilight franchise was overflowing with gay themes and subtext.

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Twilight may not have had any queer characters but Kristen Stewart has now argued that the film was "such a gay movie".

Twi-hards will already know that Twilight has a huge LGBTQ+ fanbase. Whether you connected to Bella's story of feeling like an outsider, or you simply had a same-sex attraction to one of the main cast members, Twilight played a huge role in so many of our childhoods. To this day, the franchise still inspires vivid queer fanfiction between its characters.

Now, Kristen Stewart has opened up about Twilight's queer legacy and how she views it over a decade after the last film.

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Speaking to Variety about the queer themes in Twilight, Kristen said: "I can only see it now. I don't think it necessarily started off that way, but I also think that the fact that I was there at all, it was percolating. It's such a gay movie." She then added: "I mean, Jesus Christ, Taylor {Lautner] and Rob[ert Pattinson] and me, and it's so hidden and not OK."

Discussing the gay subtext further, Kristen said: "I mean, a Mormon woman wrote this book. It's all about oppression, about wanting what's going to destroy you. That's a very Gothic, gay inclination that I love."

Talking with Time in 2008, Stephenie Meyer, who wrote Twilight, said that the book is about resisting temptation. She said: "I really think that's the underlying metaphor of my vampires. It doesn't matter where you're stuck in life or what you think you have to do; you can always choose something else. There's always a different path."

Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson in The Twilight Saga - New Moon. Picture: Summit Entertainment via Alamy

Discussing her own sexuality with Variety, Kristen, who publicly came out as bisexual in 2017, said: "It wasn't even like I was hiding. I was so openly out with my girlfriend for years at that point. I'm like, 'I'm a pretty knowable person.'"

She continued: "I have lots of different experiences that shape who I am that are very, very far from binary but I did get good at the heteronormative quality. I play that role well. It comes from a somewhat real place — it's not fake. But it's fucked up that if I was gayer, it wouldn't be the case."