The romantic comedy genre is full of really, really bad movies featuring douchie male leads and women who can be politely described as harpies. Think Made of Honor in which Michelle Monaghan berates Patrick Dempsey for his sex-toy bridal shower (an accident on his part) like a prudish little schoolmarm instead of a sophisticated 30-something [...]
Lloyd Dobbler vs The Rake
Lloyd Dobler is the anathema to sexual passion.
In this column over at The Frisky, Natalie Krinsky very rightly points out the problem with today’s romantic comedy: namely, that women are expected to settle but men never are. There’s an implied entitlement in movies and television shows like Knocked Up and Everybody Loves Raymond that insists that men deserve the best in female companionship despite their inability to stand-up to their Italian mothers or to get a job and stop smoking pot.
Rake-Tastic
The trouble with rakes in romances is that the author is constantly telling us that they are ever so bad and ever so nototrious and oh so dangerous but then they don’t actually do anything rakish except throw out a few sexual innuendoes and maybe get the heroine to try oral sex.
The topic for this [...]
An Open Letter to A Romance Novel Hero: Resurrecting the Idea
Grey aka Robert Fordham
c/o Joanna Bourne
The Spymaster’s Lady
Dear Robert,
Thanks for not being a dillweed. I apprecitate that. I don’t know if you’ve noticed (you probably have. You are very observant.) but romance novel spies tend to be intensely retarded. By intensely retarded I mean, if they were actually spies they would be dead by now [...]
An Open Letter to a Romance Novel Hero
Bastian Toussaint
c/oAnne Stuart
Black Ice
March 4, 2009
Dear Bastien,
But for the whole spy thing, you totally remind me of my ex-boyfriend. I am not exaggerating. You are him, down to the refusal to actually give a straight answer to even the most innocuous of questions. In fact, I have a deeply held suspcion that Anne Stuart may have [...]
You’re Kind Of A Douchebag, Devon.
This post is all about the ever popular and extremely beloved novel The Windflower by Laura London aka Sharon & Tom Curtis. Currently, this book is out of print, gosh darnit.
I’ve been thinking about Devon Crandall, erstwhile pirate and Duke of Earl. I’ve decided Devon’s kind of a douchebag.
Before I go any further I would [...]
Heroes
I have just finished editing the paper I gave at the 2008 PCA. It went from an 8 page speech into a 15 page writing sample for graduate school applications. It was through this process that I came across Lilian R. Furst’s The Romantic Hero, or is he an Anti-Hero? ¹ an article that was published before I was [...]
