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

[stefanie_bean]

Excellent points, especially about Raoul *not* being the ideal romance-novel main male character. "Taming the beast" in various romances is a power fantasy. Suzy McKee Charnas - author of the published POTO short story, "Beauty and the Opera, Or the Phantom Beast" - spells it out in her essay, "The Beast's Embrace." (https://web.archive.org/web/20211203031340/http://www.suzymckeecharnas.com/essays/the-beasts-embrace.htm)

Since Raoul's love is messy, complicated, confusing (including to him), and not always the most dignified, there's no power fantasy aspect to "taming" him.

Also, you half-answered the question in "Raoul is Not an American High School Jock" (https://vicomte-de-chagny.dreamwidth.org/18596.html). Fannishness is supposed to hate "the jocks;" Raoul is "a jock," and thus we are "supposed to" hate Raoul.

Another thought: one common fanfic assumption is that if there's relationship writing in a story, that story "has to" follow the standard romance-novel tropes. POTO clearly doesn't, and while romance-writing may be one possible transformative-work interpretation, there's room for many others.

[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.