We’re Not Into Harlequin’s “Whatever You’re Into” Videos

Harlequin has a new campaign which on the surface seems like something I’d be happy to give a thumbs up as I move on to lunch and a book. With the “Whatever You’re Into” motto, they seem to be saying, hey, whatever works for you, it’s all good.

Problem is, the new video series that accompanies the slogan is so far from what I’m into that I’m feeling like maybe I’m on the wrong planet. We’ve discussed these videos at length at Bitchery HQ, and our reactions vary.

Sarah: Because I review books, I have become accustomed to being able to identify what it is that I did like about something, and what I didn’t. I can usually explain, illustrate, give multiple examples and then explain some more (because there’s no word count limit on this part of the internet — woo hoo!) every reason behind my opinion. “This is my opinion and here’s why” is a muscle I use a lot.

Which is why I’m flummoxed as to why I can’t quite articulate the reasons why the Harlequin “Whatever You’re Into” videos really made me uncomfortable, to the point of squick and recoil and headdesk and covering my face with my palms.

I seriously feel like the enemy of fun over here. So many people have been laughing and enjoying them – and there’s certainly a little comedy in them there parts – but I think I missed the joke.

Have a look:

So, for those who are visually impaired, I’ll give a quick summary.

In the first video, a older woman (older than 45, maybe? I’m terrible at age guessing) on a couch is approached by a young muscular dude in military dress whites, who removes his shirt and begins making out with her, accompanied by big swells of music and some moaning. The camera pans back to a man of a similar age to the woman, wearing a blue plaid shirt, and watching tv, oblivious to the woman making out with this young man next to her. He tips the bowl in front of him and asks if there are any more chips – and the young man immediately disappears, replaced by the woman who is not actually making out with anyone, but signing open mouthed and breathing somewhat heavily at a Harlequin romance.

The second video shows a similar set up, only this time, a woman is sitting on her dryer while a man in a cowboy hat and plaid shirt kisses her neck. She’s got her glasses on, which, as a person who wears glasses, I can only think, I hope she’s got some cleaning cloths nearby because nose smudges are a pain. Anyway, she rips the guy’s shirt open and pulls him closer, more moaning and more swelling of music (which I think may have been a nod to Gone with the Wind). Then the camera pulls back to show the woman alone reading a book, and her husband, who is short and balding and wearing a red polo shirt, reaches into the dryer and pulls out shorts (I think) and takes a deep sniff of the fabric. “Nice and hot! Thanks, honey!” he says, and wanders off screen – where the scene immediately switches to the woman being ravished on her dryer by a faceless cowboy. Both videos feature the tagline, “Escape the Everyday.”

So in these depictions, the woman reading the book becomes the heroine of the book, imagining herself as the recipient of the presumed hero’s attentions.

I have written a lot about how romance readers interact with their books. In the first book I co-authored, Beyond Heaving Bosoms ( A | BN | K | G | AB ), the discussion of reader identification makes up more than half a chapter. Colloquial wisdom then – and to some extent now – posits that many female readers employ the heroine as a placeholder, a person who the reader becomes during the story. The two exist in a symbiotic relationship that allows the reader to enter the story through the heroine, or perhaps ultimately AS the heroine. (This has led to many additional discussions of the resulting difficulties facing heroines who are not very easy to identify with.)

Meanwhile, others, including Laura Kinsale in her essay “The Androgynous Reader” in Dangerous Men and Adventurous Women ( A ), have argued that it’s the hero many readers are identify with, the one who gets to Do All The Things and Has More Power and Status, among other things.

But I don’t read like that. I know some people do, which is cool, but I don’t. I kind of hover over the characters as a benevolent witness, trying to identify and connect with each of them and all of them. On the surface, the Harlequin video series rests on the idea that “this is what happens when you read a romance,” but the illustrations of what happens are really far off the mark for me.

Usually, that’s fine. If something may be true for some people but not for me, that usually doesn’t bother me. But with these, the more I watch, the more repulsed I am.

