Masquerades

Costumes are a big part of Halloween, which is a favorite American autumn pseudo holiday. I say pseudo because it’s not a legal holiday and no one gets the day off from their job. Well, wait. I know of at least one exception. I once worked with a woman who called herself a witch. The good kind, of course. She insisted on taking Halloween off, but would not take other, more common religious holidays. Management let her. You go, Paty. As I was saying. Halloween is a favorite American day and night of silly costumes, rustling in the dark, parties, and candy. Little children parade around in costumes at school, teachers dress up, and everywhere you go that day, you’ll find people doing their usual jobs wearing a costume. Or at least a silly hat. I myself am wearing my royal crown today. (No, I didn’t get it at Burger King. Mine is plastic, not paper.) Then there’s the trick or treating, where young children go door to door to have their costumes admired and receive candy. And finally, there are the parties. Bobbing for apples, going on hayrides, and playing games, plus costume contests. Adults hold costume parties that often are rowdy. Masquerade balls have always been a staple of high society, which does not mean that proper behavior was the rule. To the contrary; being in disguise tends to bring out the wildness in people. And of course in Venice and other Italian cities, the pre-Lent period of Carnival was traditionally a time for disguising oneself in a domino, an all-enveloping, loose cloak with a mask. Such masks have frequently covered up a lot of adultery and thuggery. You’ll still see characters wearing dominos in operas taking place prior to the 20th century. Mardi Gras in New Orleans continues the tradition of religiously-linked costumed revelry in North America, and Carnival in Rio de Janeiro is the longest. Bottom line, all of these masquerades involve frisky goings on. But for romance characters, the masquerade is a more purposeful event. Scared-but-excited heroines dare to be seen in revealing witch costumes à la Elvira, or strapless Wonder Woman uniforms, or short-skirted sexy nurse outfits (no orthopedic shoes allowed), or Princess Leia the Slave Girl metal bikinis. Why do heroines do it? Mostly in hopes of losing their inhibitions for just one night. Of being the belle of the ball. Of attracting attention as they never have felt comfortable dealing with in their regular lives. Do they get in trouble? You bet. Most romance heroines who wear sexy costumes attract exactly the kind of attention they can’t handle. And it all goes downhill from there. The virginal heroine suddenly has to make good on her slutty costume. Or run away from the handsome hero who takes her naughty wrapper for her real personality. It makes for a lot of fun in a romance. (Maybe not so much fun in real life if the outrageous costume is taken too seriously.) Flirting with a dangerous-looking man who’s dressed as a vampire could turn into an erotic encounter with a real vampire. And then, the masquerade ends and the heroine has to live with the consequences of her behavior. But romance heroines aren’t behaving a lot differently from regular office workers. Every year, the media carries stories of how managers need to outline in advance what costumes are acceptable at offices on Halloween. And send employees home to change if they don’t adhere to the dress code. Still, there’s always somebody who learns the hard way that a stripper outfit is not suitable office attire. Although heroes in romances usually dress in romantic costumes like knights or pirates, cross dressing can have its romantic side. Check out Georgette Heyer’s classic historical romance, The Masqueraders. Published in 1928, this is a romantic tale of a sister and brother who are hiding in plain sight in London society after the 1745 rebellion in Scotland. Their method? Switching genders. It’s a delightful comedy of manners that at the same time is extremely romantic. Today we’re more likely to see a hero or heroine as a spy in disguise, with romance not part of the original plan. The amazing part is when the female agent manages to pull micro-sized weapons out of her extremely tight or almost nonexistent costume. She’ll bemuse the competitive co-agent, entrap the lustful villain, and fulfill her mission despite the seeming impossibility of even moving in her costume. But there’s another kind of masquerade that is common in romances that does not involve Halloween or a grand ball. It’s the classic makeover. A hitherto-dowdy heroine gets a good wardrobe, a good haircut, and a chance to shine in her social sphere. And she makes the most of it, at first masquerading as a more confident woman. Then becoming one. Romances featuring this kind of situation are too numerous to cite specifically, but we’ve all read them. They can range from the simple country girl goes to town plot to a marriage or engagement of convenience, to any other plot device that requires that a modest-dressing heroine suddenly breaks out into a sexy new look. Sometimes, though, authors go overboard trying to establish a contrast. In Emilie Loring’s In Times Like These, the heroine is wearing mourning before she gets her new outfit. Mourning! In 1968! I don’t think so. Still, the heroine duly receives a Brand New Outfit, which makes her feel like a new woman and restores her feminine self-confidence. Not to mention makes the hero fall for her. And that’s the point of all this disguising. Regardless of the reason for running around Rio or New Orleans in a costume, the purpose of costumes in a romance is romance.

Is This Man a Romance Hero?

