Dear Author » character arcs

The Super Sizing of the Alpha Male

Jane — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 09:00:35 +0000

Anne Mallory’s latest release, The Bride Price, involves the question of what is a true gentleman. The hero is a bastard and not considered a “gentleman” by society standards. The heroine’s sister at heart, Sarah, is a shy, retiring wall flower. Sarah’s father wants her to marry well and sets up a tournament for men in society to compete for her hand:

“…The King sees the whole competition as an incentive to make sure one of his godchildren is married well.”

She took a deep breath before continuing. “I saw him a few days past. He has signed a document promising the winner a viscountcy After the competition ends, he’ll have the letters-patent drawn up and-’” She waved a hand in a fatalistic manner. “I tried to beg him to revoke his blessings, but you know how I freeze up so terribly. He just patted me on the head and said the games were designed to weed out the unworthy. Only a true gentleman could win.”

“A true gentleman.”

“Yes.” Sarah tugged at the bow on her dress, mangling it further.

A man who was good at shooting, boxing, gaming, and wenching could easily fulfill the terms of a “true gentleman.”

Like the ton had adopted birth and certain elements of society to define what a true gentleman was so has romance adopted Alpha Male to define the romance hero ideal. In recent years, however, this reliance on a concept rather than individual traits, has homogenized the hero experience for the reader. Perhaps in an effort to create diversity, authors have tended to over masculinize the hero to the extent that we have caricatures instead of characters for heroes. In recent years, I’ve seen the romance alpha hero morph from tall, strong, and commanding to oversized, monstrous, and overbearing.

Alpha Male = Controlling and Possessive

Take, for example, the stereotypical romance hero, Edward Cullen, in the million book selling series by Stephenie Meyer. Edward Cullen is a vampire. He is preternaturally strong and preternaturally beautiful (his skin actually glitters in sunlight). He is also a bit of a psycho. He stalks Bella, the heroine. He climbs into her bedroom and watches her sleep at night. He tinkers with her car so it won’t start. He forbids her from seeing other people. He warns her that becoming part of his family, his life, means to cut off contact with everyone but he and his family. He gets a member of his family to kidnap her to keep her isolated while he goes and hunts. Yet, this is deemed beyond sexy. He is the epitome of perfect manhood (despite being a teen starring in a YA book).

It’s not unfair to use Edward Cullen as an example of the supersizing of the alpha male because this overjealous, control hungry male dominates the adult romance genre. In one post at Teach Me Tonight, Dr. Vivanco explores the idea of the evolution of the alpha male. Some readers are quoted as describing alpha males as super possessive and domineering which are also “recognised as a feature of many abusive relationships.”

Alpha Male = Physically Overpowering

The only thing that really separates Edward Cullen from his adult male counterparts is physical size. Romance alpha males are physically overpowering. In one Brenda Joyce book, the hero is described as having a "huge club-like manhood," and a "slab" of pecs. In the last JR Ward book I read, John is described as needing “a fleece the size of a sleeping bag, an XXXL T-shirt, and a pair of size-fourteen Nike Air Shox.” In the recent Diedre Knight book, Red Fire, the hero was an ordinary 5′ 7″ until his immortal transmogrification when he became “between six-foot-four and six-foot-five. Depend[ing] on the day . . . A variety of factors.”

Alpha Male = Sexually Proficient

Another thing we have required of our alpha men is uber sexual prowess. It is not sufficient that they be good in bed, but they must be good in many beds. They must be rakes, with a number of partners, none of whom had ever complained about past performances. They are so good and practiced in bed that every virgin’s deflowering is orgasmic. Other traits exhibited by alpha males besides how many women he swived before settling down inlude how much liquor he can imbibe before having a hangover, how good at cards he is, how great of a driver of horses, how he’s the best fencer, best gentleman’s boxer, a master of industry (but on the sly of course). In contemporary terms, he’s one that has been taken in only once by a wretched female and is determined to act out his hatred for his ex wife on every unsuspecting model from now until he can’t get his peter up or his wallet dries up, whichever comes first. It’s not enough that the hero be an Earl or a Viscount or a Marquess. The Duke is de riguer for bestsellerdom. A hero cannot be a millionaire. He must be a billionaire, a tycoon, a magnate.

Of course, I’m generalizing here but I think the majority of books feature some sort of the ultramasculine alpha male and making him cry in one scene doesn’t make him break out of that mold.

