The ongoing problem of the Sexy Douchecanoe
February 20, 2016 2:02 AM   Subscribe

"The Sexy Douchecanoe isn’t an official trope, as such; at least, it’s not one that I often find people analyzing, subverting, and/or railing against. It is one, however, that I run into constantly because, while they’re often unfairly associated with strapping, half-dressed men on paperback covers, Sexy Douchecanoes actually pop up in every medium and every genre."
posted by MartinWisse (39 comments total) 18 users marked this as a favorite
 
I used to say to myself, why don't you give romance a try again? It's a women-owned genre, your friends write in it, it deserves respect! So I'd go to the store or library and say, one romance please! And then I'd remember why. It's THIS GUY. I have a lot of terrible ingrained ideas about love, but at least I've always realized that jerks are just jerks, especially if they're famously promiscuous and wealthy, which are often also true of these characters.

I realized I actually do like love stories because of fanfic, just like the author, and because of a few outliers that weren't traditional romance. The commenters on this article, despite their "how very dare you" attitude, offer a number of romance recs that they say don't have this problem.

(It's a shame about Uprooted, too. Everything else about that novel is so rich and wonderful.)
posted by Countess Elena at 2:37 AM on February 20, 2016 [6 favorites]


What is an "official" trope and who makes it official?
posted by robcorr at 2:48 AM on February 20, 2016 [2 favorites]


Official tropes wear little hats, have their own bank accounts, and have appeared in at least ten shitty animes.
posted by nom de poop at 3:03 AM on February 20, 2016 [48 favorites]


At the risk of ruining your life, official tropes are the ones on TV Tropes.
posted by graymouser at 3:04 AM on February 20, 2016 [16 favorites]


I'm not sure that either Jane Eyre or Rebecca is a fair example, as you're supposed to come away from both going, "Wow, these people are seriously fucked up." Like, they're ABOUT how young, naive women talk themselves into staying with horrible douchecanoes despite their underlying unease about their horrible douchcanoe-ness that cannot be masked by their wealth and handsomeness. (Jane Eyre's denoument is pretty culturally-bound and hard to judge by modern standards, but while I think it fits the trope of the period of "total redemption," I think Bronte wants us to feel uneasy about that "redemption" and about whether Jane is right to take him back. It's a little Crime-and-Punishment-esque, where you CAN read it as a straightforward redemption and a clean novelistic ending, but that maybe means you didn't pay attention to the novel up until that point ... they're both self-subverting.)

This is why I prefer historical romances to contemporaries, though: there's such limited options for the heroines, and attitudes are so old-timey, that you can make your douchecanoes into protofeminists and they can seem like the best of bad options for the heroines. "Okay, he may have killed your entire family in the Norman invasion and you may be forced to marry him because you're war booty but he seems NOT TERRIBLE compared to all the other men in this novel because at least he follows war rules and isn't rapey, and it's not like you can GO anywhere." Whereas in a contemporary you're like, "Go to therapy! Get a job! This guy sucks!"
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 3:57 AM on February 20, 2016 [39 favorites]


I mean, on the one hand I can't disagree with anything she says about this particular trope. These characters are in fact assholes. The fact that they are appealing says troubling things about the patriarchy.

That being said, she admits that she reads no romance and then goes on to analyze the genre based on J. D. Robb (who writes romance under her other name, but the Robb books are mysteries), two books which pre-date the modern romance genre, and Naomi Novik's Uprooted (which is SF/F and has been criticized in the genre for exactly this issue). None of these things are romance.

I mean, just looking at my shelves, I could suggest a bunch of specific titles by Georgette Heyer (A Civil Contract! Cotillion!) and Courtney Milan that either don't feature this trope or actively subvert it.

