The “Twilight” Myth

(c) 2013 by Tom King

The “Twilight” movies have been a huge hit with girls especially teenage girls ages 12 to 65.  There is an old and disturbing reason the "Twilight" movies are such a hit with teen girls.  They trade upon an old mythology that is just as flawed as it was all those millennia ago in the Garden of Eden.

The myth goes roughly like this.  All a bad boy needs to become a good man is the love of a good woman.  In “Twilight”, Edward is the ultimate bad boy – a vampire who lives by killing and draining the blood from human beings.  Now Edward has modified his behavior somewhat by only living on animal blood, but he still has the cravings. So you can tell he wants to be good, if he can only find a good woman to love who will save him.

Then, along comes a long-necked, pale young thing named Bella, who understands the bad boy, Edward.  She wins his heart and changes him forever. Edward becomes good, a terrible struggle ensues and everyone is saved and lives happily ever after. The only thing is, he bites Bella and she becomes a vampire too.  There's a moral there if you're looking for one.

The belief that bad boys will inevitably be saved because of the love of a girl has led more young women into terrible relationships than any other flawed belief about love (including the one about how love is a feeling). In 99 times out of 99 times, bad boys don’t reform because they love good girls.  Most bad boys (and bad girls for that matter) are bad because they choose to be bad.  All these kinds of unbalanced relationships do is use up the good girl and then cast her aside – usually with two or three kids to raise and an ex who ducks his child support payments. And women cling to their fatal attraction to these good/bad boys to a surprisingly advanced age.  I once had a 65 year old woman tell me she knew my father.  Now Dad was a notorious local bad boy.  My Mom married him because my Grandmother set them up, thinking that the love of a good girl would change his sinful ways. It didn't. He ran off with another woman when I was five after spending several of my toddler years in prison. This older lady, who remembered Dad as a teenager, a good church-goer and pillar of the community, told me (to my considerable discomfort) what a good looking boy he was. I swear she still had a lustful look in her eye and it was nearly 45 years later. It was more than a little creepy.

Unless bad boys and girls choose to change before they hook up with you, they aren't likely to do so afterwards. It's the ultimate narcissism to think that your naughty boyfriend or girlfriend will every change for you.

Change of the sort that makes good people out of bad people comes only from God and from the free will choice of the person doing the changing.  Any other reason for changing is doomed to failure.  Believing a loved one will change himself for you simply because the sex is really good sets you up for a big disappointment, because, it may surprise you to learn, you are not God. Expecting a bad spouse to change because they love you is like setting yourself up as God.  You expect behavioral change from your worshipper, the afore-mentioned bad spouse, because they love you and if they love you, you reason, they will want to do your will and change themselves into a form that is pleasing to you.

In the Garden of Eden, the devil promised Eve that she and Adam would become like gods. Lucifer lied.  I’m sure when Adam took the fruit, he too thought he could “save” Eve by joining her in her transgression. Ironically, it seems it was actually Adam who started the whole “I can save her/him through my love” mythos.  Women just took the idea and ran with it; possibly because there seem to be more really bad men than there are bad women for some reason.

And don’t write me an angry comment telling me it worked for you.  If true it would be an exception, that in its rarity, just proves the rule.  If you’re already stuck in one of those relationships, should you cut bait and run for it?  I’m not saying that at all.  I’m just saying that your loved one will never change for you. He may change because, through you, he meets God, but meeting God is the only way real change is gonna happen.  

My advice – start praying.  Never stop. It’s your only hope.

Tom King