It was either Kayser Soze or some French poet with an unpronounceable name who said something to the effect of, “The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.” Not everyone believes in the Devil but we all know Hollywood exists, and isn’t six of one just a half dozen of the other? After all, the greatest trick Tinseltown (with the help of the MSM) ever pulled was convincing the world that a belief in a moral code is what’s abnormal because all the cool kids are into a collective degeneracy.
Though liberals only make up 20% of the population, they’re still able to pull off this sinister bluff because conservatives took their eye off the ball and allowed the Left to infest the institutions in charge of documenting and portraying who we are as a society. Unfortunately, these socialist engineers aren’t stupid and figured out almost immediately that with a near-monopoly on sound and image they could make a majority of the population feel like the minority; with the goal in mind of using peer pressure to shape our culture into a godless orgy of anything goes hyper-sexuality.
The result is that those of us made nauseous by the idea of loveless sex are intentionally made to feel like the oppressive party-poopers — the weirdos, the prudes, the uncool outsiders lacking in compassion, enlightenment and sophistication. This devil has so perfectly executed this ruse that even those of us on to him can forget what’s happening until a genuine phenomenon like “Twilight” comes along to remind us.
The three “Twilight” films just aren’t very good movies and yet they are huge hits. Why? Certainly, the concept of benevolent vampires who walk among us is interesting, as is the idea of pitting them against werewolves due to some age-old feud. The execution, however, is lethargic, stuffy, melodramatic and lacking in any kind of action or excitement.
The latest chapter, “Eclipse,” is probably the best of the three. Though still a one-hour story stretched to two, the slow pace at least feels deliberate, a conscious decision to cast a kind of hypnotic spell. But none of that helps to explain why what are essentially TV-level stories gross hundreds upon hundreds of millions of dollars. Except this:
Bella: You said you wanted me to have every human experience. I want you [sexually] while I’m still me.
Edward: It’s too dangerous.
Bella: Try. Just try. I’ll marry you. Just try.
Edward: Stop trying to take your clothes off.
Bella: Do you want to do that part?
Edward: Not tonight.
Bella: You don’t?
Edward: Believe me I want to. I just want to be married to you first.
Bella: You make me feel like a villain. Like I’m trying to steal your virtue.
Edward: It’s not my virtue I’m concerned about. I just want to leave one rule unbroken. My soul is gone but I want to protect yours. I know… it’s an old-fashioned notion.
Bella: It’s ancient.
Though not a perfect transcript that comes from a scene in “Eclipse” after Bella assures her father [and the audience] she’s still a virgin.
At the end of that exchange, Edward, who’s forever 17 but was born in 1901, then talks about how wonderful it would be if the world were still old-fashioned. Then he could do things properly and ask permission of Bella’s father to court her. Before the scene is over, he gets down on one knee, produces a ring, and asks her to marry him.
Usually, when I walk into a theatre and find it packed with tweens, it’s time to brace myself for a nightmare of chatter and texting. This audience was packed with young girls but for the full 124 minutes, other than laughter (the film has a nice sense of humor) and sighs, you could’ve heard a pin drop.
From Disney Channel tarts to YouTube to MTV to their public school health education classes, young girls in this country are bombarded and constantly out-flanked with the toxic message that if they want to be “in” and “liberated” and “strong” they must become the useful and willing objects of sexual gratification manipulative men have always wanted them to be. Trust me, no one’s benefited more from left-wing feminism than than shallow, sexist men who use, abuse, objectify and discard women like empty beer cans.
In our world of popular culture, the romance between Bella and Edward is unlike anything these young girls have ever been subjected to outside of Turner Classic Movies. Edward cherishes Bella, and he protects her, not only from physical harm but from his own appetites and desires that would strip away her dignity. His love for her is what love is supposed to be: completely selfless and understanding.
As weak as these films have been in the storytelling department, they’ve become money machines because a majority of young girls don’t want to be Lady Gaga, they don’t want to monologue about their vagina with Jane Fonda, and they simply don’t understand why the very same adults charged with protecting them use classroom time to roll Trojans on cucumbers.
Young girls confused and frustrated by the pop culture and media institutions constantly pressuring them into the counter-intuitive idea that the road to virtue is through the loss of their dignity — young girls who long to find their own Edward, a selfless, strong and tender man who will protect and cherish and love them, are told by “Twilight” that they’re not weird or alone. “Twilight” is a billion dollar film and publishing franchise because it serves a role more important than entertainment. The romance between Edward and Bella validates the better nature of millions of young souls yearning not to be lost.
Don’t be fooled into thinking Hollywood will try to repeat this recipe to print money that mixes yearning and restraint and human desire back into the idea of romance. Winning the culture war will always take precedent. The good news, however, is that the war isn’t over. If it was, when Hollywood let a “Twilight” slip through, there’d be a lot of chatter and texting.
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