Rants against things I don't get: The Phantom of the Opera

[sevenswells]

So recently there's been a few (a lot) of crossover fanarts Sherlock/The Phantom of the Opera. I have to say, I am horrified.


Why do people like the Phantom's character? Why do people think it's a "beautiful love story"? I don't get it. The same people might shun Twilight because the main female character gets repeatedly abused by the main male character who's a total dick, which is true, but they don't see that the Phantom of the Opera is the exact same shit -- no, actually it's even worse.


The Phantom is a murderer, a psychopath, a blackmailer, a stalker, a kidnapper, a thief, a terrorist -- there is absolutely no redeeming quality about him, he's as ugly on the inside as he is on the outside. If Christine feels any love for him, then she must have developed some serious Stockholm syndrome. Granted he taught her how to sing, but that just gave him a Pygmalion complex and he thinks he owns her, because of course he would also be jealous and possessive on top of it all. What a cock.


Then there's the Quasimodo complex. Why do beautiful women must absolutely fall in love with ugly men who love them? Why do they have to make the special effort to "see their inner beauty"? Because if Esmeralda doesn't love Quasimodo back, well then she's a superficial bitch. Throughout countless stories, ugly guys force their love upon beautiful women and those women are supposed to do all the work and appreciate their personality in return and overcome the ugliness that they see. While those guys certainly didn't fall for said women because they liked their conversation and wits in the first place.
Although Quasimodo did have, supposedly, a pure, beautiful soul inside a monstrous body. Which, again, is completely NOT the case with the Phantom.
And what if the Phantom was an ugly woman instead of a man? An ugly, murdering, thieving, stalking (etc etc) woman who kidnaps and mind-fucks a handsome male singer? I'm pretty sure nobody would have found excuses for her and thought that their "love story" was "beautiful".



What is it about the Phantom of the Opera, seriously?

Comments

[kamexkame.livejournal.com]

Precision: I know nothing about the Phantom of The Opera.

So I'm raptly reading your post and get to '
The Phantom is a murderer, a psychopath, a blackmailer, a stalker, a kidnapper, a thief, a terrorist' and masochistic me goes oooooooooooooooooooooooooooh (with some faint puzzlement in the background as to why you object to such an outstanding character) and then you go on: 'he's as ugly on the inside as he is on the outside'.

And I'm like 'oh'.

Ahem.

So then I was going to feel lousy for being all superficial (thank you for not noting how I could apparently care less that I am masochistic ;p).

But then I read the rest of your post and I figure it's fair for me to be my own Quasimodette.

:)

[kamexkame.livejournal.com]

Slightly more seriously, I think women have been subjected to so much patriarchal bullshit over the ages that they got tired of feeling all helpless about it so then they went like, you know what, I loooooove it, give it to me, I'll lap it up. Jennifer Lopez would add Papi at the end. And Britney Spears would go hit me baby one more time.

Something like that.

Since women are gonna get the bullshit anyway, maybe it's a matter of feeling less powerless?

But most women still want to identify with beautiful figures for themselves, ones which have grandeur d'âme and pureness of heart and the potential to appear on Vogue's September issue. Like, "he's a 100% asshole and yet magnificent me still loves him! Aren't I amazing, body and soul? I'm such a superior being". And a lot of us (I think) like the idea of being the object of obsession. It's a situation that also gives the feminine figure a large measure of power over the man.

I totally agree that a lot of it is men trying to brainwash us into thinking their beer belly is the best while we should go on striving to give them bones and boobs, but I was trying to think of what could be in it for the women.

Dude, I dunno ;p. I'm totally just using serious issues as excuses to use my icon here.

[sevenswells.livejournal.com]

And a lot of us (I think) like the idea of being the object of obsession. It's a situation that also gives the feminine figure a large measure of power over the man.

Very true, and I agree with the rest of your reply, that was what I was trying to say too: what could be in it for the women? That IS the question.

[sevenswells.livejournal.com]

(with some faint puzzlement in the background as to why you object to such an outstanding character)

Dude, no. I'm as susceptible as any other girl to a "bad boy" character, but there's a difference between "bad boy" and "giant prick with a frankly disturbing behaviour and no redeeming quality". Plus I can't abide the stalking thing (yeah, maybe all the rest, whatever, but I don't like stalkers)(!).

But, yeah, okay, it's a universal truth that women are prone to forgive assholes when they're good-looking, especially when they're good-looking (which is exactly the case in Twilight: replace Edward with a fat ugly creepy guy and see if Bella doesn't immediately call the police or stake the motherfucker instead of fawning all over him). Well their good looks make at least ONE thing going on for those guys, doesn't it? Which makes this Phantom situation all the more incomprehensible to me. WHY DO PEOPLE LIKE HIM???

And because of you I tried to imagine, what if Toreth was a fat ugly creepy guy would I still love him like I do... I could argue that being handsome is entirely constituent of his personality, which can be argued to be true, but in truth of truths maybe, MAYBE I wouldn't love him as much. But I also know I can fall in love with guys that aren't good-looking just because they're awesome. Like this guy:



Or this guy:



(granted they're not particularly repulsive but I can't say they would normally be my type)
Or Tyrion, when he was still a cool character in the books. And I know you loved Tyrion too, don't lie.

And the sad thing is, I do think that women can do that more easily than men.