I haven't felt the urge to respond to many of the thought-provoking
statements that come over the ether but calling Tom Sawyer a budding studio
executive has stirred me to action.  I am teaching The Red Badge of courage
and see Henry Fleming as much more analogous to Tom than readers normally
suppose.  Tom does not sound like a city-slicker when he talks to Huck and
as such is part of the vernacular world of Huck until he dreams.  He has
been taught to dream romantic dreams just as Henry has been taught to dream
them.  In his dreams he talks and thinks like a member of sivilization.
Since he thinks in this language, its gestalt possesses him.  Just as
desert peoples cannot conjure snow because their language cannot capture
it, Tom cannot create the moral universe of Huck because his language (in
his head and heart) does not permit him to question slavery or discover the
feelings of the human heart.
As to how this relates to the X files and the moral bankruptcy of schlock,
I am not versed enough to say, but I might suggest that a person who dreams
of a world of simple-minded romantic values in which adventure will be
capable of creating a romantic reality to correspond to the dream.
Unfortunately, people and the real world do not conform to this sick
pattern, and the romantic dreamer is often stuck with the same dilemma that
confronted Hitler.  It is not a far jump from the concentration camp to the
values of many of our action adventures.  Tom and most romantics would be
willing to destroy the real world to save their dreams.
Henry Fleming sees similar problems.  When he opens his mouth, the
vernacular contradiction of his dream world, tumbles out, just as his
mother's common sense advice among the potato peelings make him irritable
and ashamed.  But Henry grows up.  He discards romanticism by the end of
the book.  Perhaps we are too hard on Tom when we assume that he will grow
up a Hitler or worse, a studio executive.  Perhaps he will grow up and put
away childish things.  He is, after all, Huck Finn's comrade. Twain
ultimately knew that Tom would have a choice, and that is why he has Huck
say tellingly, "He had a dream and it shot him." When you don't put away
the dream, it can shoot a lot of others besides.