Fantasies of the Unattainable?
"That doesn't change the fact that Lucius Vledescu is a charming, powerful, wealthy, good-looking boy." . . .
"Have you ever seen me look at Lucius with anything but disgust? Seriously?"
Mom smiled. "You'd be surprised how often disgust turns into lust." There was a knowing look in her eyes.
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. . . "I'm sent here to court a woman who dismisses me in favor of a peasant--"
"Jake is a perfectly nice guy, Lucius."
Lucius snorted again. "Is that what you want out of life? Nice? Must everything be nice?"
"Nice is . . . nice," I protested.
Lucius shook his head. "Oh, Antanasia. I could show you things so far beyond nice, they'd spin your lovely head." . . .
"Antanasia." His lips barely touched mine, and a craving ripped through me, like the craving in my dream for the decadent, irresistable, forbidden chocolate. No . . . I just kissed Jake. . . . I don't want Lucius. . . . He was everything I didn't want. He thought he was a goddamn vampire. And yet I felt myself pressing against him, felt my hand reaching up of its own accord to stroke his jaw, where the scar was, a jagged path of smooth skin tracing through the rough stubble. The violence in his childhood . . . it had made him hard. Dangerous, even? Maybe?
Lucius's arm slipped around my back, and he brushed my lips again, less gently this time. Even his mouth was hard. But I wanted to taste more. "Like this, Antanasia," he murmured. "This is how it should be . . . not nice . . . "
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Selections from Jessica's Guide to Dating on the Dark Side by Beth Fantaskey, a recent Young Adult novel I just finished that I'd put in the same general category as Stephenie Meyer's Twilight. And speaking of Twilight, the fourth book in that series, Breaking Dawn, was the second highest vote-getter in the latest Teens Top Ten, a book award selected by teen readers. The only title to do better was John Green's Paper Towns. At a quick glance, Breaking Dawn and Paper Towns have very little in common other than teen protagonists, but if you step back and look at why each appeals, I think they are very similar: They are both about quiet, normal teens who have unexpected opportunities to court and be courted by a dangerous romantic interest that would never occur in real life, just one speaks more to girls and one to guys.
That's my theory, anyway. Don't know if there's actually anything to this, but let me expand and you can tell me what you think. Jessica's Guide, Twilight, and the like are all about a passionate attraction to a "dangerous" guy. Not a nice one, but a scary one. But unlike in real life, the heroine is always safe with this guy because he values her so much that he can keep his self-control for her sake. But this danger is very primal and physical, rough kisses and lust and all that. Paper Towns, like Green's Looking for Alaska, Stargirl, As Simple as Snow, and many others I've read, is about a guy who is drawn in by a "dangerous" girl, but here the danger isn't physical and sexual but mental and emotional and social. The girls are enigmas who play games and create mysteries, who break rules not to cause physical harm but to pull pranks that show off their cleverness. They are wild, unpredictable, and ultimately unattainable, but they still let the guys share a piece of their worlds.
So, assuming the case I've just made makes some sense and that's why the books have such widespread appeal, then both sets of books are about characters having satisfying brushes with unattainable danger that the readers will never get to experience in real life. The difference seems to be that for girls unattainable danger is physical/passionate and for guys it's mental/emotional. And if that's what's missing, then it also says something about what we feel we can attain. Guys don't feel the need to fantasize about physically dangerous relationships and girls don't feel the need for mentally/emotionally dangerous ones, perhaps because that's too "real." Thoughts?
posted by Degolar @ 11:03 PM
5 Comments:
I cannot imagine what kind of relationship a teenage boy would consider "physically dangerous"... I don't think the concept translates across gender lines. From the adolescent male point of view there is nothing that society expects him to "protect" and thus, no danger. In other words, a book that focused on such danger would be nonsensical.
He's not supposed to "protect" his emotions and machismo, conforming to a particular mold of "manly?" Tough, independent, capable, and not too intellectual or nerdy or into "soft" pursuits?
Those things aren't physical. My point is that the idea of a "physically dangerous" relationship makes no sense when applied to adolescent males. "Danger" becomes "opportunity."
Yeah, I think we're saying the same thing here. I'm seeing lots of books where quiet, unassuming teens get to live out their thrilling fantasies of danger they'd never actually experience in real life, but it's different depending on whether they're a guy or girl. For girls it's a physically dangerous relationship. But, as you say, that makes no sense for guys, so for them "dangerous" is something else, something more like the wildly complex, emotionally demanding, and intellectually superior girls like in Paper Towns. That's why you don't really find Twilight readalikes for guys, because it takes a totally different kind of story to tap into the same sense of yearning for what you can never be--same emotion, but different manifestation.
As someone wrote me in an email as I was contemplating this post: "Girls are told they need to be pure and chaste and good and are in charge of keeping things that way. What if they just want to let go and forget it? It’s doing the wrong thing. And maybe guys who are told they must be macho and self-assured and whatever, just want a girl they can play mental games with instead of the physical games they are told to play?"
Makes me wonder about the feasibility of a book that focuses on a boy in a physically dangerous (romantic) situation.
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