Bloody unreal: Twilight, Jessica Jones writer on truth behind the fantasy

Melissa Rosenberg has built a career out of stories and characters from the bloodier end of the fantasy spectrum, and has ridden the wave of creativity that the era of so-called "Peak TV" has allowed. But when it comes to the evolution of the medium in which she works she has a surprisingly sanguine view.

Screenwriter/producer Melissa Rosenberg, who is in Melbourne for Series Mania.Credit:Simon Schluter

"First and foremost, you've got to have a character or characters the audience is rooting for," she says. "That doesn't mean they have to be good characters. I mean, if you look at stories like The Sopranos or The Shield or Dexter, these are characters who were despicable.

"But in all these cases the writers allow you into their experience enough that you’re kind of rooting for them – and then you're a little horrified that you are rooting for them."

That's how she approached Dexter she says. And it's how she approached Jessica too.

"This is a character who is deeply flawed, makes terrible decisions, is morally a little bit grey," she says of the heroine of her series, now in its third and final season on the streamer. "But at core she's someone who's seeking redemption. She has survivor's guilt – she survived her family, and she's looking for a way to make that mean something. And so she's trying to do something good in the world.

Michael C. Hall in Dexter. Credit:Foxtel

"She would never be able to articulate that herself," she adds, "but that is her drive. And if the audience can feel that, then all of the other flaws and missteps go by the wayside."

In much of her work, Rosenberg uses fantasy to explore real-world themes. "You don't have to hit it on the nose," she says of this metaphorical approach. "You can tell the story without telling the story."

A case in point: the hot vampires of Stephanie Meyers' Twilight series. "Those books are very grounded in reality, with a fantastical element."

Specifically, the narrative motor of the saga is the quest of teenage heroine Bella Swan (played on screen by Kristen Stewart) to have sex for the first time. Discomfort with this theme, Rosenberg suggests, may help explain why the books and films were so widely dismissed by male critics in particular.

Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson in Twilight Breaking Dawn.

Jessica Jones makes similar use of fantasy to explore real-world themes, as when Jessica is subjected to the mind-control powers of the vicious but superficially charming Kilgore (David Tennant).

"On the surface you're telling a story of two super-powered people," says Rosenberg. But scratch that surface and it’s clear "you’re really telling a story about two characters, one of whom is an abuser and one of whom is a victim of assault".

But as much as she likes to wrap serious themes inside fantasy clothing, Rosenberg knows her job as a writer and producer is, first and foremost, to entertain.

"And the second job, I think, is to give people a human experience other than their own. Or maybe it is their own, but based on that [storytelling experience], they don't have to feel alone."

In Conversation With Melissa Rosenberg is at the Capitol at 8pm, Friday 5 July, as part of Series Mania. The third season of Jessica Jones is on Netflix now.

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