Amidst the fever pitch of Eclipse fever, I’ve found myself deep in microfiche archives of 1950s Photoplay. During the post-war period, the gossip industry was attempting to reconcile itself to a rapidly changing Hollywood.  The studio system was slowly collapsing; there was a brand-new, brash legion of television personalities; existing stars increasingly refused to play by the rules that governed appropriate behavior (including submission to the fan magazines) during the studio era.  Many, including Rock Hudson, Doris Day, Janet Leigh, and Tony Curtis, continued to cooperate fully with the fan magazines, “writing” articles and granting full access to their personal lives.  Yet other newly minted stars refused to play the star-making game.

These stars – Marlon Brando and Montgomery Clift in particular – forced the fan magazines to alter their approach.  In classic Hollywood, these stars would have been fodder for cheesecake profiles: “What Marlon Looks for in a Girl,” for example.  But Photoplay and other mags had to negotiate the fact that Brando had no taste for “glamour girls,” hated Hollywood, laughed at criticism of his “dungarees” and “moccasins without socks,” and even pleasured in stymieing the best efforts at turning him into a heartthrob.  When approached to appear on the cover of Life, he laughed “Now why would I want to do that?”  Louella Parsons, Elsa Maxwell, and Hedda Hopper were forced to devote their columns to explaining why, exactly, a young, handsome, talented man wouldn’t want fame, a beautiful young wife, and a Cary Grant wardrobe.

I can’t help but see the same tension at work in efforts to promote this summer’s most viable leading man – Robert Pattinson, star of Twilight: Eclipse and (industry fingers-crossed) a newly bankable star.

Pattinson, like Brando, is allergic to publicity.  He may resemble a 19th century romantic poet, but he’s clumsy, has an awkward sense of humor, and goes off on esoteric tangents in interviews. He publicly admitted to rarely washing his hair.  He makes fun of his pasty, unchiseled physique.  When Seventeen asks him the last thing he bought at the store, he replied, “toilet paper.” When Details put him on its cover this Spring, declaring the British actor the face of the “Remasculation of America,” he explained that he was “allergic to vaginas,” voiced his “delight” in lymphatic filariasis, and, concerning the near-violence that breaks out when he appears in public, declared “I find it really funny—if I got shot, I would literally be in hysterics. I would be like, ‘Are you serious? Jesus Christ, get Zac Efron!  He’s got more social relevance than I do.’ ”

One might argue that Pattinson’s refusal to publicly confirm a relationship with co-star Kristen Stewart in fact ups his heartthrob quality: he keeps his fans just this side of fulfilled, hoping for the fantasy of their romance or the bliss of having Pattinson/Edward Cullen for themselves.  But a skilled heartthrob would know how to milk KStew/RPatz, tipping off paparazzi during their romantic beach getaways and “just happening” to get caught walking out of a engagement ring store.

Pattinson’s lack of heartthrob ‘skillz’ are especially obvious when contrasted with his smooth, six-packed co-star, Taylor Lautner.  In Twilight, Lautner’s werewolf  alter-ego, Jacob, is positioned as Edward Cullen’s polar opposite; in the star universe, Lautner is Pattinson’s inverse as well.  Where Pattinson is reticent, awkward, and British, Lautner is confident, cool, and so very American.  His every appearance and word is carefully choreographed to elicit maximum girl squee-age; he has a mega-watt and super white smile and takes himself very seriously.  He truly is “The Teen Tom Cruise,” which is just another way of saying he’s the latest in a long line of stars, from Rock Hudson to Cruise himself during his heyday, who knew how to let Hollywood do its star-making work.

Pattinson plays the role of teen heartthrob poorly, but that certainly doesn’t mean that he won’t be a star.  Rather, the media – whether in the form of fan mags, gossip blogs, glossies, or academic blogs like this one – will be forced to grapple with why, exactly, someone who seems to do such a shoddy job at being handsome, princely, or even normal has nevertheless attracted the unadulterated devotion of millions of fans.

