Sunday 15 February 2015

Romantic Heroes (and how we perceive them)

by Marie-Louise Jensen

I'm writing this post on St Valentine's Day having just run the gauntlet of the pink-and-heart-strewn aisle of my local supermarket. And as Catherine Johnson so rightly says, on the blog today what single person wants to be reminded of Valentine's Day?

But what with the day of romance and all that plus a great conversation I had on twitter yesterday, the thought of romantic heroes and how they've changed has been going over in my mind.

I'm a Georgette Heyer addict. I admit that without shame or excuses. Whenever the going gets tough, the tough hide under the bedclothes and read Georgette Heyer. I discovered her historical fiction novels (almost exclusively Georgian or Regency) at 14 and have returned to them in times of illness and trouble ever since. They've also influenced my own writing.

But rereading a few of them more recently with a more heightened awareness of gender and power balances within relationships, a few of the male protagonists, the way they are portrayed and the female responses to them, make me uncomfortable.

Heyer's female characters are, like most women of their time in fiction, entirely concerned with finding a husband; a genuine constraint in a society that doesn't allow women autonomy. The desirable husbands were a range of dashing blades, dissolute bucks, witty dandies, brave soldiers and the like. Quite a swoony collection of men, in fact.

The ones that make me uncomfortable are the 'masterful' men - and the women who like to submit to this mastery, because it's what they've secretly been desiring all along. What makes me so uneasy is just how close 'masterful' is to 'controlling and abusive' and how close this submissiveness is to 'she likes it really'.

There's a difference, I feel, between a strong male character and one who is imperious and dominating. It's a fine line, and just which side of it we tread and find acceptable has changed enough in the last few decades to make a few of these older books (Heyer was writing mainly from the 1930s to the 1960s) jar with the modern reader. Strangely there is more that jars with me in Heyer's historical fiction than there is in Austen, the Brontes, Gaskell, Burney or even Radcliffe - many of whose heroes are positive paragons of virtue.

I've become gradually more aware, over the years I've been writing, of the need to portray mutual respect between the genders and around issues of consent. This is especially the case writing for a young adult readership. Romance writing is a responsible business. The romances you read as a young person are likely to shape your attitudes to and understanding of romantic relationships.

The rise of teen 'dark romance' with its borderline-abusive relationships, including stalking, voyeurism, danger of imminent death and other unsavoury ingredients, portrayed as romantic, trouble me very deeply. I know I'm not alone in this.

I've reacted by making my own male protagonist in my most recent historical novel, Runaway, more respectful. I probably need to go much further down this path, in fact and make my girls more assertive, although this is harder to achieve convincingly in historical fiction, where social norms were different. But consent and mutual respect are vital to portray. In fact, I think I'll end this with the wonderful words of one of the university guides my eldest son came across a year or so ago: "Consent is setting the bar too low, guys. Hold out for enthusiasm."

14 comments:

Sue Bursztynski said...

Sigh! Tell me about it. As a school librarian, I know about all those vampires and fallen angels who, my students seem to think, would make ideal boyfriends. I can't seem to tempt them to read Dracula, in which the vampire is a baddie, not a hottie.

I did quite like one of Melissa Marr's novels, in which the girl turns down the arrogant, selfish Faerie King because she's got a mortal - and respectful - boyfriend, thank you very much. When it's clear he's slipped sketching into her drink which will make her immortal, she is furious, but says she will treat Faerie Queen as a job, nothing more.

But you're right, there's something scary about disrespectful male leads in fiction.

Sue Bursztynski said...

Sorry, that's something, not sketching. Typo.

michelle lovric said...

Yes, I too worry about all these relationships based on sacrifice, humiliation, deprivation and pain, mostly on behalf of the females, while the male gets to LOOK brooding and miserable in a glamorous way. Thank you for highlighting this, Marie-Louise. My next heroine is also going to hold out for enthusiasm.

michelle lovric said...