In conclusion, here is a link to Kate Beaton and Dude-Watchin' with the Brontes.
posted by pie ninja at 5:22 AM on February 20, 2016 [26 favorites]


As for Uprooted, yes, but it IS a standard Beauty and the Beast narrative. And he disappears for a good hunk of the book! It really is so well written. OK, I guess she is right. It would have been a better book if he hadn't ended up with our awesome heroine. Ug.
posted by Malla at 5:37 AM on February 20, 2016


Ugh, yeah. Rebecca is not a romance. It is a goddamn horror novel. Such an airless, awful, toxic relationship, and I cannot believe for a minute that wasn't the reading du Maurier intended.

Now I am wondering if that is a factor of me reading it for the first time at 40 rather than 14.
posted by arha at 5:45 AM on February 20, 2016 [14 favorites]


And for the love of God do not invoke Wuthering Heights and then admit you have not even bothered to read it. Sheesh.
posted by arha at 5:47 AM on February 20, 2016 [14 favorites]


I think Charlotte Bronte's Christianity is proving to be a stumbling block here--Mr. Rochester's "redemption" isn't secular, and it's not playing by secular rules about fairness and the like. Some critics read the ending in ironic terms, but it's been difficult to sustain that line of argument. Wuthering Heights, on the other hand, definitely doesn't recommend Heathcliff as anyone's ideal romantic partner. And I agree that Rebecca--which is a rewrite of Jane Eyre, after all--is not exactly about a happy relationship. Given how dull and kind of miserable Maxim and the second Mrs. De Winter are in the prologue, it's kind of hard to see how it could be.
posted by thomas j wise at 5:59 AM on February 20, 2016 [1 favorite]


This was a terrible article on every level.

It was framed as being about romance as a genre, but only included maybe one romance novel as such (I haven't read that book and have no idea). It actively misunderstood three other novels.

And it didn't even do anything like "Trope Anatomy 101", it said "here's a trope I don't like[1] and it is the reason I don't like a specific genre[2], but this (male) friend of mine said he liked it so I will give it a shot".

But lo, this trope I hate is everywhere[3] and no one ever talks about it, discusses it, subverts it[4], and I am going to discuss it. First I will bring up a book I read many years ago, then I will bring up a book I misunderstood, a book I didn't read, and another book I misunderstood. When I bring these and other books or tv shows up, I will do a surface level description of the plot and describe how it fits into this trope. What I won't do is actually delve into anything about the trope -- what is its history? Why do people still find it appealing? How do people work with it at a deeper level? How does the trope of alpha male in romance intersect with alpha males who are PUAs?

The concept of this -- trope anatomy 101, featuring the asshole hero -- could have been interesting. There is a lot to say about how it is a sort of heir to characters like Mr. Rochester or Mr. Darcy. There are interesting things to say about how some romances still use it, how the genre talks about it. There are interesting things to say about why it's common in all genres. There are interesting things to say about why some people like it, about how the change ni what an asshole hero does says about the society we're in.

None of that was said in this piece, though. (There was a fascinating exchange between Foz Meadows, pro this article, and a bunch of other people including Amal El-Mohtar and Courtney Milan, anti it, on twitter.)

[1] It is of course fair to have tropes you don't like.
[2] It is also fair to dislike any given genre, even if you can't point to a specific reason, and even if you are a woman and you are disliking a female-dominated genre that is typically looked down on.
[3] Yup.
[4] What? No. Just because you neglected to research this doesn't mean that it doesn't happen; it happens all the time. Not under your term that you just made up, of course.
posted by jeather at 6:04 AM on February 20, 2016 [22 favorites]


I'm actually finding the comments of the article worth reading. There's one response that has a line that I want to pull out and use all the time for other things: "Presenting your ignorance of the conversation as a gap in the conversation makes many of us feel silenced and erased."
posted by JustKeepSwimming at 6:16 AM on February 20, 2016 [30 favorites]


I really wish the author of this article hadn't framed it in terms of the romance genre, because the idea of the Sexy Douchecanoe trope when it appears in media that isn't part of the genre is a really good one. But over in romance fandom, we've been discussing this guy for years. The very first comment to that article has it--the "alphahole" or "alphole" is pretty much the romance fandom term of art for an "alpha male" hero who has either blurred or crossed the line between alpha and asshole.

