The male perspective

[igenlode]

I wonder if the reason why so many fans complain that they find Raoul dislikable in the Leroux novel is that this is the experience of being in love for the first time being depicted from the male perspective by an actual male author, whereas what they are used to seeing in romance novels is the male viewpoint as imagined by women? (And why is the fandom so overwhelmingly female and romance-oriented, anyway? The novel wasn't written to appeal to lovelorn ladies -- Leroux was a thriller/mystery writer...)

It also occurs to me that female romance novels normally feature experienced and/or older men as the love-interest rather than very young and inexperienced ones, whom women presumably don't find attractive -- the plot is generally 'woman heals heart of man who has learnt to distrust her sex' or 'woman wins true love from seductive rover', not 'boy falls head over heels in love with someone his own age'. Of course, when you are writing obligatory sex scenes you pretty much need to have a practised male protagonist (unless it is Erik the Masterful Virgin :p)

Comments

[erimia]

Eh, but wouldn't all male characters in love written by male writers reflect male perspectives? If it was such a hindrance, no male character from books by men would ever appeal to female readers, which is clearly not true. And it would arguably affect fic readers even more than romance novel readers or general female population, because they read so much about male characters written by women, but again I don't see this happening in any significant amount?

As for Raoul being too young for what is expected for a romantic lead, I think it is a part of it. I also think that readers/viewers with interest in Gothic romance specifically may distrust the "good guy option" character because 1) well, this type of man is not the one that makes them interested in these stories to begin with 2) I think in many Gothic romances these characters are presented as both boring and not even good people? I heard that happens a lot in the Modern Gothics from the 1960s and 1970s. I think this trope came from Jane Eyre. Basically, as Angela Carter put it, "a prig is worse than a cad" and so the Gothic romance fans are projecting this "prig" trope on Raoul.

[igenlode]

I do get the impression that a lot of people simply never do venture outside their own private ghetto, i.e. they *only* read romance novels, or only read non-fiction, or only read books marketed as 'YA fantasy', or (like me) automatically assume that no thriller marketed with embossed gold letters on the front can possibly have any merit ;-)
And I think a lot of fiction written by women is marketed exclusively *at* women, and packaged accordingly so that no man would ever be seen dead picking up a book in such a format... so yes, those are male characters written for the specific purpose of giving a female audience what it wants, and with no regard to how an actual human might feel in such a situation.

Certainly in the case of fic writers, the characters tend to be (a) used primarily for the purposes of setting up romantic situations even if their canon lives are far from dominated by romance, and (b) portrayed out of character for the sole purposes of furthering such action. In other words, in order to make male protagonists appeal to female readers, the fans apparently feel the need to change them from their depiction by the original author; what appeals, seemingly, is not the actual character but the potential for transformation.

(i.e. they take Sydney Carton and then they write a whole lot of fic about him having a slash relationship with Stryver, when the whole *point* of the character in the book is that he is so much in love with Lucie Manette that he will lay down his life for her; that central trait doesn't seem to be of any value for the purposes of fanfic, however. Though I suppose it ought to have been obvious that steadfast loyalty with zero sex is not interesting for fanfic...)

So yes, fanfic readers are interested in reading about male characters originally created by men, but they seem to *prefer* revised depictions of them as they would have been if written from a female perspective -- it's hard to say whether this is because the canon material is already 'over and done with' and they are naturally seeking out new content which they haven't seen before, or whether it's an active quest for more palatable material.



I do wonder why young women seem to struggle so hard to write male characters, insisting that it isn't possible to do so without having a suitable beta-reader check their work for plausibility. I mean, there is some historical excuse for male writers having trouble writing from a female viewpoint, but there doesn't seem to me to be much excuse for women saying that they just don't have any way to know how the male mind works, when the male mind has been arguably the *default* viewpoint in literary terms for a couple of hundred years. There are vast numbers of books portraying the male perspective, so why would they need to stop and worry about 'how do I make my character sound really *MANLY*' -- unless they are simply incapable of writing any character who isn't another version of themselves, of course? :-(

I came across a piece on "Mistakes Women Make When Writing About Men", and it was enlightening to say the least to observe the views expressed in the comments section from people outside the fanfic ghetto -- what they think about 'shipping' culture, and how much they actually resent women trying to turn every male relationship into slash...

I also think that readers/viewers with interest in Gothic romance specifically may distrust the "good guy option" character because 1) well, this type of man is not the one that makes them interested in these stories to begin with

Thinking about "A Tale of Two Cities" again, I note that nobody is ever particularly interested in Charles Darnay!

2) I think in many Gothic romances these characters are presented as both boring and not even good people?

Well, I imagine it's partly that these characters tend to be disapproving of and/or morally opposed to the brooding dark anti-hero, thus making them inherently evil according to protagonist-centred morality :-p