Alpha Male = Contradictions

For all that we say about the perfect male, the attributes that we give him to make him a specimen of perfect male virality are contradictory. I.e., if the hero should be heroic, shouldn’t he be honorable? I.e., shouldn’t he refrain from leading young women into ruin? Shouldn’t he have the strength of character to resist temptation that could involve danger to the heroine? Shouldn’t he have the care to protect her from pregnancy and use a condom?

We have this warped view of alpha men. They are caricatures relying primarily on physical prowess to serve a romance shorthand for all those things that we view a hero should be. But the unfortunate thing is that it straightjackets the heroes’ character such that they aren’t allowed to drink mixed drinks or sleep in pajamas without being viewed with immediate suspicion that perhaps they are, in fact, from the other end the Greek alphabet.

Alpha Male = Diminution of Females

Probably the worst outcome of the ultra masculization, as Robin calls it, of the hero is the subsequent diminution of the female character. She has to have tiny hands compared to the male (how many references have you read to the tiny hands thing? A friend of mine has tiny hands and it greaks Ned out because every time she lays her hand on his arm, he feels like a child is touching him). Or, as I argued last week, the heroine is required to look TSTL in order for the hero to look more masculine, to fit that ideal alpha male mode.

I’ll admit that I like the alpha male too. I like the jealousness, the possessiveness. The control thing makes me a bit uneasy. But I can’t help but think we’ve taken it too far. That authors are trying to top each other with their own ultramasculine heroes. It’s almost like authors are competing to see who has the most alpha male of the alpha males out there. My alpha male is bigger than your alpha male. He’s 7 feet tall, wears t-shirts the size of double sleeping bags and basically would make Clifford, the Big Red dog, look like a puppy.

Alpha Male = Heroic

We have somehow equated alpha characteristics with hero status and I’m not sure how we got there. Heroic qualities are not inherent in the alpha male trope. We’ve made it so which means that we can unmake it. We could return to the metric where deeds show heroism regardless of one’s size, bedroom prowess, or ability to control one’s environment including the heroine. We could look for hero’s who were more diverse, who’s appeal rested more on how they interacted with the heroine than how many beer cans could be crushed on his impeccable abs.

Now, you readers might tell me that your books don’t have these uber alpha characters and if that is so, tell me the titles of those books. Or perhaps the alpha male means something else to you or you really must have an alpha male for the book to interest you. I want to know why because ultimately the question I have is whether the alpha male that we read about today is reflecting what readers want or whether its a literary exaggeration done unconsciously to evoke a certain reader response.

Stupidity Is the Great Unfavorable

Jane — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 09:00:56 +0000

more animals

“There’s an infantilising of women in these programmes – they fall off their high heels or are still obsessed with handbags in their thirties,” agrees Geraghty. “And there’s an acceptance of a completely feminine persona, while many women do not see themselves as pink and fluffy.

“If you go back to the 1930s screwball comedies, the women never stopped talking and they never gave into the men – they had that femininity and glamour but without the infantilisation.”

The likes of Carole Lombard or Bette Davis wouldn’t have stood for the vacillations of Mr Big, it’s true: they’d have socked him in the jaw.

Source: The Scotsman

Readers talk about the likeability of a character but I think that term is misnomer. I think what we are talking about is the favorability rating because you can dislike a heroine or her ethics and still find the character intriguing; still view her character in a favorable light. What happens in our romances far too often is what the article refers to as the “infantilising of women” or the dumbing down of female characters in order to achieve a certain effect.

Too often heroines place themselves in danger to ratchet up the tension and/or to give the hero a chance to look, well, heroic. The heroine might go to a dangerous part of the neighborhood to constantly look for clues without having the first ability to defend herself. This places the heroine in peril. Cue the creepy music soundtrack. Then the hero is able to rush to her side; sometimes he is wounded, but this also gives the author the opportunity for the hero to chastise the heroine like a little girl and then they can kiss passionately. This might even lead to a hot sex scene as the hero is so wound up by his fear and anger that he must take it out on the heroine’s delicate body.

In the scenario above, the heroine acts to advance the plot. If the heroine’s character arc was that she acted stupid and immature but learned that her behavior was destructive and dangerous to herself and those around her thus she stopped acting stupidly, that would be one thing. Then the plot works to advance the character arc. In this example (and so many books), the heroine argues with the hero that she had to be there; that she was searching for the truth; that she was saving small children and their pets from danger and the peril was unavoidable.