As a romance fan who strongly dislikes alpha heroes for the most part (there are exceptions) I also take exception to people who write off the genre due to picking up some random books and ending up with books with alpha male heroes. We have the Internet now! There are so many romance blogs and reviewers now; just look up a book and see what people are saying about it.
posted by Electric Elf at 6:44 AM on February 20, 2016 [11 favorites]


I'd love to see someone explore why the idea of the sexy douchecanoe is appealing -- and why some sexy douchecanoes seem to be more appealing than others*. When I first read Jane Eyre, I found Rochester tremendously attractive. I will defend Jane Eyre as a novel to all comers, usually starting by quoting Adrienne Rich's amazing essay on the piece, but Rochester is a piece of work. I understand why he didn't tell Jane about Bertha and decided to marry her illegally. It's the smaller stuff that makes me go um. Like dressing up like a gypsy to find out if she really likes him. And the entire parade of bringing Blanche and her family over to make Jane jealous. Not only is that unfair to Blanche (who may be a jerk, but still), it's a tremendous amount of work for your small staff. There are far less manipulative ways for you to get what you want, Rochester. I really wonder what it is about him specifically that appealed to me.

My best guess about this in light of other fictional romances I love that don't feature douchecanoes is that he fell in love with Jane's mind and personality. The book goes to great lengths to explain that neither one of them is particularly attractive. They also enjoy each others' wit in a way that I didn't see in other novels that I read as a teenager. And that's pretty heady stuff for a girl who felt horribly awkward in her own body -- unlike Jane, I felt I was too tall and too fat and took up too much space -- but I wanted for someone to be attracted to me because I was witty and smart. (Well, actually, I would still like that.)

For me personally, the adoration of Rochester didn't span out into other more bland Byronic hero types. I've been turned off of many a book because I was told by the author that this is our romantic hero. You can tell because he is brooding and has a dark secret. He and our heroine will fall dramatically in love with each other instantly. And then you will throw the book at the wall because all you wanted to read was a satisfying urban fantasy book about ghosts and this was wedged into it. There are plenty of books where the douchecanoe hero turns it into a "okay... I guess I'm going to not finish this." And then there are some where I finish it despite the trope, such as Uprooted, which I really enjoyed on a lot of other levels.

I think the answer is to explore romance more and see if I can find some books with romances that appeal to me, instead of being really annoyed at the fictional romances that popup in my non-romance genre books. Or perhaps do both at the same time.

* It sounds like this is out there. I am going to look at romance blogs. Any recommendations?
posted by JustKeepSwimming at 6:50 AM on February 20, 2016 [7 favorites]


If you want a good intro romance blog you probably can't beat Dear Author though there are a million other worthy ones.
posted by zymil at 6:52 AM on February 20, 2016 [1 favorite]


I recently re-read both "Jane Eyre" and "Wuthering Heights" after having last read both in my teens. Teen-age self, I do not blame you for completely misunderstanding these books, but please shut up and wait until you've had a life before re-reading and discussing them. Middle-aged self, do not write a smug article before re-reading them *again*.
posted by acrasis at 6:56 AM on February 20, 2016 [7 favorites]


What is the name of the trope where you consume a creative work without realizing that the creator wasn't necessarily endorsing the behavior of the characters they write about, then declare the work problematic because the characters are pretty awful? I see this multiple times on a weekly basis at the moment, it feels like.
posted by oliverburkeman at 7:57 AM on February 20, 2016 [24 favorites]


Excellent comment from Tessa Dare in the comments on the article:
I grew up on Rochester and Darcy, and I found those books incredibly compelling. Not because I loved the heroes’ jerktastic behavior, but because the heroes had their jerktastic asses HANDED to them by young women (Jane, Elizabeth) who possessed zero power or agency other than what they asserted from their inner selves. That’s why this trope spoke, and continues to speak, to me – it’s the idea that a woman can come face to face with Patriarchy Personified and, within 300-or-so pages, bring him to his knees. I do not read the trope as “Sexy Douchecanoes and the Women Who Settle For Them,” but as “Sexy Douchecanoes and the Women Who Utterly Lay Them Waste.”

