Episode 242 - The Boyfriend School

[grudlian. 4725]

5 minutes ago, Quasar Sniffer said:

This struck me as especially strange, since I've actually had jellyfish salad and it's very inoffensive tasting, mostly it's a delivery device for sauce or dressing. It'd be like vomiting over eating iceberg lettuce.

ROMAINE LETTUCE OR NOTHING!!!!!

5 minutes ago, Quasar Sniffer said:

This struck me as especially strange, since I've actually had jellyfish salad and it's very inoffensive tasting, mostly it's a delivery device for sauce or dressing. It'd be like vomiting over eating iceberg lettuce.

And @Cameron H., I thought the EXACT same thing about Shakespearean comedies. I thought it was interesting since, reading Shakespeare and romance novels are such aesthetically different experiences, but this movie sort of merged the two. I'm not saying it was successful, but it was a neat idea.

I know there is a LOT of the movie before Mr. Gute shows up as Lobo, but I think his sister's motivations would be better explained if we got more backstory on what his character was before his illness. Maybe even, for example, Shelly Long tries to hang a picture of her brother atop his Harley in the Andes mountains to remind him that, five years ago, he traveled from Alaska to South America on an epic multi-continent motorcycle/mountain-climbing trip just before he got sick. But now, he's in recovery and he shows no signs of that fearlessness and daring coming back. In fact, he's sinking deeper into depression than he ever was while sick, so Long is just desperate to make her brother well again and she sees this opportunity to contrive a romance as a way to force her brother into mental and physical health, even if they both have to "fake it until they make it," which does occur by the end anyway.

I agree that there's a lot missing. Since the author admitted to writing a weak script, I wonder if the book fills in a lot of motivation (I have to assume not enough to justify anyone's story here but maybe a little).

[Robert Denby 103]

11 hours ago, HelloooNurse said:

I have to second the person who mentioned the dance. I didn’t have the captions on but I thought it was The Shag as well. I’m from N.C., so that’s something I have heard of.

Also, what’s gonna happen with the motorcycle that Jaime Gertz literally just left in the hands of some poor airline employee? 

You know, Paul mentioned Annabeth Gish wanting to be a part of an HDTGM, and she was in a movie called “Shag: The Movie.” A tenuous connection, but a sixties beach movie made in 1989 seems like it could be a good episode.

[Cameron H. 23786]

17 hours ago, vrbm said:

Surprised it didn't come up more in the episode. Lobo's accent is a mess and several times it veers into a bad Australian accent. The kind of bad Australian accent people often think is a good Australian accent. 

In this clip (from about 1.01) you can hear what sounds like a didgeridoo as part of the soundtrack/score. The didgeridoo is an Indigenous Australian instrument, not a Maori instrument. 

Yes, his accent is terrible, but I believe the movie does a pretty good job of accounting for it. Initially, they attempt other accents , but since he's so inept at mimicry she throws up her hands and decides on a New Zealand accent because it's an accent that "nobody knows." And in all honesty, I'm willing to bet a New Zealand accent would be difficult to pinpoint in 1990's Charleston, South Carolina. There wasn't really a Peter Jackson, Jemaine Clement, or Taika Waititi blowing up pop culture at the time, and the Internet was essentially non-existent. There really wouldn't be a convenient way for Gertz to verify if the accent he was doing was good or not if she'd never been exposed to it.

And while I'm on the topic, I also wanted to add that a lot of the complaints people have had about Gertz's terrible reporting skills can also really be attributed to the lack of Internet. We're spoiled to have omniscient supercomputers in our pockets at all time, that we sometimes forget that in the old days, people actually had to dig for crap if they wanted to know something. Gertz only hangs out with Lobo a couple of times over the course of maybe a week, and he doesn't really do anything that would really prompt her to go looking into his story. Why spend hours at the library routing through microfiche to check up on the story of a person you already trust?

