The mass media suggests lifestyles, forms of self-presentation and ways to find happiness (which may or may not be illusory)[…] Our relationship with our bodies, our sexual partners and our own emotional needs, will all also be influenced by media representations, but (of course) in complex ways which will be swayed and modified by our social experiences and interactions.(Gauntlett 2008: 123)

Religion and gender roles in Scandinavian countries have undergone considerable changes throughout the past decades. Specifically, religious practice has declined or moved into new cultural spaces, and women’s roles in relationships and families are changing. These changes are reflected in different ways in media’s representations of gender roles, intimacy, beliefs and religious values in fictional narratives. In the popular book and movie series, The Twilight Saga, gender and religion are salient themes as seventeen-year-old protagonist Bella Swan falls in love with vampire Edward Cullen, who has been seventeen for the past 104 years. On the one hand, this is a classic romantic story seemingly promoting traditional gender roles. On the other hand, the story has added a supernatural twist, which suggests that the couple is predestined for a life of eternal love. This chapter discusses Danish female fans’ reception as they use The Twilight Saga as a new space for negotiating gender values and norms through the series’ transcendental and emotional qualities. Their interpretations reveal a cognitive dissonance between the socio-culturally informed views these Danish teens have toward gender roles in relationships and their emotionally charged fascination with the supernatural. This cognitive dissonance is supported by elements of the series that create a distance in the reception, while other aspects are familiar and easily identifiable for Danish teens. For example, some Danish fans object to the storyline in the fourth book Breaking Dawn (divided into two movies) as the teenage couple gets married and has a child. Still, Danish fans are eager to dive into the romance story in Twilight and the stories’ invitation to imagine a destined eternal love. The analysis identifies four tendencies that capture the ambiguity of Danish fans’ responses to Twilight:(1) The Danish teenage fans object to the traditional gender roles