Bodice Ripping Cliches, Part 2: Och, Laddie!

One of the most lingering questions I've had as a romance novel reader concerns the ongoing mythology of the hot Scottish laird as romantic protagonist. I've heard explanations of the phenomenon in terms of the decline of the native Highland culture since Scotland lost its independence from England - which to me sounds pretty logical, given the right amount of historical research; in the hands of a lesser author, otherwise, it risks bordering on the "Mandingo" theory that I wrote about in the previous entry.

And then there's the other theory I have, which has less to do with culture and more to do with (pardon my Masters in Ed here) visual learning. Simply put, mention the words "hot, sexy Scotsman" and one's mind immediately wanders to THIS...





(Insert inevitable "light saber" joke here.)

Or THIS...

(Aye, Gerry! Call me! Let me take that pink sweater off you!)

Or even THIS...

(That sound you just heard? That's me screaming bloody murder, having featured my mother's own Dream Man-slash-Fantasy Baby Daddy on my own site.)

Unfortunately, however, my regular interactions with Scottish men are limited to the likes of THIS...

And I say this as somebody who does find Craig Ferguson attractive, being the cheeky monkey that he already is on his talk show.

(Also: My science teacher in 8th Grade was from Scotland, and he used to scare the heck out of me whenever I got my periodic table wrong. Not dead sexy.)

Seriously, though - what is it about Scottish men, anyway? Is it the lingering suspicion about what's under the kilt? Is it the inherent hairiness of their bodies? Is it that air of danger about them, combined with the brokenness of lost nobility? Or is it the rough but warm tones of the Highland burr? I mean, it's not like Ireland is lacking in that department, either (as anyone who has watched any U2 video between 1989 and 1993 can tell you) but you don't read a lot about hot, sexy Irish men of fallen nobility in your tawdry little paperbacks, do you?

Of course not - it's always Irish for your earthy stablehands, English for your buttoned-up noblemen, and Scottish for your brave warriors... and if you're Nora Roberts writing about American men descended from these bloodlines, chances are you won't avoid it either. (Really, now, Nora - a hot-headed, whisky-swilling stablehand from California who's also descended from County Galway? How did I not see that coming?)

I think this just goes back, once again, to the main problem currently plaguing the romance genre in general: There's not a lot of room in these books to explore the actual nuances of human experience. Just as you won't expect interracial relationships to be explored beyond the "oooh, exotic!" level, you won't expect your average romance writer to get past the expected mold of Gaelic men and present them as actual human beings instead of "aye, lassie" cartoon characters. Which, to me, is a deeper problem that goes beyond any question of talent or research on the part of the author, and probes deeper into whether or not the sales/marketing/ higher-up folks at the publishing companies actually Get It when it comes to what readers want from their authors. In a day and age where issues of class, race, gender, and politics are pervasive in the cultural landscape, isn't it time to put away the childish generalities and start making room for some gray areas to temper the watercolored fairy tales?