Concept: contrary to the belief of many critics of Phantom of the Opera, the majority of young phangirls actually *aren’t* anti-feminist abuse-romanticizers who harbour a misguided desire for a 50 SoG-esque relationship; rather, viewing the narrative through their own lens, many of them find something *empowering* in the idea of a man who is powerful, dangerous, ingenious—and yet entirely in thrall to a meek and unassuming girl
This is a very insightful post, and I think that’s exactly why so many younger girls, especially teens/early 20s, romanticize and become invested in the story. It’s not that they actually want a guy to stalk, terrorize, and murder them, or that they think that would be fun or romantic somehow (outside of the small minority); it’s that they see a story in which a woman is good, smart, talented, and in control of her own decisions, and a very powerful and genius male figure is smitten with her to the point that she has a huge amount of control over him if she wants it. The Phantom is presented as terrifyingly powerful and overwhelming, but Christine and Christine alone (not the military and aristocracy dudes running around, not the people who own the place, not even the mysterious Daroga who knows more about him than anyone) literally has almost total power over him in the end, and that’s something that female readers, even subconsciously, are bound to pick up on.
(I’d compare it to the Alpha Male trope in [straight] romance novels, where the attraction isn’t the Alpha Male himself [who is usually overbearing, violent, demanding, and intentionally emotionally stunted] – it’s the fact that by the end of the story, the heroine has completely conquered this supposedly powerful figure, he has no power over her, and he will do anything for her because he loves her so much. Many such novels have explicit “breakdown” scenes, where the Alpha Male has to literally beg the woman to accept or forgive him and directly state either out loud or internally that she has all the control over the situation and its effects on him. It’s a social dynamics power fantasy; by being awesome (usually with no more than having a strong personality and/or being attractive), the female figure takes the power in the relationship away from the guy who ostensibly had it and becomes the one in control. And I’m sure I don’t need to tell anyone how genre romance novels marketed toward women are generally considered deeply Anti-Feminist and also Trash by the majority of the writing and critical community, or point out that, unsurprisingly, the overwhelming majority of writers in the romance genre are women, and that the majority of those people who dismiss the entire genre point-blank as being Not Even Real Writing for God’s Sake are dudes.)
There are still a ton of underlying problems that can come up with this or any other story like that – some readers, especially young ones, do end up romanticizing abuse because they don’t know any better, and other harmful tropes that young girls are pretty consistently sold in media (You Have to Love Him Because He Needs/Wants You To, Nice Guys Always Finish Last, Violent/Dangerous Men Really Just Need Someone to Love Them to Be Good, The Most Important Thing About a Female Character is That The Male Characters Want Her) are easily attached to the story by younger readers who haven’t had time to really examine them. Sometimes a reader is drawn to the story because of the Christine-as-empowerment angle and still attaches those other shitty tropes to their discussion of it just because they don’t yet have the tools to analyze what they like about it or they can’t separate all that junk out, and we’ve probably all been there at one point or another.
But yeah, I think you’re dead on. People who haven’t read/analyzed the story or who look in on fan culture they aren’t part of are very quick to write off fans as being ridiculous dramatic dummies who, if not actively anti-feminist, are being “unfeminist” because they just don’t know any better, gosh darn it. And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that most of those people being targeted by that assumption are young girls, reading a narrative that they most likely get something very different out of than older folks and especially men do (who, while of course there are exceptions, as a general demographic aren’t nearly as interested in the Phantom story or approach it purely as a mystery/horror tale).
Essentially, this is a story with a woman as the main character who is the focus of all action and ultimately makes all the important decisions in the narrative. That it’s attractive to women, especially younger women and girls who don’t always get to see that very often, shouldn’t be surprising.
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