I know many people worked really hard to create these clips – the production values are pretty damn spiffy, better than I could do on my own. And I also know some readers may indeed interact with romances in exactly that fashion – and that some readers think they’re hilarious. And we talk about escaping into our reading all the time. I read romance for a lot of reasons, and sometimes, hell, yes, it is to escape whatever is running around my brain and enjoy something entirely different.

I don’t think I’d be as frustrated and squicked out if it were just a question of reader identification and symbiosis. That’s not something I’d get ticked off about. It’s not the sexiness of the video, either. There are readers who read for erotic pleasure, just like there are readers who supplant the heroine in the narrative when they read.

But past the idea of reader identification,the video narratives rest firmly on several familiar, overused and stereotypical ideals, only one of which being that the reader is supplanting the heroine to be the object of the hero’s affections. The videos seem to suggest that the only reason romance readers engage is to escape – into lusty imaginatory infidelity. I’m not trying to check out of my life because my life is so horrible and my husband is so boring. I like my husband. That’s why I’m married to him. I don’t read romance because my real life sucks.

I do know this: the stereotyping of men – that definitely ticked me off, and I knew the source of my irk immediately. You either have the sexless husband or the supersexed muscular shirtless dude. Men are a lot more than that. The insults to men piss me off and make me sad.

Plus, the ageism of the portrayal of the men made me as angry as it does when only women who are youthful are valued as beautiful. There’s the young, firm, muscular fantasy dude, and the older husband, who is portrayed as balding or grey, wrinkled, oblivious, and unattractive. Humans age, and for some reason, the rules of attractiveness forbid aging. So only the young are hot and virile, and the older men are cast as the comic relief, sexless and bothersome.

But included in that stereotype of men is the stereotype of women, specifically romance readers: that we’re desperate for intimacy so we reach for books instead of people. (And are the readers all white? All of them? Really? Only white women? COME ON NOW.) (No pun intended.)

I may of course be reading too much into this, but I rarely react to things with a severe and immediate, NOPE NO NO NOPE NOPE NOPE. And I hate being the pouty enemy of fun — so I want to be clear: if the videos are making you laugh, that’s cool. If it doesn’t bother you, that’s ok. If you like them, it’s cool.

I know the point isn’t to make fun of readers, but more to make romance readers laugh – a pursuit I usually support wholeheartedly! So it’s not as if I’m mad because I think Harlequin is making fun of me or of readers – I don’t think they are. I think they were trying for an in-joke about readers. I wish I could better articulate why that joke missed me by such a margin.

RHG: I think there’s a confluence of things that make it soooooo off putting. Putting myself in the place of heroine is not how I read, either. I don’t read romance to “Escape” my life (though there are times when I need a soothing book because things are stressful, but that’s not the same). Putting dudes in the roles of either “boring stick-in-the-mud” or shirtless faceless eyecandy is insulting to dudes. And it’s as insulting to dudes as it is when women are put in the same position- it’s just that it happens to women all the time.

Maybe this is how some people enjoy their books, and I don’t want to shit on people for whom this is their experience. But this series of ads is presenting readers as a monolith, and I think that’s what’s awkward about it.

CarrieS: I agree with Sarah and RedHeadedGirl. I think the intent of the ads is clear – they are (I assume) trying to poke a little gentle fun at the genre. For a lot of reasons, I think they missed the mark. I do like the “Doing Laundry” video more than the “Popcorn on the Couch” video, and I think the difference between the videos illustrates how much of a difference small changes can make.

In the couch video, the woman is having a passionate make-out session on the couch with a man who is both speechless and shirtless. One of the things I love about romance is that it appreciates and validates women’s sexual desires, but in this scene the man kissing her is so robbed of any personality or agency that it crosses (an admittedly very fine and completely subjective) line between celebrating the female gaze and demeaning and objectifying men.

Meanwhile, the other man, the woman’s husband, is clueless and totally devoid of charm and attraction. So it’s insulting to the female character, because she’s reading romance to escape her life instead of taking action to change it, and it’s insulting to men because they are reduced to either a walking sex-toy or an emasculated burden.