The only real ding I have against her journalistic skills is her not recognizing Long next to the cut out of her at Loveboree, but maybe this was actually to set up that she isn't all that great remembering faces--which would actually help explain why she isn't immediately able to recognize "Lobo" as Gus. 

 

[sycasey 2.0 2301]

18 minutes ago, Cameron H. said:

The only real ding I have against her journalistic skills is her not recognizing Long next to the cut out of her at Loveboree, but maybe this was actually to set up that she isn't all that great remembering faces--which would actually help explain why she isn't immediately able to recognize "Lobo" as Gus. 

Being bad at remembering faces would seem to be a problem for a reporter though.

[Cameron H. 23786]

9 minutes ago, sycasey 2.0 said:

Being bad at remembering faces would seem to be a problem for a reporter though.

That’s why I said it was a mark against her. I’m just saying that it’s possible it may have been set up specifically to provide plausibility and to prime the audience to suspend their disbelief.

[grudlian. 4725]

1 hour ago, Cameron H. said:

Yes, his accent is terrible, but I believe the movie does a pretty good job of accounting for it. Initially, they attempt other accents , but since he's so inept at mimicry she throws up her hands and decides on a New Zealand accent because it's an accent that "nobody knows." And in all honesty, I'm willing to bet a New Zealand accent would be difficult to pinpoint in 1990's Charleston, South Carolina. There wasn't really a Peter Jackson, Jemaine Clement, or Taika Waititi blowing up pop culture at the time, and the Internet was essentially non-existent. There really wouldn't be a convenient way for Gertz to verify if the accent he was doing was good or not if she'd never been exposed to it.

Weird that you mention Jermaine Clement specifically. He was used in commercials for the "Australian" restaurant Outback before he got big. I don't think he did much to change his accent for the ads.

[ChunkStyle 1160]

I thought the relationship between Shelley Long's character and her husband seemed really good but there was just one thing that was very weird.  When Gus pulls up for the blind date and is in his car struggling to put on his wig there is an off camera conversation (that I would have not caught without watching with subtitles) where Long's husband is learning for the first time that he was the inspiration for the male leads of all of those romance novels.  So after 15+ novels is Gertz the first person to ever ask a question about them?  How could he have possibly gone so long without knowing that?

[DrGuts1003 462]

20 minutes ago, ChunkStyle said:

I thought the relationship between Shelley Long's character and her husband seemed really good but there was just one thing that was very weird.  When Gus pulls up for the blind date and is in his car struggling to put on his wig there is an off camera conversation (that I would have not caught without watching with subtitles) where Long's husband is learning for the first time that he was the inspiration for the male leads of all of those romance novels.  So after 15+ novels is Gertz the first person to ever ask a question about them?  How could he have possibly gone so long without knowing that?

I don’t know what’s harder to believe, that he never realized before that she used him as her inspiration for a character in her book or that she thought he is a good choice to base a romance novel character after.

[grudlian. 4725]

 

30 minutes ago, ChunkStyle said:

I thought the relationship between Shelley Long's character and her husband seemed really good but there was just one thing that was very weird.  When Gus pulls up for the blind date and is in his car struggling to put on his wig there is an off camera conversation (that I would have not caught without watching with subtitles) where Long's husband is learning for the first time that he was the inspiration for the male leads of all of those romance novels.  So after 15+ novels is Gertz the first person to ever ask a question about them?  How could he have possibly gone so long without knowing that?

How the fuck is Shelley Long's husband the inspiration for her novels and her build for an ideal man all women would immediately fall for its a New Zealand biker named Lobo? How are the guy we seen on screen and Lobo remotely similar?

[Cameron H. 23786]

24 minutes ago, grudlian. said:

 

How the fuck is Shelley Long's husband the inspiration for her novels and her build for an ideal man all women would immediately fall for its a New Zealand biker named Lobo? How are the guy we seen on screen and Lobo remotely similar?

I know that when I’m writing, and I’m “inspired” by someone or something, I’m usually referring to a specific aspect or trait, which I will then heighten for whatever fictional character I’m creating.