The author of the article really misreads the classic romance (or non-romance) books, probably because, as she admits, never having read some of them, or only remembering them from high school assignments. I still hate Jane Eyre, but this reading of the book is a much needed perspective. And I love Wuthering Heights, partly because the swooning, brooding romance ends in all the misery they deserve (and then some).
posted by carrioncomfort at 8:04 AM on February 20, 2016 [15 favorites]


Jane Eyre is about a plain, poor, intelligent woman stuck in 19th century England who wants a satisfying sex life and independence and manages to acquire both. She avoids the trap of having to become either a mistress or a virtuous married slave through luck and determination. Poor Bertha is relegated to a plot device, because Bronte was of her time, but even if she hadn't been, Jane is pretty clear that she wants love, familial and romantic love, and Rochester is her only hope of that.
posted by emjaybee at 8:25 AM on February 20, 2016 [14 favorites]




I disagree that people aren't aware of sexy jerk as a trope. And the only reason "sexy douchecanoe" could be considered not an "official" trope is that it's a category you can actually break down into bad boy, rich alpha guy, controlling mentor, broken genius, and so on.
posted by Squeak Attack at 8:48 AM on February 20, 2016 [2 favorites]


What is the name of the trope where you consume a creative work without realizing that the creator wasn't necessarily endorsing the behavior of the characters they write about, then declare the work problematic because the characters are pretty awful?

I dunno, but it should probably include some reference to Lolita in the name. (I'm actually surprised that TVTropes doesn't have a trope for this. At least, not one that I could immediately identify on its list of Criticism Tropes.)
posted by tobascodagama at 9:18 AM on February 20, 2016 [1 favorite]


"My best guess about this in light of other fictional romances I love that don't feature douchecanoes is that he fell in love with Jane's mind and personality. The book goes to great lengths to explain that neither one of them is particularly attractive. They also enjoy each others' wit in a way that I didn't see in other novels that I read as a teenager."

Rochester is one weird dude. Very, very weird. Then again, Jane kinda is in her own way, and despite their differences, they appreciate that in each other. And in this world, it's kind of a miracle that any guy at all would go for Jane as well, so keep that in mind. Especially if he prefers her to hot and rich women. Especially if her other option for marriage is St. John, who is shudderingly awful despite being what we're supposed to think of as a very good dude. Who makes it clear he wants Jane around as his assistant who will work herself to death and nothing more. UGH. I vote for the part-time jerk over the full-time ass when it comes to those two, no question.

Yeah, I would concur that this article wasn't very good. I don't get the appeal of douche heroes really*, but there are plenty of romance writers out there who don't write douche heroes and I'm sure lots of us could recommend some if anyone's interested.**

* Usually what this boils down to is, "This guy is a jerk to everyone else BUT NOT ME BECAUSE HE LOVES ME AND I'M SPESHUL," except once your New Cow wears off, he'll start treating you like crap like he does everyone else....but that's after the book ends.

** I can't wait until Jennifer Crusie spots this article. I bet she has Thoughts.

posted by jenfullmoon at 10:02 AM on February 20, 2016 [2 favorites]


Trope or not, "douchecanoe" is one awesome word.
posted by Lyme Drop at 10:15 AM on February 20, 2016 [4 favorites]


Especially if her other option for marriage is St. John, who is shudderingly awful despite being what we're supposed to think of as a very good dude. Who makes it clear he wants Jane around as his assistant who will work herself to death and nothing more.