If I were to evaluate romance based not on my own experience but solely on the video’s depiction of reading romance, I would come away with the impression that romance is an emotional crutch and literary porn. I would not come away with the impression that romance is a fun diversion and I certainly wouldn’t think that romance has a lot to offer in terms of emotion, character, and plot.

I’m not crazy about the second video, but it offends me much less than the first. Both videos close with the line “Escape the everyday.” In the first video, the “everyday” is shown as spending time with the husband. If sitting on the couch with your spouse is something you have to escape, then you have a serious problem. That’s not cute or funny. That’s sad.

In the second video, the husband is sweet and appreciative, and his line “Nice and hot!” is a cute little pun. Moreover, the woman isn’t trying to escape her husband; she’s trying to escape her laundry chores, and frankly we probably all want to escape from our laundry chores. The tone is a little less mean and depressing than the first one, although it still has the core problems with the focus on the sexual content of romance at the expense of any other element — and with the marginalization of men.

Both videos share common problems in that they reinforce an idea of romance novels that many of us have been trying very hard to change. These ads suggest that:

  1. Romance is porn. The guy is there to sexually service the woman, and there’s no emotion or plot or characterization. What’s important about the reading experience (as depicted in the video) is the vicarious experience of sexual pleasure.
  2. Romance readers are universally white, middle class, unattractive, sexually frustrated women.

    NB: I’m not trying to insult the actresses by suggesting that they are inherently unattractive. I’m just suggesting that the ad attempts to present them as unattractive or at least as un-glamorous, and certainly not as polished as the hero kissing them.

    Some of the “humor” is supposed to come from the presumed incongruity of middle-aged regular women experiencing passionate sexual ecstasy, which – you know what? Fuck your ageism and beauty standards and the entire society that says that only young, thin, gorgeous people, male and female, are entitled to enjoy sex without it being a grotesque comedy. Of course the “humor” also comes from the idea that the woman can’t get sexual fulfillment from her husband because he is also aging and imperfect which is so incredibly ageist and insulting that I could just spit.

  3. The women who read romance do so as a means of escape, not empowerment.
  4. Romance has nothing to offer a man and is in fact a threat to men.

I think it’s sad that a romance publisher is reinforcing those stereotypes. I suspect that they are trying to poke fun at these same stereotypes, and I know mileage will vary here. A lot of viewers will see this as a cute in-joke – something that takes the stereotypes so far that it subverts them and is hilarious.

For me, personally, both of these ads are misfires, especially the first one.

Amanda: It’s hard to add anything else to the discussion that hasn’t been already pointed out by these awesome ladies.

For me, I don’t think we can have it both ways, and I don’t know if I want it both ways either. As a community and readership, we want to be taken seriously and, until that happens, things like equating romance novels to masturbatory material just makes that job so much harder.

There’s that stereotype still of that romance reader being a “lonely housewife” or a “lonely cat lady.” Somehow lonely is always thrown in because it goes hand in hand with being sexually unfulfilled. My craptastic roommate even asked for romance suggestions because she needed something to soften her “long-distance relationship.” And it makes me sad to see the beauty of our genre boiled down to sex. We’re more than just heaving bosoms.

I get that maybe Harlequin wanted to poke fun at itself. Most videos that go viral or get a lot of views are often cheeky and fun (i.e. Old Spice) and I certainly don’t want to say we can’t poke fun at ourselves. But are people going to laugh with us or at us?

Like that BuzzFeed article from RT, where they had people write down snippets of their best erotica scenes. They didn’t credit the people participating and because of that, it seemed partially like a mockery. While I’m always glad the genre is getting exposure, I may not always agree on how it’s done.

Elyse: I think I was a little less cringey than you guys, but I agree that the videos missed the mark. Maybe I would have liked them more if, instead of just making out with Random Faceless Guy, the women were doing something like navigating a car chase with Romantic Suspense Hero or riding a horse through the English countryside with Regency Hero.

The reason that the ads felt tone deaf to me was that they play on the idea that romance is for sexually frustrated women. The implication of the videos is that the women are reading in order to fantasize about someone other than their “boring” husbands who are oblivious.

For me, the most interesting parts of romance novels are rarely the sex scenes. I don’t read romance to be titillated. I do definitely read to escape though, perhaps more than other readers. Reading is a vacation for me, both for my brain and my body. After working all day, I don’t particularly want to stare at another screen. I’d much rather pick up a book for entertainment. And because I suffer from chronic pain, a lot of the time I use romance novels to distract my mind from the fact that I just hurt. If I’m in Regency England or a Rom Sus car chase I don’t have to be totally present and focused on “ow.”

I think Random Faceless Guy making out with the ladies in the videos also does a disservice to the romance genre because it’s a genre that relies so heavily on character development. Obviously you can’t present a super complex character sketch in a 30 second ad, but romances aren’t about interchangeable hot dudes, no matter what folks who denigrate the genre thing.

So I get the humor in the ads, but I think it plays more on the negative stereotypes of romance readers than anything else which is kind of a bummer.

Sarah: I think what makes me lastingly angry about these videos is that, as Carrie pointed out, they’re mean, and they’re mean about men. When I realized how embarrassed I would be to show these videos to my husband because they are so cruel, that’s when the penny dropped. The joke isn’t entirely at the expense of the romance reader, but it is also at the expense of the husband of that reader.

In a genre that is about relationships, and is read by women who are very often in relationships, as Carrie noted, the idea that our partners are ugly and unattractive as they age and thus we replace them with virile faceless romance heroes is unkind and hurtful and, for me, untrue. I’m pretty used to assumptions about myself, my intellect, my education, my income, and my sex life because I read romance. I’m not used to those assumptions extending to my marriage and my partner. (I still haven’t shown him either of these).

What about you? What do you think of this video series? Did it bother you, or did you think they were funny? Like I said, if you like them, it’s cool. They didn’t work for us, but if they made you laugh, feel free to share why. What’s your take? 

Comments are Closed

  1. morineko says:

    It doesn’t fit with the way a lot of readers engage with romance, even with escapism. Another ad idea: Regency ball, hero and heroine dancing with each other. In the background is a woman in 21st century business wear. The cut is to her reading at her desk, plate of finished lunch on the desk. Or it’s an action scene with someone reading on the bus. No ripping on people’s existing partners involved.

  2. Chris Alexander says:

    I laughed at them, but I do see your point. In fact, after the laughter and the sharing, my first thought was romance isn’t all about the sex. It would have been nice if they did some sort of action scene to show a rom-suspense. Then, I wondered what they would do with paranormal.

  3. Are any of the SBTB reviewers women of color? I’ve been wondering that ever since the African American lady icon was added. I had a mixed reaction to the videos for some of the same reasons you’ve articulated. I was wondering if part of my reaction was sexism. As in, I only want to see sexy young women make out with sexy young men. Without a third wheel around. But now that I think of it, there was a “strangers kissing” viral video that went around and it kind of weirded me out also. I couldn’t watch it. Maybe it’s the lack of chemistry or naturalness between partners that causes discomfort, in addition to other elements.

  4. Irma says:

    The problem I have with these videos is they’re all about the sex. They are perpetuating the stigma we’ve been trying to overcome for decades. Specifically, that bored housewives read romance for the sexual fantasy with hot young dudes.

  5. Jayne Denker says:

    I’m not a fan of these either. I think they set the genre back by a number of decades and reinforces the clichés we’re trying to eradicate. Nobody wins in these—not the books, not the readers, and certainly not the spouse. If I had written the ad scripts, I would have started with the reader as part of a dramatic, colorful, or adventurous scene (at a party at an exotic location, horseback riding or in a carriage in period dress…heck, even parasailing—whatever), pulled out of it by her husband going “Whacha reading?” and then pulling him into it with her.

  6. Ellen says:

    I’m so glad you posted this. I felt the same when I saw the videos being shared, like I should be supportive because they obviously went to the trouble to make these high-production videos and they’re supposed to be funny and why can’t I take a joke, etc… but they’re just off-putting. They play into every stereotype I am so tired of hearing about romance, especially HQ romance. So basically they’ve given non-romance readers more reasons to smirk and completely failed to appeal to regular readers of the genre like me. Total misstep.

  7. Lynnd says:

    THANK YOU! I couldn’t have said it better myself. I found these videos completely and utterly insulting and denigrating to me as a professional middle-aged woman in a wonderful relationship of over 20 years who likes to romance.

    Just for fun yesterday (and because I was procrastinating from my task list in a big way), I also took the “Bachelor quiz” on their website. Frankly, I wanted to click “ditch” for every single on of the “bachelor” choices. Harper Collins should be firing whatever agency came up with this marketing plan. This whole campaign just leaves me with a foul taste in my mouth. /end rant.

  8. Ridley says:

    I agree with so much of what you guys said about the porn, ageism, and sexism. I also found the videos deeply uncomfortable because of the lack of sexual chemistry. Watching the “hero” make out with the woman was like watching a jaded sex worker dutifully give someone a handy.

    He was completely objectified and it gave me the cringes. That’s not how romance heroes are, and I’m a little insulted that Harlequin thinks we’d be satisfied with that.

  9. Elinor Aspen says:

    I think you all missed something in the “Military Hero” video. The woman on the couch isn’t escaping her boring husband; she’s escaping the golf tournament he is watching on TV. I am fortunate that my husband doesn’t watch golf, but he does have some other viewing tastes that I do not share, and sometimes I spend time quietly reading a romance novel when he is watching an old war movie — I don’t want to deprive him of something he really wants to watch, but I can’t stand some of the movies he likes.

    Maybe because I am closer in age to the couple in the video, I did not automatically perceive the woman and her husband as undersexed or unattractive. I can understand the concern that these videos perpetuate rather than poke fun at stereotypes, and I don’t find them as hilarious as some people do, but I do not feel particularly threatened by them, either.

  10. Marie Dry says:

    I came across one add on the internet and couldn’t watch it. Every part of me just reared back from it. If anyone else finds it fun good luck to them but I am avoiding anything that makes me that uncomfortable.

  11. GHN says:

    Totally missed the mark for me. These ads make it seem that Romance is just about the sex scenes (as others have pointed out), which it’s most definitely not. Sex scenes (when well written) can be an enjoyable spice, but the meat of the story has to be in the good storytelling and interesting characters. There are definitely times when I encounter a sex scene in whatever book I’m reading, roll my eyes a bit, and hit the forward button until things start happening again.

  12. Jackie says:

    I think the sex scene focus is a way for Harlequin to say, “Hey, lookie, it’s not 50 Shades, but we’ve got sex too.” I don’t hate the ads but I don’t like that they insinuate that women are cheating on their husbands when they read romance novels. I’ve heard waaaayyyy too many men make that same accusation about their wive’s (or girlfriend’s) reading habits. Get your head out of your ass, dude. It’s got nothing to do with you.

  13. I wasn’t terribly bothered by these – although I agree that the laundry one was better than the husband-next-to-her on the couch, for the reasons you describe about ignoring the person in your marriage with you vs. ignoring your chores (I def. do the latter; try to not do the former).

    I’ve been FAR more bugged in the past by those little “Mommy Porn” books you see at check out lines in gift stores, the books that are fancy photos of a guy doing laundry, etc. Do you know the booklets I mean? I think they were big a couple years ago. They annoyed the crap out of me, basically for the same reasons listed here.

    To me, that “Mommy Porn = guy doing chores” is worse than a video that says middle aged women still like hot sexy times. I guess that I think saying it’s okay for women my age and shape and general glasses-wearing-ness to have fantasies and remain interested in sex is in general a good message, better than “all we want is someone to do chores,” even if the complete presentation is missing some nuances we’d like.

    I liked these better than you all did – I see them as at least SOMEONE in business/marketing celebrating that we’re not invisible or dead. We’re worth marketing to and using sex to sell things to us! Who other than house cleaning products and breakfast cereals markets to us? And pretty much zero marketing aimed at this demographic uses sexy guys – again, marketers totally desexing our group.

    Sure, these ads are making something of a joke out of the companiate marriage issue, but I imagine that they could expect the reader to make the leap that maybe later the woman will turn to the bald guy too.

    It’s a good topic to think about though – your post made me consider the ads at a deeper level than my initial “cute!” reaction.

  14. Lady T says:

    Both videos are guilty of lazy stereotyping and did the woman in the first clip have to make such obvious loud noises? That alone was disconcerting:( I’m all for a sense of humor when it comes to any genre material but it should laughing with and not at the intended audience.

  15. P. J. Dean says:

    They (Harlequin) aren’t the “50 Shades” outfit and they know it from the tone of these ads. H is casting its net far and wide to attract some of those newbie readers who flocked to Romance lit after reading or hearing about Ms. James’ books. I mean look at all the copycats. You can’t pick up the tamest tome nowadays without it containing its own watered down version of Ana and Christian (paranormal, historical, m/m, etc) It’s like characters without any D/s play are seen as boring. H wants some of that market and will implement any marketing ploy to get it. At first I thought the ads were amusing now I’m smiling at them for a whole other reason. And not in a good way.

  16. Coco says:

    Jackie said that … they insinuate that women are cheating on their husbands when they read romance novels.
    This was my very first thought. This made me angry. Both as a reader- because that would certainly not be my intent, though I’m not married, but also in that these husbands are being pushed aside for these younger men. If that is true it would be adultery. I don’t believe that most readers do that. And the idea that they are saying that that is what readers do, yeah that makes me angry.

    My second thought was that if you took exactly the same characters and actors, and had the husdand being fawned over by some 20 year old, half naked, blonde bombshell, while his wife sat next to him on the couch watching television and being oblivious, then pan him back til he’s sitting there reading a Penthouse. That would be porn. How is this different? This shows women reading porn. That is not what most women do with romance novels, but that’s what they’re showing here.
    The stereotyping is truly amazing.

    Absolute ick.

  17. cayenne says:

    Not too impressed – they’re still overly stereotyping and patronizing, which I doubt anyone in the market for romance and romance novels really wants.

    Maybe if the punchline had been to have the woman, after being jolted out of her fantasy by her husband, then jump and ravish her husband rather than go back to the book, I would have liked them better.

  18. Heather says:

    I’m on the team of those who found those a little sad. As Carrie put it, if spending time on th couch with your husband is something you have to escape, that’s not funny. Especially if your husband expects you to refill his bowl of chips instead of getting his a*se to the kitchen…

    That said, I didn’t find them offensive, for two reasons. The first is, yes, the guys are objectified, but I don’t think objectification is always terrible (that may be an unpopular opinion…). As psychiatrist acquaintance of mine once remarked that we all choose to objectify ourselves every now and then, if only when choosing clothes to look nice in public. The problem is not objectification, it’s never having a choice about it. When you’re systematically objectified because the society you live in can’t see you as a person, that’s tragic (but it’s women who have that problem, not men). Objectifying someone for a couple of minutes because you just want to think about quick, simple and dirty sex? Not remotely the same level of wrong. Frankly, if I may be a bit crude for a second, I wonder how many women on Earth systematically masturbate to the thought of a complex male character with a magnetic personality. Let’s be honest here.

    The second thing is: I get that romance is not all about sex, and not at all for many women. But for many others, the sex is a big part of it. It’s not necessarily about escaping from your dreary marital life. It can simply be about broadening the scope of your fantasies and giving yourself the space to think about sex even when you’re not supposed to (like when you’re sharing the couch with an unsuspecting someone, or when you’re supposed to do the chores). And it can be about making this space completely intimate, precisely without dragging your partner in it. On that particular level, I could say the videos resonated with me.

    Could have been done better, but I wasn’t shocked 🙂

  19. Sonali Dev says:

    I’m so glad to read this. I thought I was crazy when the couch one made me cringe and bristle so much that I didn’t watch the laundry one. I think the videos reinforce every stereotype we’re trying to counter of ‘the kind of women’ who read romance and why we read them (most definitely not because I want to have sex with a brawny stranger while my husband balds and grays and demands food, thank you very much!).
    Also the punchline has nothing to do with the videos. If the women were making out with other women who tied them up and sprinkled hot wax on them while wearing catsuits, then maybe “whatever you’re into” would make sense. Otherwise, really?

  20. Emily says:

    I liked Carrie’s comments about the laundry and I agree with the above poster about watching golf, which is clear only from the sound. (It might have been better if we could see the golf on tv.) I know a guy who used to watch golf and imo, a more boring sport to watch was never invented.

    I just find the ads embarrassing and cheesy. A small part of the reason I read romance is I do enjoy reading romance is the sex scenes, but what I like about books (and something that is even more true for digital readers) is that they are discreet. Something completely missed by the commercials.

    I would argue that the husbands aren’t really emasculated as they treat the women in respectful way, but they also treat the women in a way that suggests they (the men) take them (the women) for granted and the women should serve the men. The first man says “Honey are there any more chips?” Which my feminist mentor would say is a polite of trying to tell her to get him more chips versus his getting his own chips. Depending on the man and the culture, this could be seen as a demand although the man is not getting upset with her since he’s too involved in golf.
    In the second ad, he’s clearly thanking her for doing HIS laundry. He thanks her, praises her for doing his laundry right, (nice and hot, Just like I LIKE,) and then “helps” out by taking one item out of the wash (why his underwear?) and then leaves without thinking about the rest of the contents of the dryer.
    I have no problem with a woman getting chips or doing laundry for her mate, but both getting laundry and getting something from the kitchen (i.e. the chips) are traditionally feminine chores that the husbands in these videos seem to expect to be done for them by their wives. I don’t see them as emasculated.

    As for the music, the first one definitely reminds me of Gone with the wind, and the second music is similar but it also reminds me of the music used in westerns circa 1950? There’s a Geico ad (Did you know words can hurt?) which uses similar music.

  21. RG says:

    Thanks for posting this. My reaction was the same. Anything that paints a romance reader as a dowdy housewife who’s undersexed is going to make me cringe. And I hate hate hate this stereotype of middle-aged men as the butt of a joke. It’s everywhere. Think of so many family sitcoms out there. The husband is the person the woman tolerates but is not *really* attracted to. I read (and write) romance. My husband is middle-aged and hot. And I don’t read it because I’m not “getting any”. Ahem. I agree with others who have said they could’ve show a woman getting swept away into another setting, another place (like the person who mentioned dancing at the regency ball) maybe while she’s doing something boring–riding the train, taking a break at work, etc. And I’m like many have mentioned, I don’t replace the heroine with me. And since I read lots of m/m romance, that’d be pretty tough anyway, lol. I watch the story unfold like a movie in my head. The heroine is the heroine. The hero is the hero. I’m the voyeur. So much could’ve been done with this kind of campaign but it went in a bad direction. :-/

  22. EC Spurlock says:

    When I saw these ads my first thought was THAT IS SO HARLEQUIN. To me they codify everything the Harlequin brand is about and are a clear demonstration of why I don’t read them. So, congratulations, I guess, on spot-on branding? I found them sort of amusing just because I tend to laugh at Harlequin in general. Yes, they buy into all the stereotypes, but on the other hand this is who Harlequin thinks they are marketing to: the forgotten, ignored, undereducated lower-middle-class white woman who grabs her books in the checkout line at WalMart without even reading the blurb on the back.

    I found the laundry one less offensive in that the woman is clearly grabbing a little private time for herself until Hubby interrupts. (And notice she is SITTING ON THE VIBRATING WASHER while she reads teh Sexxytimes.) The one on the couch was a little harder to swallow, considering teh Sexxytimes are going on right next to Oblivious Dude. That’s a little too in-your-face. Like @cayenne, I would have liked to have seen her look at her husband thoughtfully when he interrupts, then drag him down on the couch with her.