For example, she might, say, be inspired by his stoic demeanor while slaying a bathroom spider and use that in a book she’s writing about a knight fighting a dragon. Using someone as inspiration isn’t the same as casting. And that’s why he might be surprised, too. He might not see himself in the sexy rogues she writes about, but because she loves him, she clearly does.

[Baron 8]

One thing I enjoyed was Gus’ relationship with his niece, it was very sweet 

[MarkWotton 5]

Aaaaaahhhhhhhhh!!!! I couldn’t see this!!! I live in Canada and I couldn’t get it on any legal platform, or any illegal platform for that matter. So disappointed, my wife and I do HDTGM films as date nights and we couldn’t do our date this week. So sad. 

[My T-16 Back Home 1]

Dunno if this was mentioned in the boards yet, but if Gertz and Gus both work at a magazine, why didn’t they just work at the SAME magazine?  That way, you could show that Gus already has a crush on Gertz beforehand and sees that Gertz is only going for guys like Trout.  You could show that Gertz already knows Gus as a kind and good person; this would show why she’s so into him at the end when she finds out Lobo is Gus.  It also could set up a rivalry, or even a connection, between Trout and Gus.  (It was wild the protagonist and antagonist of the movie never met.).  Having them all work together is a tried-and-true romantic comedy device, and I’m surprised they didn’t use it for this one.

[Blockerfest 0]

On 6/19/2020 at 10:13 AM, RyanSz said:

I am halfway through this movie and already feel that Shelley Long is the worst wingman in movie history. Why would you not preface trying to set your brother up with someone by mentioning the hardships that he just got over, because his appearance will clearly create some questions in the person that you're trying to hook him up with, thus saving them saying something like "he has no hair" to the point where you give them the riot act for the various procedures he went through.

Also it is amazing how Kyle MacLachlan can do a character as interesting and nuanced as Dale Cooper and in the same year basically read a book titled "what 90s yuppies are" and shart that out onto the screen.

In all fairness, Kyle MacLachlan probably had some better direction in Twin Peaks under David Lynch’s direction. He was good in Blue Velvet as well. Dune...Not so much.

[Blockerfest 0]

On 6/22/2020 at 4:03 PM, Quasar Sniffer said:

This struck me as especially strange, since I've actually had jellyfish salad and it's very inoffensive tasting, mostly it's a delivery device for sauce or dressing. It'd be like vomiting over eating iceberg lettuce.

And @Cameron H., I thought the EXACT same thing about Shakespearean comedies. I thought it was interesting since, reading Shakespeare and romance novels are such aesthetically different experiences, but this movie sort of merged the two. I'm not saying it was successful, but it was a neat idea.

I know there is a LOT of the movie before Mr. Gute shows up as Lobo, but I think his sister's motivations would be better explained if we got more backstory on what his character was before his illness. Maybe even, for example, Shelly Long tries to hang a picture of her brother atop his Harley in the Andes mountains to remind him that, five years ago, he traveled from Alaska to South America on an epic multi-continent motorcycle/mountain-climbing trip just before he got sick. But now, he's in recovery and he shows no signs of that fearlessness and daring coming back. In fact, he's sinking deeper into depression than he ever was while sick, so Long is just desperate to make her brother well again and she sees this opportunity to contrive a romance as a way to force her brother into mental and physical health, even if they both have to "fake it until they make it," which does occur by the end anyway.

I don’t think Shelley has any motivation beyond being psychotic. I can’t imagine her writing romance novels based on how she speaks to her brother, daughter, husband, etc.  She does not seem to have a grip on reality or others desires or wishes. Her husband acts just as out of touch with reality and her daughter eats everything. This family could be set in a horror movie on par with the family from Texas Chainsaw Massacre. A sequel should be made.

[FamousJewishAthletes 0]

On 6/22/2020 at 12:53 PM, GottaLoveTheGute said:

I think there was beer in that cooler too. You can very briefly see a flash of what looks like a Budweiser can. It can be common to see a cooler full of beer on ice near the register.