The answer, in part, is that some teen heartthrobs are products of what people think girls and women should like.  The Jonas Brothers, Zac Efron, Taylor Lautner.  And others, including Pattinson, like Brando and Dean before him, touch on something that we didn’t even realize that we necessarily liked.  Something odd and unexpected, something nostalgic or novel, something charismatic or comforting, or, as Hedda Hopper described Brando, “pure man,” whatever that may mean in a particular cultural moment.  So instead of thinking of what a weird heartthrob Pattinson seems to be, perhaps we should reconsider what many thought true of the tastes and desires of today’s heartthrob-hungry girls.

The first two films in the Twilight Saga, Twilight and New Moon, did extremely well at the box office, due in no small part to the dedicated female fans of the book series. Twilight (released in November 2008) earned $35 million in its opening day, earned $70 million in its first weekend sales, and set a record for a female director. Despite its financial success, Twilight received mostly poor reviews. For example, USA Today reported that Twilight had “questionable casting, wooden acting, laughable dialogue, and truly awful makeup.”

For the franchise’s second film, New Moon, Summit replaced Twilight’s director Catherine Hardwicke (Lords of Dogtown, Thirteen) with Chris Weitz (American Pie, About a Boy), and upped the second film’s production budget to court the male demographic with CGI werewolves. Released in November 2009, the midnight ticket sales from The Twilight Saga: New Moon ($26.3 million) broke the record set by Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince and unseated Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, former record holder of the third biggest opening ever. Unfortunately, New Moon’s reviews were no better than Twilight’s: Roger Ebert argued that it “takes the tepid achievement of ‘Twilight’ (2008), guts it, and leaves if for undead.” The film neglected to draw a male audience as well: 80% of New Moon’s audience was female, a higher percentage than Twilight’s audience. Women loved it; men clearly did not.

One would think Summit would be pleased with their box office returns, despite the lack of critical acclaim the Saga’s films have received, because their success has helped to establish the production studio. But Summit’s desire to draw a larger male audience signals a discrepancy in the way Hollywood values male and female moviegoers. This discrepancy seems odd given that the elements that the mostly female fans love about Twilight share much in common with crucial elements of other film franchises (e.g., Star Wars, Lord of the Rings) that are so beloved by their mostly male audiences: “impossible romance, epic battles that transcend generations, silly costumes, and growing up superpowered.”

So despite the fact that Summit has broken records at the box office and has the opportunity to mark new territory by developing a major female-oriented franchise, it brought on David Slade, director of the 2007 vampire film 30 Days of Night, to direct Eclipse, the Saga’s third film. Summit’s President of Production, Erik Feig, revealed Summit’s perception of the series’ third novel when he described it as a “muscular, rich, vivid book.” The Eclipse novel does takes a turn to the dark side of the supernatural, but what Summit seems to have missed is that Eclipse is such an important book for fans because it deepens the love triangle between Bella Swan, Edward Cullen, and Jacob Black (and spawned fans’ identification as either “Team Edward” or “Team Jacob”). Given this, we felt disappointed when we saw the official Eclipse trailer, which focuses predominantly on a subplot from the book (a fleet of hungry “newborn” vampires come to Forks to destroy Bella Swan and the Cullen coven) and largely passes over the drama of Bella Swan’s need to choose either Edward or Jacob. It seems Summit is doing its best to frame the films, based on a Young Adult romance series, as violent and dark in an effort to make them boyfriend-friendly. What Summit fails to see is that by courting male audiences, they are devaluing Twilight’s devoted female fans and missing an incredible opportunity to develop the terms for future female franchises.

There’s just over a month left for Summit to further demonstrate how they want to frame Eclipse. The principal cast’s appearance on Oprah last week was an important nod to female fans—but we’re curious to see how the publicity for the film plays out. We’d love to be pleasantly surprised.