It is the day Twilight fans have waited years for. On Aug. 4, 2020, Stephenie Meyer released her long-awaited novel, Midnight Sun. The book is a companion novel to Meyer’s Twilight and is narrated from Edward Cullen’s perspective.
Despite the hype around the book’s release, some fans of Twilight are refusing to buy the companion novel. This is due to the fact fans find Meyer to be racist, and fans do not want to support the author.
The ‘Twilight’ director said Stephenie Meyer did not want diverse casting
The film adaptation of Twilight premiered in 2008 and was directed by Catherine Hardwicke. In an interview with The Daily Beast, Hardwicke revealed the reason behind the franchise’s lack of diversity was because Meyer resisted diverse casting. While Hardwicke “wanted a lot more of the cast to be diverse,” Meyer “had not really written it that way.”
“So she probably just didn’t see the world that way. And I was like, ‘oh my God, I want the vampires, I want them all—Alice, I wanted her to be Japanese!’ I had all these ideas,” Hardwicke said.
She continued, “And she just could not accept the Cullens to be more diverse, because she had really seen them in her mind, she knew who each character was representing in a way, a personal friend or a relative or something. She said, ‘I wrote that they had this pale glistening skin!’”
The director finally managed to convince Meyer to cast Kenyan-born actor Edi Gathegi as Laurent, “one of the scary antagonistic vampires.”
“The only reason that came through was he was described as having olive skin. And I said, there are Black olives out there! Then she was open to the students in (Bella’s) peer group being other ethnicities, so we got Christian Serratos and Justin Chon, so we were able to open it up a little bit,” said Hardwicke.
Stephenie Meyer announced the ‘Midnight Sun’ release in May 2020
Meyer announced she would release Midnight Sun in a statement on her website on May 4, 2020. However, over the years, some have seen the book series and movie franchise in a new light when it comes to Meyer’s involvement, particularly about her depiction of the Quileute people.
The misrepresentation and appropriation of the Quileute Nation has drawn heavy criticism. When the release of Midnight Sun was announced in May 2020, some were quick to dismiss Meyer on social media.
“remember how stephenie meyer used the name of a real indigenous nation (the quileute tribe) to be the ‘shape-shifting animal people’ and then proceeded to make money off of ‘quileute-themed merch’ without their consent,” a Twitter user wrote.
Fans are encouraging others not to buy ‘Midnight Sun’
Because of Meyer’s history, some fans of Twilight are vowing not to purchase Midnight Sun.
“ok i know people wanna read midnight sun and the twilight renaissance is funny and all but please don’t buy the book. stephanie meyer is just really racist and she doesn’t need the f*cking money. plan to either check it out from a library or pirate it lol,” a fan tweeted.
Fans are also encouraging others to donate to the Quileute Nation.
“This Tuesday marks MIDNIGHT SUN’s release. If you’re able to, please consider donating to the Quileute Tribe’s fund to move to higher grounds and help preserve their culture and traditions. Especially consider donating if you purchased a copy. https://mthg.org,” wrote a fan on Twitter.