My favorite bit about that is that she is like, ok, if God wants me to work myself to death for him, I can do that. But St. John will only take her as his wife and she actually says she "has no doubt that he will scrupulously observe all the forms of marital love" meaning, he will insist on sex. Horrible, horrible sex. And she's also afraid she might end up coming to love him in a twisted way, even though he is incapable of loving her. A remarkably clear understanding of what abusive relationships are like. And that's where she draws the line and insists on her own bodily and mental/emotional freedom that St. John is absolutely incapable of understanding, because he's an actual monster. But it being the 19th century she has to add a lot of pious window-dressing language about him because she can't just come out and say, "Yep, this minister guy is a real shitbag."

Rochester is no threat to her on that score, which makes him the better choice. Those are pretty much her only two choices, if she wants to marry (and have sex) at all.

It's true that lots of romance novels looked at Rochester and saw only "Women like rich dudes who are kind of fucked up and abusive!" and ran with that. But they are written by people who aren't overeducated 19th-century women with an unfortunate ability to see just how limited their choices are, so therefore the nuance is missed.

Were Bronte writing today, she wouldn't write the same kind of novel, though she would maybe address the same themes of submission/domination, bodily and mental autonomy, struggling against prejudice, creating your own family, and dealing with the blunt injustices of capitalism.
posted by emjaybee at 10:36 AM on February 20, 2016 [9 favorites]


I'm browsing on an iPhone and this site tried to launch something in the App Store when I opened the link.
posted by Sangermaine at 10:38 AM on February 20, 2016


Sangermaine: "I'm browsing on an iPhone and this site tried to launch something in the App Store when I opened the link."

Probably a douchecanoe.
posted by Splunge at 12:17 PM on February 20, 2016 [1 favorite]


I do not understand the etymology of "douchecanoe", or why that’s a good descriptive phrase. Why not words that describe the character, like many in this discussion, rather than two random words put together? Tamponboat?

What is the name of the trope where you consume a creative work without realizing that the creator wasn't necessarily endorsing the behavior of the characters they write about, then declare the work problematic because the characters are pretty awful?

God yes.
posted by bongo_x at 12:49 PM on February 20, 2016


Something similar was satirized by the onion.

Since there are folks on here who DO read real romance novels I'm curious. Can you recommend something for someone who is irked both by assholes and alphas?
posted by poe at 12:49 PM on February 20, 2016


" Can you recommend something for someone who is irked both by assholes and alphas?"

You may need to narrow down a tiny bit ... romance is such a mammoth genre. Like, to start with, how explicit is too explicit? (They come in a range from "no touching before marriage evangelical christian romances" to "hardcore BDSM explicit sex romances.") Do you have feelings in general on historical vs. contemporary novels? (If you have no patience for medieval settings in general, it's no good if we suggest medieval romances.) And how do you feel about the supernatural? There's a whole booming subgenre of vampires and magic and ESP romance; people either like that, or they don't. (I love fantasy novels, and I love romance novels, but fantasy romance novels are not my thing AT ALL.)

And this is easier to tell once you've read a little romance, but I find it helpful to think about what subgenre I would least mind to read a TERRIBLE romance novel in. I have infinite patience for Regency, Victorian, or medieval romances that are GOD AWFUL and I will enjoyable hate-read to mock, but a bad contemporary just irritates me and there's no fun in it. When someone tells me it's the BEST vampire urban contemporary romance ever written, I'm more skeptical because if it's even a little imperfect I probably won't like it very much; but if someone's raving about a great regency romance, I'll probably like it even if the heroine's a dishrag because of my infinite patience for regencies.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 1:10 PM on February 20, 2016 [4 favorites]


What is an "official" trope and who makes it official?

If someone told you that someone'd have to kill you.

Because a fundamental tenet of trope judgment is denying its existence.