There was beer in the cooler but I think it was there so you could grab a can to go. Like there might be a jar of pickled eggs but no one is coming in to buy a jar of pickled eggs.

[FamousJewishAthletes 0]

When Jason lamented that Gertz just couldn't ride a motorcycle without instruction, I would like to state for the record that I learned to ride a motorcycle when I jumped on the back of my boyfriend's bike and he showed me how to put it in first gear. 

[Fayd 0]

Wanted to mention Paul and BDE Guttenberg both appeared on the excellent Party Down (different episodes.) Paul's character was a fascinating hard sci-fi writer who enjoyed a lovely calvaaaados.

Also did anyone else think of Larry David when they discussed an accidental text on purpose and the Costanza maneuver of leaving an item behind on a date for the excuse of coming back? 

If you want another Gutts episode the Village People movie Can't Stop the Music is spectacular.

[Melanie 3]

On 6/19/2020 at 2:52 PM, Cameron H. said:

As a point of disambiguation, there are many different sub-genres of romance, and what Paul described reading in the podcast, and what June described as essentially “porn for women,” sounds more like erotica rather than straight romance. It’s the idea that all romance novels are just “dirty books for woman” which has allowed people to perpetuate the idea that romance isn’t a valid literary genre and has been repeatedly used as a means to censor female voices.

Erotica is absolutely a popular sub-genre, but people too often conflate it with the entire genre. Many romance novels don’t even involve sex at all. In fact, Long’s character specifically mentions in the movie that her characters cannot be together until the very last page.

If I were to classify this movie, I would say it was a BCD (“behind closed doors”) or “sweet” Romance. Which is to say, there is sex, but it is literally off the screen/page.

So, I’m slightly behind and just finished the mini-episode for Boyfriend School today, and...OMG, Cameron H, I had to come sign up for the forum specifically to tell you how much I appreciated your knowledge and comments about Romance novels!

I’m a NYT and USA Today bestselling Romance author (my sister and I are writing partners, actually, we write under a shared pen name), and I have to say, it’s quite rare for someone outside the genre to take it so seriously and give it respect. Much appreciated!

For anyone interested, I wanted to expand a bit on the concepts you introduced.

ROMANCE AS A VEHICLE FOR WOMEN’S VOICES

Romance is, by far, the single best-selling genre in publishing year after year, earning over 1.2 billion annually - and it’s almost entirely created by, consumed by, and about women. Pretty powerful!

It is the only genre that consistently centers women’s perspectives and stories, and validates their desires. It tells women that if they want something, that’s great, and they should ask for it, unashamedly, and not accept less than they deserve...and not just around sex, but around career, family, interpersonal relationships, etc. But, like...also, yes, around sex. And that’s awesome.

The incredible Leah Koch, co-owner (with her sister Bea) of North America’s first romance-only bookstore, The Ripped Bodice in Los Angeles, says something super powerful about Romance novels  in this trailer for Naughty Books, a new documentary about the Romance world that’s doing the festival circuit. “They are written, produced, marketed, and sold by women, for women. So it’s very hard for me to understand the argument that they somehow are not feminist.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cejscmSZrsg

Interesting side note - Bea and Leah have actually secured an overall deal with Sony to bring outstanding romance stories to film and tv https://deadline.com/2018/09/the-ripped-bodice-bookstore-overall-deal-sony-pictures-tv-lea-koch-bea-koch-1202463272/

Other interesting side note - if you blink, you’ll miss it, but my sister and I are actually in that doc trailer for a hot second because we were doing a signing at The Ripped Bodice on the day the documentarians came to film.

SOCIAL ISSUES REPRESENTATION

Because of the explosion of indie publishing since 2012, where people can publish what’s in their hearts and souls to write without being blocked by gatekeepers, Romance has been on the cutting edge of representation for all kinds of issues and people that simply never made it into stories before.

