In a prior post, I commend those M/M Romances that focus on reconciliation between family members, rather than labeling one family member "bad" for not having the proper attitudes.Current attitudes in our society can be weirdly Victorian, especially among people who are supposedly tolerant and accepting. Condemning people for having the wrong "thoughts" is unsettling--and makes for bad literature.
Which brings me to a type of characterization that annoys me--
When the villain just happens to have ALL the characteristics that the writer/narrator disapproves of.
I recently read a book, by an author that I like, where the villain was not only homophobic but also cowardly and deceitful.
Really?
It would be so much interesting if the villain was smilingly progressive and cowardly and deceitful--OR, even more interesting, homophobic and brave and tactless.To be clear, I'm not just annoyed when progressives do this. Some conservative, religious romantic novels annoy me for the same reason: the villain just happens to be an atheist AND cowardly and deceitful. Or lazy and a bad father AND an adulterer AND ....
Now, in all honesty, it is not all that interesting to have the villain be a religious adherent who turns out to be a hypocrite--simply because that variation has been done so often. But it is still more interesting than writing a villain who is the holder of every single bad and contemptible trait (as the author defines such behavior).
This is one reason I admire Last Man Standing so much--Tim Allen isn't afraid of disagreement. No matter how often Mike Baxter argues with Ryan, he supports him, especially as a fellow father. He recognizes that Ryan works hard, loves his wife and son, cares about his employees. It is Mike who says to Vanessa, "We have to figure out some way to forgive this boy." And then works to make it happen.
It also impresses me that the writers are entirely fair to Ryan: the first Ryan (Season 1) was kind of a con-artist, but later Ryan (Masterson) is warm and humorous and honestly, a really great guy.It is, granted, amusing to watch him slowly turning into Mike as he ages and encounters more real-world problems--
Including real-world ambiguities: because sometimes the "good" guy--however, the writer/reader defines "good"--turns out to have flaws. And sometimes the "bad" guy turns out to do decent things. And sometimes villains are way more like the human-nature part of all of us than we want to admit.