But sometimes, three people of diverse occupation, heritage or even species will convene in a drinking establishment to make a trope official.
posted by sylvanshine at 1:14 PM on February 20, 2016 [1 favorite]




Am I misremembering Uprooted? (spoilers follow) I distinctly remember liking it because it was clear how abusive he was, and was glad that the arc was not about romance between them, but instead about her coming into her own power and deciding exactly how much of him she wanted in her life, on her terms.
posted by Nothing at 2:58 PM on February 20, 2016 [2 favorites]


The article on the same blog that this piece is sort-of responding to is much more useful. Sunil Patel – I Read a Bunch of Romance Novels and You Should Too. Patel focuses on Courtney Milan's Brothers Sinister books, which are completely awesome (and we had a good ask about what to read after those. Also a good related discussion about feminism and romance previously.)
posted by asperity at 4:40 PM on February 20, 2016 [1 favorite]


Once she got into her Douchecanoe thesis about controlling behavior & whatnot, I kept thinking, "Man, this is just like when I tried to watch...hey, she's talking about Scandal!"

I tried. I wanted to like that show. The first couple episodes presented this concept of "Like the West Wing except completely trashy!" and I was on board. Except from his very first scene, the president was a fucking creeper. Like full stop This Is Not A Good Guy stuff.

And every episode I watched, I was like, "I'm supposed to sympathize with this guy how? He's fucking awful!" I had other big problems with Scandal -- torture porn, inconsistent writing, writers focusing on the wrong characters, whatever -- but the Olivia/Fitz stuff was an absolute deal-breaker for me. The show wanted me to get invested in a relationship that was simply not okay by any stretch, and a "romantic hero" who was anything but romantic or heroic.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 4:54 PM on February 20, 2016 [4 favorites]


I can do this sort of analysis too.

"What the hell is wrong with Science Fiction? I haven't read any, but how can people take seriously a genre that's all about glorifying militarism and imperialism? I mean, for example, let's look at HG Well's "War of the Worlds"...
posted by happyroach at 6:03 PM on February 20, 2016 [4 favorites]


Okay, author recommendations where I am pretty sure I've never read any douchecanoes as heroes:
* Jennifer Crusie (contemporary/occasionally fantasy-ish)
* Lani Diane Rich/Lucy March (pen name) (contemporary/occasionally fantasy-ish)
* Julia Quinn (historical/Regency--I can't recall any major douchecanoes in anything of hers I've read but I don't think I've read them all)
* Lauren Willig's Pink Carnation series (haven't read much of her other books, features "flower spies"/"sequels" to Scarlet Pimpernel)
* Rachel Schurig (contemporary/New Adult, okay, maybe one book features someone who is somewhat douchey but gets over it that I've seen so far)
* Sarina Bowen (contemporary/New Adult)
* E.M. Tippetts (contemporary/New Adult)

There are some other authors that sometimes write douchecanoes and mostly don't, but I won't mention them here.
posted by jenfullmoon at 7:15 PM on February 20, 2016 [5 favorites]


Rebecca is a Romance, really? I had no idea, it reads like a horror story to me, which I'd always assumed was the author's intention (and regardless of same- it still reads that way to me). In Wuthering Heights- Cathy and Heathcliff are both really dreadful people and the only thing approaching the much vaunted and Romance-defining HEA (happily ever after) is hinted at with the next generation. More of a tiny seedling of hope appearing in a desert than your typical HEA.

As for Uprooted- the heroine comes to like Sarkan despite his terrible behavior, which she spends large chunks of the novel explicitly calling him out on, not because of it. In the end (SPOILER) they are able to save their world together only because he realises the error of his ways and can bring himself to follow her leadership, he is willing to lose everything in order to help her as she takes over what was formerly his sole task. And, they don't exactly end up together! Reconciled, yes, together, not so much. I agree he's a deeply flawed character, but there may be some other "category errors" going on.
posted by Coaticass at 8:48 PM on February 20, 2016 [3 favorites]


A highly enjoyable commentary on the Alphahole trope from author Ilona Andrews.
posted by Coaticass at 11:54 AM on February 23, 2016 [4 favorites]


« Older Emma Watson and bell hooks Talk Feminism in Paper...   |   Swooce Into Skooks Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments