We’re Obsessed With Robert Pattinson – For Better or Worse
“This is the skin of a killer, Bella,” Edward Cullen tells his love interest in Twilight (2008). He’s sparkling in the sun, a surprisingly whimsical attribute to represent such a morbid state of being: Edward, of course, is a vampire. But his bloodlust is hardly his least attractive quality.
Robert Pattinson’s breakout role has remained iconic, but through a modern lens, we can fully see how irredeemable Edward is. Put simply, he’s a horrible boyfriend. He is possessive, prone to violent and emotional outbursts. He stalks Bella and watches her while she sleeps. All of this is underpinned by an age gap of more than 80 years. Bella isn’t exactly a voice of reason, either; her codependent, love-blinded character feeds Edward’s unreasonable demands on her time and space. “I’d rather die than stay away from you,” Bella confesses to him.
You should not enjoy this. But you can’t look away.
In Primetime (2026), Pattinson returns to his typecast as a vessel of dark obsession. He portrays Chris Hansen, host and producer of To Catch A Predator (2004-2007), in an ambivalent light. The show lured child predators into staged homes under the guise of meeting up with a minor. Then, Hansen would replace the “decoy,” confronting the predator and having him arrested. To Catch A Predator ended after Texas district attorney Bill Conradt died by suicide in late 2006 as law enforcement and the show’s production team entered his home, spurringa massive wrongful death lawsuit for over $100 million in damages.
Even before this controversial ending, the show sparked moral outcry and polarization. It was the most popular program on Dateline NBC for much of its time on air, drawing up to seven million viewers per episode on Friday nights, securely holding down the primetime slot. Many viewers, particularly in its early days, saw the show as redeemable, if imperfect. It held predators accountable for their actions and warned children about the dangers of communicating with unknown people online.
Primetime, though, doesn’t let the show off so easily. It bounces between highlighting To Catch a Predator’s underlying good intentions and arguing that the series was created, and eventually pushed to primetime status, solely due to its success; the network and producers’ decisions were driven by ratings and reviews, not a sense of public service. More specifically, the movie suggests that the show went too far, regardless of its intent. In one scene, a starstruck viewer recognizes Hansen and asks him how it feels to catch a predator. “Don’t you ever just want to bleed ’em?” the man asks Hansen. After a pause, Hansen replies, “Well, I think maybe what I do is a little worse.”
Morally, it’s all unsavory. For audiences, though, the portrayal is nothing short of delicious. We see his characters not just in their most villainous states, but in absolute desperation. In Primetime, Hansen visits his sons and begs for his wife’s forgiveness. In Twilight’s ballet studio climax, we see Edward in a complete panic over Bella’s safety. Pattinson argues, through his portrayals, that his morally gray characters are not purely self-interested. We come to see them as motivated by desperation, not evil by nature. And Pattinson himself is a relatable character, someone audiences have come to recognize as kind, unproblematic, even self-deprecating. (It doesn’t hurt that he’s attractive, either.) He elicits our sympathy, which lingers even through the most objectionable scenes. Pattinson gives his viewers permission to indulge in the reprehensible.
This doesn’t just apply to Primetime and Twilight. Throughout his career, Pattinson has leaned into this morally complex typecast. In The Batman (2022), he takes the familiar character in a new direction. Pattinson’s Batman is an untraditional hero: moody, reclusive, obsessive in his own right. Unlike most superheroes, he’s not sanctimonious nor a moral authority in his own story; rather, audiences can connect with his flaws and see darker, less idealized parts of themselves reflected in the character.
More recently, Pattinson starred alongside Zendaya in The Drama (2026), playing Charlie, a cold-footed fiancé who discovers that his soon-to-be-wife planned a school shooting as a teenager. Overcome by emotional duress, he alienates their mutual friends and eventually cheats on his fiancée with a coworker. Again, in The Drama, we are led to believe that Charlie is acting not because he is an inherently bad person, but because he is desperate to maintain normalcy.
“At one point, I really wanted to play some normal guys,” Pattinson said in a 2025 interview with ICON Magazine. “And it's actually kind of difficult to play a normal person when you're used to playing freaks and stuff.”
And he’s been playing freaks since 2008—to incredible success and acclaim. Not only were his character’s actions in Twilight widely accepted by audiences, they have also been upheld as a standard of romance, something to strive for, to admire. Twilight has one of the largest libraries on FanFiction.net, second only to Harry Potter, with upwards of 192,000 stories. Notably, the series inspired the timeless classic Fifty Shades of Grey, which took on a (perhaps equally problematic) life of its own after its original publication as a Twilight fanfic titled Master of the Universe. The movies are quintessential to American pop culture; regardless of how you feel about the series, you can’t talk about romance media without discussing Twilight.
It’s easy to feel that movies like Twilight and Primetime are harmless. After all, we’re just watching immorality play out on screen, not engaging in it in our own lives. Pattinson’s portrayals let us observe without becoming bystanders. We get the twisted thrill without being implicated in an act we know to be wrong.
Pattinson’s characters’ massive influence, though, may give harmful ideas an undue platform. The Twilight books, movies, and even fan-made content consistently frame Edward’s actions as romantic, though they are objectively abusive. In Twilight, love is control. Scholars have argued that exposure to Twilight can lead people to internalize this view. In a 2016 study out of Smith College, which surveyed 18 to 20-year-old female fans, researchers found that readers who identify with Edward and Bella as a couple “reported overall less healthy views about romantic relationships and greater degrees of unrealistic relationship expectations.” We can ask the same question of Twilight, then, that people ask of To Catch a Predator, and by extension, Primetime: is it truly innocent to let reprehensible actions entertain us?
Freaks may be all Pattinson is destined to play, whether it’s a decision he’s made for himself or a typecast that audiences have committed him to. After 20-odd years on our screens, we’ll likely continue to associate him with these sorts of morally gray characters. But it remains up for debate whether Pattinson should question the impact of these portrayals—or whether we, as his audience, should question our own obsession.
Lorelei Schwarz is a sophomore in the College. She has a dark and twisted obsession with Cava, blue sweaters, and sending 15-minute voice memos to her best friends.
Comments