Another example is when authors give heroine’s a smart mouth. Sometimes the heroine will be captured or put in a place needing leadership and instead of showing leadership, she’ll smart off in such as way that she should know will infuriate her captors or the enemy and place herself in grave danger. This allows two plot developments. Either it places the heroine in danger, needing to be saved by the hero or it makes her unbearably sexy to the audience such that the audience is wound up by anger and excitement that they/he must take it out on the heroine’s delicate body.

Or how about the heroine who has sex repeatedly with some guy without condoms and then is given the October surprise of pregnancy. Plot development alert. Major conflict around the corner. I always laugh at how some authors skip over the pesky condom part of the story with the obligatory “I’m clean” speech like any guy who was seconds away from the pearly gates wouldn’t lie his ass off in order to get some action. Any heroine that buys the “I’m clean” speech deserves to be given a VD rather than a night of ten orgasms that no one and no battery operated hand held equipment had ever provided before.

Then there is the Mary Sue martyr who acts to save someone in her family or her circle who is the least worthy of people. Oftentimes it’s that rapscallion of a brother but the martyrdom allows the heroine to have artificial barriers for falling in love with the hero thus prolonging the story and providing false tension. And speaking of artificiality, there are the heroines that completely lack physical self awareness. This allows the heroine to be absolutely knock down, traffic stopping gorgeous but still a good person because we all know that being aware one is knock down, traffic stopping gorgeous is one of the seven deadly sins (pride) and that brings down a character’s favorables in faster than a lightweight down the Super Slide. Another favorite is when the character believes information against the hero that she has no reason to believe because of the unreliable source: the ex-girlfriend, the bad guy, the mother of the hero who would rather eat her poodle than see her precious son married to the heroine.

Authors provide a lot of lip service about how strong, smart, independent that a heroine is but if she displays the aforementioned behaviors, I’m going to think that the heroine is an idiot regardless of how many characters are in alt over her savvy ways. Oftentimes, no one in the book calls the heroine on her foolish actions. Instead, the book goes on without a blip. Just because the characters inside the novel don’t acknowledge the crazy, it doesn’t mean that the readers do not. Instead we just think that the rest of the characters are also stupid for not recognizing how awful the heroine is and then it’s just a downward spiral of hate from there.

Simply saying that a heroine is smart doesn’t mean that she isn’t dumb as a stump. We readers have to be SHOWN through her actions and behavior that she actually has an IQ higher than a lumberjack’s leavings. If she makes a boneheaded mistake, she has to acknowledge it, not ignore it, deny it or, god forbid, be praised for it. If she owns her bad behavior, it actually raises her favorables. So lead her into the dark alley, allow her to be saved and then have her acknowledge its a stupid thing and then agree to stay home the next time that some type of combat is taking place or until she learns how to wield a gun or sword or lightsaber.

I’m never sure if the author inserts those scenes because she thinks its cute and sexy for the heroine to constantly jeopardize the safety of her person and those around her or whether it is authorial laziness. It’s easier to make the character act a certain way to achieve the desired plot effect rather than the other way around. I would much rather have the plot be integrated with the character arc of the story rather than the character to arc in accordance with the plot. It seems to me that when the character acts simply to advance the plot, the favorability rating starts its downward slide and sometimes* the book never recovers.

So many of these actions described above make the heroine look weak and in need of rescuing. She’s at least feeble in the mind, if not feeble spirited, and spineless. What’s heroic about those qualities? Just once, I would like to see the heroine give the hero a big old facer when he’s an asshole much like Jessica Trent did to Lord Dain in Loretta Chase’s Lord of Scoundrels. Or how about the heroine, who is placed in a precarious situation in order to obtain much needed information, say to the hero “You dickwad, I’m in peril because you were too hard headed to listen to me and the only reason you had to save my ass is because you refused to listen to my suspicions earlier. You deserved to get grazed by a bullet and no I’m not going to kiss and make it better. I’m going home and will work off my excess energy with the Bullet which gives me satisfaction without back chat.”

So I ask you readers (authors, readers, editors, you know the drill), what do you think of the “favorability factor”? Is there an increasing trend toward the infantilising of heroines? Am I just reading the wrong books?

*Caveat, sometimes the unfavorables are offset by something brilliant in the book so I’m talking generalities here and there are always exceptions.