I found this photo stuck in an old novel that had been in the basement of a neighbor. My neighbor’s late wife of half a century had gotten the book at a yard sale, he thought. But who was this youngish man in the photo? A family member? A stranger? He’s well dressed, in a three-piece suit and a high collar. I’m not an expert on dress, but I’d guess from his hair parted in the middle that we’re talking sometime before 1935. A costume expert would know for sure. And was he young? Was he a “college man,” as they used to call them, home for the holidays, but nicely dressed because it was Thanksgiving? And because people did dress more formally eighty years ago? It’s an informal shot of a formally dressed man. He has some creases in his face, but I’m not sure if they indicate age, or merely that he has a thin, long face. He’s standing in front of a rock wall, and there might be a scarf hanging on a bare bush next to him. Or it might be part of a fence. His suit looks to be thick wool. Was he an accountant, a banker, an attorney? I took the photo back to the neighbor, and his elderly sister thought it might be “Frank.” A cousin, or brother, or something. So I gave them back the photo. But I had already been captivated by this image from so long ago. I’ve been captivated by images before, and in fact that’s a key plot event in many romances, especially in time travel, Gothic, and ghost stories. The heroine sees a portrait or a photograph of a person, and begins to wonder about the person and weave stories. And then investigate the person. And next thing you know, she travels back in time and has a romance with that handsome man in the portrait! Often in such stories, the portraits take on different aspects depending on the time of day, or upon some sort of ghostly possession of them. The eyes follow the heroine. The expression changes. Even the background alters. But having seen many portraits of well-known kings, queens, and courtiers, I am not so sure that portraiture in real life is accurate. People who commission paintings of themselves usually insist on being made ideal. Their figure faults and facial flaws are obliterated. In an era when many people were pock marked, for instance, seldom are marks seen in portraits. And was George Washington really as well muscled as the painters portray him? We’re so lucky to have photography now. We can see what a person looked like for real. Or is this true? Images can be manipulated by a skilled photographer even without air brushing and the myriad of computer retouching techniques. Just with the pose and the available light. So there’s a possibility that this man, who looks so seriously at the camera, was actually a fun-loving fellow who seldom was seen without a smile. Only this time, he was. We have all experienced instances of looking strange to ourselves in photos. It’s not so much the shock and denial of “Do I really look like that?” It’s more that the camera has created an image of us that we ordinarily do not project. A dark-haired baby can look blond. A doofus of a guy can look intelligent. With careful lighting, a person with a round head can appear to have a long head. Check out this early photo of Phil Collins, who despite the rock star treatment, persistently looks like a typical working class Brit with whom you’d raise a glass of ale in a pub anytime. But there was an effort to pretend he fit the skinny-faced mold of the typical rock star. When Garth Brooks had his flirtation with rock music, he did the same thing, trying to hide his full face half in shadows, so he would have the same familiar look of the alt rocker. It’s the same with height. The heroic paradigm is to be tall. And you will find that in most romances, the hero is the tallest person in the book. If he is not described as very tall, but is specifically said to be of average height, then no one else is described as taller than he is. And forget a hero who is short. I’ve yet to run across a single one. As for baldness, although I remember having a conversation with a romance writer who was pro baldness, I can’t offhand think of a single romance hero who is balding. Maybe today he’d have a shaved head. But no already-receded hairlines. It’s a hero thing. And it’s ironic, since baldness has to do with testosterone levels as well as with genetics. So the typical romance hero is tall, dark, and with a long face. Is my mystery man a romance hero? Hopefully he was to some woman.

Minx, We Hardly Knew Ye

Minx, a line of graphic novels aimed at teenage girls and introduced with much fanfare and a large budget by DC Comics in 2006, has been canceled. Much discussion about DC’s decision to throw in the towel after the line has been out a bare two years has centered on Minx’s dearth of female creators, its unfortunate placement in bookstores, and its lack of the fantasy elements so beloved by teenage girls. And people are wondering why DC Comics pulled the plug so quickly, since it was trying to carve out a completely new niche for realistic girls’ comics and needed to build an audience. There is no already-established audience for realistic teenage girls’ comics. There is a huge established audience for manga, but Minx was not manga. Apparently, some people got confused. They thought that girls who like pretty art with beautiful young men who look like fashion models (manga) would want to read deliberately realistic, even exaggeratedly awkward art with ugly young men who look like they’ve never matched a tie to a suit (Minx). No. Or at least, no to a huge immediate audience, and no to instant impact in the market. And now, by canceling the line, no to a chance to find that audience simply by being in the market long enough to earn a place. It’s not easy to start a new anything. In fact, 99% of all new businesses fail, usually due to a combination of marketing mistakes, sheer bad luck, and undercapitalization. But DC Comics is one of the big two comic book companies, and it has plenty of capital, access to marketing intelligence, and the ability to hire dedicated and creative people. Still, Minx ended up being treated the way comic books have always been treated: a quick in and a quick out if the title doesn’t instantly sell big. There was no time allowed for a slow build. DC could have scaled down its ambitions and kept on printing these books, albeit in smaller quantities. It even could afford to let Minx run completely in the red for years as a vanity project, burnishing the DC Comics reputation as a publisher all the while, until the audience found it or a lucrative movie deal put it in the black. Many a book and magazine publisher does just that, including DC Comics itself, which continues to publish Wonder Woman because of the value of its licensing and Hollywood potential. If a small press publisher had been producing the Minx books, you can bet that the publisher would have gotten a second job or mortgaged the house and kept on publishing them, possibly less often and only as money came in to justify another title. But large corporations don’t operate this way. Minx may be viewed as a balance sheet failure yet in reality it was a commitment failure at the highest decision-making levels. Even though DC got lots of good press for publishing them and the books themselves got fairly good reviews, only big sales would satisfy. Yet given time, the Minx books could have found a secure if small niche in the graphic novel world. What the lack of success--and quick demise--of Minx tells us is that if you want to do something different, you have to plan to build your audience yourself. You’re not going to be able to just take over some other audience that happens to be the age and the gender you want. Nor is success likely to occur instantly. But must it involve a huge outlay of capital? Not necessarily. Many dedicated small presses have sprung up, both Internet and Print on Demand, headed by individuals with a personal passion for publishing. Like MyRomanceStory.com. Instead of waiting for the big two comic book companies to come around to the idea of publishing romance comics for adult women, we have done it ourselves. So as painful as the cancellation of Minx is (think John Donne’s “any man’s death diminishes me”), all hope is not lost. We’re here. Others are out there. Sooner or later, it’s all going to come together in a big whoosh of success.