The Twilight books, followed by the Twilight movies, came
out after The Lord of the Rings movies.
The first Twilight book came out in 2005, two years after the theatrical
release of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.
I don’t know if the attitudes and relationships portrayed in
Twilight influenced the way The Hobbit was made into a movie or not, but there
is a lot about the movie portrayal of the so-called romance between Kili and
Tauriel that reminded me a lot of the attitudes and relationship dynamics that
were in Twilight. Whether or not the
attitudes and thinking of Twilight directly influenced what went into the making of The
Hobbit movies, I can't say; but they seem awfully similar.
Twilight has convinced almost an entire generation of girls
that if a boy is manipulative and controlling, that he must care about
them. They’ve been convinced that a boy
who is sensitive and thoughtful is to be passed over for the dangerous,
brooding one. It has also
convinced them that they are worth nothing without having a boy to define them. Thanks in large part to Twilight, girls often
think that it is romantic to think that the sole reason they came into
existence, was to be with one specific man. (I once
read a fanfic wherein the female main character actually told the main male character [who had already gone out of his way to make her life an unnecessary hell] that she
believed that she was born for the purpose of marrying him. And the author honestly seemed to think that
there was nothing wrong with it. I was
flabbergasted.) These destructive ideas
have been around for as long as humanity has, unfortunately, but Twilight has exacerbated
the idea that a disrespectful, controlling man is actually the one who loves
the girl the most.
In the Hobbit movies directed by Peter Jackson, the
character of Kili started off similar to the way he started off in the book
which I love. But in the second movie,
when he met Tauriel the female elf, he became someone I no longer
recognized. One of the first things Kili
said to her, was that he wanted her to look down his pants. The movie makers seemed to intend for it to be humorous. However, if such a comment were made in similar circumstances in real life, it would be obvious for anyone who cared to understand, that it was the disrespectful, suggestive, crude statement that it
was; a statement that would never have escaped the lips of a man who had any
real regard for the woman he was addressing.
Any girl who respects herself and is sure and certain of her worth as a
person, and is not easily influenced by what the media tells her she needs to
believe, would see immediately that such a suggestive comment is not something
a man capable of feeling real love would ever say. Unfortunately, not all young women are as
level-headed as they ought to be for their own lasting good. They do what sounds pleasing, taught to them
by books and movies like Twilight, and then end up in relationships that are
abusive; mentally, verbally or physically, and don’t understand why.
After Tauriel healed Kili in the third movie, he would not let
go his pursuit of her, expressed to her his sexual attraction to her, and told
her to leave her people and come with him.
In a way that was painfully clear, Kili showed that he did not care about her lasting
happiness; only his immediate wants and gratification. Whether he was immediately
conscious of it or not, Kili knew that Tauriel was immortal and that he was
not. He knew that in a few decades, he
would begin to grow old, become unattractive, and eventually die while she
would remain young looking and unchanged through the whole of their
relationship. In the Lord of the Rings
movies, Aragorn knew this same thing, and because of it, he was very reluctant
to bind himself to Arwen. Not because he
didn’t love her, but because he did. Aragorn
was concerned, deeply, about Arwen’s lasting good and happiness. In contrast, Kili clearly showed by his
aggressive and unapologetic pursuit of Tauriel that he cared nothing for her as a living being. In all frankness, Kili was interested in
Tauriel only for what she could do for him; not for
anything he could do for her. Kili was not concerned about her lasting welfare. His words declaring
that he loved her were hollow and meaningless, and actually quite ugly to
hear because of the way they so thinly veiled his blatant disregard for her as a person. (Some people might argue vehemently that
Kili died to save Tauriel; but that was a forced addition, something artificially choreographed and manipulated by the movie makers. In real life, a man
who talked to Tauriel in the same way that Kili did, would not put
himself through any sort of difficulty for her sake, because he sees her only as an object.)
As for Tauriel’s part, she showed her fellow real-life
females nothing useful about how to respond to the aggressive pursuit of a man
who is good at lip-service, but clearly has no real regard for her. She made it painfully obvious to anyone with enough sense to understand, that she had no
respect for herself. But in this
generation of young people, young women in particular, who were prepped by the
philosophies fed to them by Twilight, ideas like this sell.
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One of my favorite books of all time is To Kill A Mockingbird. It is not a romance, but it does have love in it. Real love. Love of a father for his children, and love of children for their father. Brief hints at their father's love for their mother who died before the story began. Sincere concern for the good of society, and willingness to sacrifice for the sake of others. Mr. Dolphus Raymond's willingness to act the way he does, so that society will allow him to be with his sweetheart, who is black, and their mulatto children. To Kill a Mockingbird contrasts basic human decency with dishonesty and moral degradation, and calls them both what they are. It calls good good, and bad bad. It doesn't celebrate or condone dysfunction. It calls it what it is. Books like To Kill a Mockingbird teach us real things about the human condition. It teaches us about how to be better people, how to be kinder, more tolerant, more humane, more brave. They can stretch our minds and help us think in ways we didn't before, not detracting from truths that we already know, but adding to, and complementing them. To Kill a Mockingbird and other books like it give me wonderful examples to look up to when creating my own writing in which I try hard to make stories that help those who read them to be a little kinder, stand a little taller, be a little better because of what they've read. I am glad for books like To Kill a Mockingbird.