Yes, I too worry about all these relationships based on sacrifice, humiliation, deprivation and pain, mostly on behalf of the females, while the male gets to LOOK brooding and miserable in a glamorous way. Thank you for highlighting this, Marie-Louise. My next heroine is also going to hold out for enthusiasm.

Elizabeth Chadwick said...

Absolutely and it's pervasive throughout society. In some ways creepy stalker guy has gone from strength to strength. How many homes have a copy of Fifty Shades of Grey on the bookshelf for the teenager to read. I saw this article last night while procrastinating. http://www.upworthy.com/6-real-quotes-from-fifty-shades-that-could-make-you-rethink-how-you-feel-about-it?c=ufb1

Marjorie said...

Yes.
I read the first of the Twilight books not long after it came out, and was so uncomfortable about how it idealised an abusive relationship that I couldn't bring myself to donate it to my local library, which is what I normally do with books I don't want to keep.

(I, too, love Georgette Heyer, but do find I now much prefer her (I think mostly later?) books, with older and most assertive heroines. (The Grand Sophy, and The Nonesuch both come to mind)

Marie-Louise Jensen said...

Sophy (in the Grand Sophy) is indeed fabulous. And Edward Cullen is a creepy stalker. His popularity is troubling. I haven't touched 50 Shades with the end of a bargepole...

Spade and Dagger said...

We have to hope that the young people reading these types of books have enough emotional development and support to see through it all and actively decide not to put up with being treated like that in their real lives.

Margret Geraghty said...

Elizabeth Chadwick makes an interesting point re Fifty Shades of Grey. I have to admit here that I've only read extracts, including the quotes she mentions. It's not my idea of fun but clearly it strikes a chord with a great many women, which begs the question: Why? Why do women enjoy novels that portray - even celebrate - such dysfunctional relationships?
As a psychologist, I should have some idea but I'm not sure that anyone really knows. My best answer (after turning to Freud, Jung and evolutionary psychology)would be that the women characters in such fictions (and these days that might apply to Georgette Heyer, too) represent a fragment of the psyche, the bit that likes the idea of being taken care of, without needing to worry about money, or any of the other responsibilities with which the modern woman has to cope. It's a fantasy and so long as it stays that way, fine. What worries me about FSoG is that men will watch the film and take that fantasy out of the shadows and into reality.

Lydia Syson said...

Completely agree with the need for responsibility in this department. Actually, the YA book that most distressed me this year in terms of its portrayal of male/female relationships - actually females fullstop - wasn't historical at all, but contemporary/sci-fi (?) which I think is even less easy to forgive. Yet I'm quite sure Grasshopper Jungle will end up on the Carnegie shortlist. I just hope this element of it gets discussed. It seems to have been much overlooked. (Not that the hero is masterful. . . )

Leslie Wilson said...

Yes, I have always hated the Earl of Worth in 'Regency Buck', who keeps the heroine quite in the dark, as if she was a child, not to mention kissing her without her consent the first time they meet, and telling her that if they marry, he will beat her. And she likes it! But that was Heyer's first Regency romance, and that was the temper of the time, I guess. I prefer Miss Morville in The Quiet Gentleman, who is wise and intelligent, and respected by her Earl. And Sophy is wonderful, of course! On the other hand, I am never sure about the doormattish tendencies of Jenny in 'A Civil Contract.'

Leslie Wilson said...

Incidentally, I would like to quote, in this context, my daughter's comment on 'Wuthering Heights' when I told her I'd given up on it because I was fed up with the characters. She said: 'Yes, they're not very solution-oriented.'

Marjorie said...

I do like 'A Civil Contract', but yes, Jenny can be a bit of a doormat. Althoughhe does stand up to both Adam and her father, at times.

I confess I have never made it all the way through Wuthering Heights.

Marie-Louise Jensen said...

A Civil Contract definitely not one of my favourites. I confess to a great love of These Old Shades, despite it being about a dissolute old rake marrying an innocent young girl - it's so beautifully written and Leonie defies being a victim in any shape or form. I don't like Wuthering Heights; I love the 'not very solution-orientated'!