“It’s such a gay movie”
BY NIC CROSARA, IMAGE BY SUMMIT ENTERTAINMENT
While the book-to-screen sensation that is the Twilight franchise focuses on a very heterosexual love triangle, it’s always attracted a large LGBTQIA audience. While many were shipping Bella with Edward or Jacob, some of us were secretly hoping Bella would ditch Edward for Alice or Rosalie.
While Kristen Stewart, who plays Twilight’s protagonist, wasn’t publicly out as “So gay dude” when the films were first released – she discussed the queerness of the films in a new Variety cover interview.
In the cover story, KStew reflects on how it wasn’t until she was living her life authentically that she started to recognise how the supernatural series is quite queer. “I can only see it now,” she told the publication. “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. I mean, Jesus Christ, Taylor [Lautner] and Rob[ert Pattinson] and me, and it’s so hidden and not OK. 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.”
The interview is pegged on KStew’s journey to becoming a queer trailblazer and all that she’s done for LGBTQIA visibility in the mainstream. The star also opened up about her path to coming out on her own terms during Saturday Night Live. “It wasn’t even like I was hiding,” she said. “I was so openly out with my girlfriend for years at that point. I’m like, ‘I’m a pretty knowable person….It was cool to frame it in a funny context because it could say everything without having to sit down and do an interview. ‘So what platform is that going to be on? And who’s going to make money on that? And who’s going to be the person that broke it?’ I broke it, alone.”
We can’t wait to see Kristen’s performance in the upcoming lesbian bodybuilder film, Love Lies Bleeding, which is set to come out in the UK this April.
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