Everybody loves a good bad boy. Our media society is obsessed with them, those rebels without a cause, those paragons of the super masculine and virile. Think Charlie Sheen, George Clooney or Russell Crowe. They defy society with a cunning and charismatic smile. They attract us. In Restoration drama (late 1600s England), they would be called lovable rogues or rakes, good old troublemakers with the power to charm. Today, bad boy appeal stems from the tantalizing possibility of danger, adventure, and intrigue. Especially if they have the standard bad boy garb like rolled up T-shirts or skinny jeans like Patrick Swayze in The Outsiders. Fainting.
But the term “bad boys” is a misnomer. George Clooney and Russell Crowe, while playfully devious in their own way, are not children; they are men. Naturally, “bad boys” sounds less threatening than “bad men,” but classic literature is full of literal bad boys who are actually young enough to be called boys. Reading about their antics and exploits is just as entertaining, if not more so, than reading the latest gossip magazine.
The quintessential bad boy is Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer. The rambunctious twelve-year-old orphan not only has a way with the little ladies (gallantly taking a punitive beating from a cutie named Becky), but he also knows how to get what he wants. He is mostly remembered for his cunning manipulation of the neighborhood kids, convincing them that whitewashing a huge fence is actually an exclusive and entertaining way to spend one’s youth, so much so that it’s worth spending a penny. He also thwarts a murderer, finds a golden treasure, and has the unique opportunity to attend his own funeral. We can only imagine what kind of life this teenager will have once he hits puberty. In fact, Twain, something of a witty bad boy, is said to have based Tom Sawyer’s antics on his own childhood. Perhaps the adventurous and intriguing bad boys grow up to be renowned authors of wit and humor.
Of course, not all bad boys have a sweet and charming side. Some bad boys are just plain bad, and it takes the absence of adult supervision to bring it out. Enter William Lord of the Flies, a novel about a group of British children stranded on an island following a plane crash that killed all the adults. The boys are left to their own devices to survive, forming factions and behaving like a bunch of wild armed teenagers, all excited about sugar and pig murder. Reading this novel about humanity’s inherent capacity for evil and destruction is certainly not the fun-filled joyride that Tom Sawyer is. These bad boys kill their partners if they don’t like them! They are more likely to end up in a juvenile detention center than ripping off neighborhood kids in a home beautification project. But therein lies the dichotomy of the “bad guy” convention. You have the bad good and the bad bad, the George Clooneys and the Charlie Sheens, the Tom Sawyers and the gang of British barbarians. Both are compelling to watch, even if it’s a terrifying train wreck at times.