An academic-ish exploration of male heartthrob figures from popular culture (largely book and film) from the last century and a half. I have a lot of mixed feelings about the book. The writing is perfectly functional and the thesis is well laid out but I'm not sure Dyhouse really delivers. Her introduction discusses flipping the framing of popular culture into looking at what has appealed to women and while she outlines some examples and comes up with themes, she never really digs into the bigger question of WHY these figures were appealing. You can also tell her areas of specialty as Lord Byron comes up multiple times as does Rudolph Valentino but any male heartthrob figures that appeared after about 1950 tend to crop up only once in a paragraph or two. The book isn't bad but it wasn't what I was hoping for. YMMV. ( )

*I received a copy of this book from the publisher.*

This book manages to be both academic and enjoyable to read. Analyzing the different real and fiction figures that have captured the female imagination primarily over the past two centuries, this history displays the shifting trends and continuity of women's desire. Film, romance novels, and musicans make up the primary figures explored and the author is able to draw lines between Jane Austen's Mr. Darcy and Fifty Shades of Grey, making for fascinating analysis. An excellent read for those interested in this topic. ( )

I was a little apprehensive about reading this 'history of women and desire' - hence the secondhand copy full of annotations - because I hate hate HATE romance novels, historical or contemporary. Whenever my local library lists romances recently added to stock - with those awful, colour-coded covers and stock photos of bland couples - I think with a groan, 'This isn't literary fiction! Stop wasting catalogue space!' But I do like Jane Austen's novels, which are basically nineteenth century Mills and Boon (only better written), and did work my way through Baroness Orczy's entire Scarlet Pimpernel back catalogue, so I was also intrigued to learn how women's tastes in romantic fiction, on page and screen, have changed over the years.

And Carol Dyhouse delivers an interesting blend of fact and fiction. Yes, my literary bete noir Georgette Heyer makes more than one appearance, along with various Mills and Boon/Avon writers, but Austen and Anita Loos are there to balance the scales, along with popular romances with strong heroines like Gone With The Wind and Forever Amber. From the history of trashy novels to Fifty Shades, and Prince Charming to patriarchal power, Dyhouse covers the sordid history of women packaging the ideal man. The chapter on 'Power' reminded me why I hate what is possibly my own preconception of romance novels, however - women dream of being 'mastered' by men, and can forgive abusive men who wield emotional trauma as an excuse? Not in my book. Christian Grey and his mommy issues can tie a knot in it. But then, I'm the type of reader who prefers Darcy when he's being rude to everyone, rather than when he turns into Lizzie's lapdog, so the 'fantasy' of taming bad boys is not one I share.

Very informative and attractively packaged. I remain unconverted, however. ( )

Well, white Western women, from the nineteenth century on, but ok. Anyone who’s been through more than one round of ‘why cis women write and read slash’ and ‘rape fantasies are fantasies about desirability’ will find only additional anecdotes here, indicating that these issues have been bobbing about in Western culture since at least the rise of print. My favorites: “ ‘You start by sinking into his arms and it ends with your arms in his sink’” was a second-wave feminist slogan. “Late nineteenth-century observers spoke of a new disease affecting young women, which they dubbed ‘idolitis.’” Men have long scoffed at women’s representations of desirable men, and found something dangerous/effeminate about such men, expressing doubts about why Mr. Darcy and other iconic heroes created by women could possibly be so attractive. They derided Liberace for dressing flashily and loving his mother, both of which his female fans found appealing. By contrast, Queen Victoria dressed her consort Albert as her own fantasy prince, in medieval garb. (Also, women have long used fantasy to substitute for disappointing reality—that well precedes the internet, as Dyhouse’s investigation of various diaries and other documents shows.)

As with female authors, other female creators were often responsible for the public images of romantic movie stars—screenwriter June Mathis was the one who insisted that the mostly unknown Rudolph Valentino should be a star. “Her fellow studio executives were uneasy about Valentino’s Latin looks, but she stood firm, enlarging the role of Julio to showcase his dancing skills in the famous tango scene.” I recall a similar anecdote by Doris Egan about her and another woman’s insistence on casting Jensen Ackles against male exec resistance (and also I think about the cartoon where the male comics fan is made uncomfortable by the woman’s preference for a lean, big-eyed, soft-mouthed Batman). Mathis wrote the screenplay for another of his hits, and Dorothy Arzner edited the film, “mixing footage of bullfights with close-ups of Valentino strutting and smouldering.” Other women “famously schooled Valentino in how to make love to Gloria Swanson … [suggesting] that kissing the open palm, rather than the back of a woman’s hand, made the more sensuous statement.” Actress/producer Alla Nazimova tweaked his appearance, and his second wife, Natacha Rambova, a costume designer and photographer, also influenced his image—and contemporary critics mocked him as a “woman-made man.” Likewise, “[t]he enduring potency of Lord Byron as a kind of archetype has a great deal to do with the ways in which his particular style of masculinity seemed to bring together opposing qualities: he was courageous and bold but fussed about his diet and appearance; disconcertingly handsome but disarmingly insecure about being podgy and lame. Women were won over by this amalgam of strength and vulnerabilty, together with the subtle suggestion of androgyny.” The original floppy-haired boy, in other words.

I liked Dyhouse’s point that Orientalism worked differently for white women and white men: “Through [white] women’s eyes, it was often the Western male, measured against an image of the sensuality or masterful virility of the desert lover, who could be found wanting.” At the same time, female creators often tame dominant males by maiming, crippling, or blinding them—Dyhouse suggests that this is about establishing a kind of equality with the heroine, but I think the appeal of hurt/comfort also has to be factored in.

Dyhouse also discusses other writing on female desire/representations of desirable men, including Janice Radway’s classic Reading the Romance. Also Jane Miller, who discussed “why so many male critics have been dismissive of women writers’ attempts to depict male heroes”—Miller suggested that, for men, the hero’s life is “an exceptional life, garlanded with achievements,” while for female romance writer, a hero is more ordinary: a man who, “once committed to the heroine, gives shape to her life.” I’m not convinced, but ok. More persuasive to me was Barbara Cartland’s reference to women who married into wealthy, landed families as “marrying park gates”: a rich fantasy man offers entrée into a world that is still much harder for a woman to reach on her own merits. ( )