Romance has been on the forefront of the Own Voices movement, being written by authors and featuring heroes and heroines on every point of the LGBTQIA+ rainbow, poly relationships, racial and cultural representation, non-neurotypical representation...the list goes on.

Even my sister’s and my books, which are quite light in overall tone, have had heroes and heroines in situations like:

• a soldier who comes home with PTSD
• overcoming an abusive childhood
• dealing with an alcoholic parent
• homelessness, poverty, domestic violence
• recovering from drug addiction
• grief over a lost spouse
• being a single parent with a special needs child

ROMANCE vs. EROTICA

There are three main categories along the romance to erotica spectrum (although they can be broken down into further nuance), and they have more to do with what drives the story than the actual heat level. Here is a quick and dirty (pun intended) rundown:

1 - Romance: The development of the relationship is the central theme of the story, and any sexual interaction stems from and furthers the core relationship. This category spans all heat levels, from clean to blazing.

2 - Erotic Romance: The relationship is still the central driver of the story, but the relationship is fueled by sexual connection and feelings grow from there as opposed to the other way around. These are, without fail, blazing on the heat scale, and often include kink.

3 - Erotica: This is material specifically written for sexual titillation, and there is little or no requirement for a central love story or a happy ending.

 

So, mainstream romance--the kind you see on the shelves in the grocery store and dominating Amazon’s Top 100--can be (and, in fact, most often is!) quite explicit, actually.

The terminology for non-explicit Romance is constantly in flux. The most current phrase people are using is “clean” although that has opposition, because of the implication that the opposite is “dirty.” I’m certainly not a fan, but for now, it is what it is.

“Sweet” at the moment is being used more to refer to the tone of a book - ie, light and low-angst. Often also clean, but not necessarily. For instance, my sister’s and my books are referred to as part of the sub-category, “Sweet with Heat” - meaning, low-angst in tone but still naughty as fuck. LOL.

LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT

While romance novels do sometimes feature a “love at first sight” scenario, that’s not always the case. In fact, we have a term for that convention: InstaLove. And, believe me, not all readers are fans of it! In fact, some hate it with a real passion. A real VOCAL passion.

It’s actually also quite common for the story to feature a relationship that builds and deepens little by little, over the course of time, as the characters get to know each other better and develop love and trust. We have a term for that convention, as well - Slow Burn.

(Side note - we have a term for almost everything.)

Also, the novels often don’t even start with the hero and heroine (or hero and hero or heroine and heroine!) meeting for the first time. Many times, the characters will have a rich and complicated backstory that takes place prior to the first page. Some tropes that lend themselves to that kind of history between the characters would be:

• Second Chance Romance: They were a couple when they were young and broke up, now they’re back in each other’s lives.
• Friends to Lovers:  Long-time friends, at least one has been carrying a torch for the other, but THERE. ARE. OBSTACLES. (Our debut novel was a friends-to-lovers). 
• Enemies to lovers:  Either real, true enemies, or they just get on each other’s nerves, but as the plot goes on (they’re usually forced together into some situation where they’re in proximity), they begin to see deeper into the other person and view them in a new light. (Our most recent release was an enemies-to-lovers).
• Forbidden Love...sub-tropes like Best friend’s Brother or Brother’s Best Friend, etc: They’ve known each other for a long time, but there’s something that would make it SHOCKING if they got together, or a reason that people in their lives wouldn’t be on board.

THE FANTASY OF ROMANCE NOVELS

There is a common misconception that women read romance because they are unsatisfied in their own relationships. Most often, that couldn’t be further from the truth! Romance readers just love LOVE. They love going on a journey with the characters as they fall, just like mystery readers love solving puzzles and sci-fi readers love envisioning alternate realities.

Plus, in romance novels, the heroine is always supremely SPECIAL in the hero’s eyes. She’s the one who breaks down his walls, she’s the first woman to ever make him envision a future with anyone...she makes him want to be a better man, to bring it around to a movie quote.

