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Artifacts from the movie and the tribe will be on display.

If These Wolves Could Talk

by Lyssa Myska Allen | DC magazine | December 27, 2011

Jacob may have lost the battle for Bella’s heart, but the Twilight character’s Quileute werewolf pack has brought attention to the Washington state Native American tribe. On Jan. 13—between the final two films in the guilty-pleasure franchise—Behind the Scenes: The Real Story of the Quileute Wolves opens at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian. The four-month exhibition looks deeply at a story beyond the stars.

The Twilight-inspired exhibition was appropriately created and first shown in Seattle, as author Stephanie Meyer famously researched “wettest place in the U.S.” to come up with her setting that included the Quileute people of La Push, Wash. While premiering the show in the tribe’s backyard exposed a counterpoint to the characterizations in Twilight, the Smithsonian museum believes the DC stop has the potential to capture national media attention. “It’s an opportunity for the NMAI to highlight the tribe’s important relationship to the wolf and compare the reality of the Quileute culture with the fictional adaptation,” says Karen Fort, Smithsonian’s project manager for the exhibition.

The Quileute people say they hope the exposure makes a dent in some of the incorrect impressions made by the series. “Their ancestry is in supernatural wolves, but they’re not werewolves, and they don’t shape-shift into them,” says Seattle Art Museum of Art Native American curator Barbara Brotherton, who created the exhibit. “Origin stories are very important for native peoples; the books twist that sacred story and make them into this violent people.”

In order to help correct the misconceptions, Brotherton worked closely with the Quileute. The curator hoped to use the Twilight hook to reach teens and other fans of the series without sensationalizing the tribe any further. While Twilight has changed life for the Quileute, says Brotherton, they had no say in the original story. “They weren’t consulted and they weren’t involved,” she says. “The most important thing is how the culture has been portrayed.”

Featuring original artifacts chosen by a committee of community members and several Twilight replica items, such as necklaces worn by actress Julia Jones, the show will breathe new life into the de rigueur DC middle-school field trip and offer something to locals looking for contemporary context with their weekend dose of the National Mall. The NMAI has a history of drawing crowds with exhibits offering pop culture ties—458,000 visitors saw its Ramp It Up native skateboard exhibition, while the Up Where We Belong music exhibition featuring Jimi Hendrix’s coat drew 721,000. But there’s another bit of timeliness for the exhibit’s posting in DC. “The Quileute are currently the subject of a bill before the Senate that would transfer Olympic National Park land to them in order relocate their school and other services,” says Brotherton. “They are now built at sea level and are in danger of tsunami wave surges. They had to evacuate the village during the Japan tsunami.”

While the Quileute people may not have sought out the attention from Twilight’s $1.8 billion franchise, they hope to ultimately benefit from it. “They’re using it as an opportunity to let the world know who they are,” the curator says, “and that they’re still practicing their culture.”