And he, in turn, is the first one to see how unique and valuable she is, and she begins to see herself through his eyes. He’ll do anything for her, make any sacrifice (Anne of Green Gables fans - think...when Gilbert gave up the Avonlea school for Anne and took Carmody instead), and then she starts to see that she’s worth that, that she deserves it.

And, I’m sorry, that’s just a nice fantasy to lose yourself in when you’re reading! LOL.

My good friend Erin (also a bestselling romance author) said to me once, "People think the fantasy women are picking up these books for is the sex. Nope. The fantasy we're indulging is that men actually think this way." And...yep.

FINALLY, SOME OTHER FUN ROMANCE TERMS

Thought this might be a fun thing to end on.

• HEA - Stands for Happily Ever After, but is used as a noun. Example - “It was so satisfying to see those characters finally get their HEA after all they’d gone through!” In fact, one of our pieces of swag has the phrase, “My husband is my HEA.”
• TBR - Stand for To Be Read, and it’s the never-ending, always-growing collection of books that we *REALLY* want to read...and are planning to...someday. (Another one of our pieces of swag is a mug that says, “This may look like coffee, but it’s actually fuel for getting through my TBR.”)
• Book Boyfriend - The one hero, out of all the novels you’ve read, who captured your heart more than any other.
• Romancelandia - The online (and offline, actually) community of readers and writers of Romance.
• Alpha - Heroes who are strong, in control but not controlling, protective but not creepy about it, and would do absolutely anything to keep the heroine safe and taken care of.
• Alphahole - A guy who takes the whole “in control” thing just a little too far. But he’ll get smacked down by a feisty heroine and see the error of his ways, don’t you worry! LOL.

I do realize this was super long and the majority won’t be interested in this esoteric info, but I wanted to put it out there for anyone who might be.

Also, again, I just wanted to reiterate to Cameron - thank you so much for speaking up, for knowing about our genre and taking it seriously! When people are generally pretty eye-rolly about your art and your livelihood, it can be wearing, and it’s so nice when an outsider treats your industry with respect.

[Cameron H. 23786]

1 hour ago, Melanie said:

So, I’m slightly behind and just finished the mini-episode for Boyfriend School today, and...OMG, Cameron H, I had to come sign up for the forum specifically to tell you how much I appreciated your knowledge and comments about Romance novels!

Absolutely! And thank you for all of your insights and composing such a wonderful and enlightening post! I was afraid when I wrote my initial post that I wouldn’t be able to adequately articulate what I was trying to say, so I’m glad I did an okay job of it  I have a ton of respect for all writers, and it’s a bit of a pet peeve of mine when Romance is unfairly maligned or otherwise dismissed out of hand. I agree with you that Romance, in all its countless iterations, is as crucial and as valid as any other genre and deserves to be treated as such. 

(Also, in the nature of full disclosure, much of what I know is due to my wonderful wife who is a professional cover artist. Many of her amazing clients are Romance authors. I was definitely looking for her work in that trailer  )  

Welcome to the forums! 

[Melanie 3]

1 hour ago, Cameron H. said:

Absolutely! And thank you for all of your insights and composing such a wonderful and enlightening post! I was afraid when I wrote my initial post that I wouldn’t be able to adequately articulate what I was trying to say, so I’m glad I did an okay job of it  I have a ton of respect for all writers, and it’s a bit of a pet peeve of mine when Romance is unfairly maligned or otherwise dismissed out of hand. I agree with you that Romance, in all its countless iterations, is as crucial and as valid as any other genre and deserves to be treated as such. 

(Also, in the nature of full disclosure, much of what I know is due to my wonderful wife who is a professional cover artist. Many of her amazing clients are Romance authors. I was definitely looking for her work in that trailer  )  

Welcome to the forums! 

Oh, that's fantastic! Along with your editor, your go-to cover designer is definitely your most important professional relationship as an author! I'm sure her clients freaking love her.