    Also, if they’re going to use #Whateveryoureinto as a tag line, then they need to also show some LGBT couples as well, IMHO.

  23. Kris Bock says:

    I think one of these alone would not have been so bad, especially the dryer one, if it had been paired with other examples that showed other aspects of romance novels – not necessarily sex, though possibly romantic, like dancing in the Regency Ballroom or a suspense scene. The variety would have done more to show the appeal of romance, and much better fit the theme of “whatever you are into.” Having these two videos be so similar is lazy and boring, as well as making the concept more offensive.

  24. marjorie says:

    Smart analysis, ladies. I’m not even gonna watch.

  25. LauraL says:

    As joyfully as they were being shared on Facebook, I’m so glad I wasn’t the only one cringing while watching the videos.

  26. LaraAmber says:

    I was thinking “what would I have done different” if I was making these videos. So here is my suggested replacement for the laundry one:

    Show girl and guy in old fashioned western garb very close with her kinda sitting and him standing and having a very emotional “but I love you scene”. See enough of the outdoors in the background that you assume she is sitting on a fence or a rock, then when the camera pulls back you see she is sitting on washer/dryer set. Just long enough for the WTF? to set in and the spell is broken (reverts to normal laundry room) because husband comes in and opens the dryer and says “okay he’s down for his nap, want me to fold towels while I watch the game?”.

  27. jimthered says:

    As a male, I was neither thrilled nor offended by these ads. Superficial? Yes — but each one runs extremely slightly over half a minute, so there’s not exactly a lot of time for the character development and discovery that’s in the best romance novels. Maybe a passionate embrace on a windswept moor, or a ballroom dance with him in a tux and her in a gorgeous gown (Haelequin still makes those books that clearly cater to the wealthy man fantasy, don’t they?) could work in as short a time.

    And my weird thought (I almost always have at least one) when watching this was that it unintentionally seemed to go for the cuckolding fantasy, while the wife gets it on with a stranger while the husband sits next to them or walks in on them. I doubt there are many Harlequin books like that.

  28. Marie says:

    This is a very fine article, thank you for the in depth analysis. Lots of great arguments and thoughts in the article and comment section! I have mixed emotions about it. On the one hand, they’re poking fun at the stereotype and that should be fine, right? On the other hand I think clever jokes are punching up, and not down. And in a situation where we still have to defend romance books against the stupid ‘mommy porn’ accusation and the implication of that term, that women’s sexuality and middle aged women’s sexuality in particular are somehow cringe worthy, I just don’t think that basically doubling down instead of deconstructing those images is very smart.

  29. Sabrina says:

    My first thought was “Ewwww” next was “Uhhhhh” followed by a WTH. I just wanted it to stop whatever “it” was that I was watching. Interestingly I found the second one less off putting as well. But I’m like Sarah–I don’t put myself in the protagonist’s place. I read like I’m watching a story not participating in a story. I never feel like I’m Kate or Charley. So these ads are kinda lost on a reader like me. I also don’t want people to think that’s what’s going on in my head when I’m reading.

  30. Jessica says:

    Personally I liked the “Whatever You’re Into” videos (which I posted earlier today) and I thought they were cute. Just poking a little fun at the genre.

    But I can see where this article is coming from. It’s obvious we’ve seen these stereotypes before – the “discontented wife”, the “mundane husband”, and so on, and yeah I do think that Harlequin, being the forefront of the romance world could have stepped it up a bit.

    They could have shown a successful career woman, taking her much deserved lunch break out of doors, and pulling a romance out of her shoulder bag. Then poof, the hero and heroine appear next to her, just sitting together, embracing, smiling at each other and then at her.

    After all, these characters are our friends and family.

    Or (going with the day to day escapism theme) Harlequin could have shown a male reader (16% of readership people!), flopping onto the seat of a commuter train at the end of a long day, and pulling out a romance. In the middle of the train a heroine turns to walk away from a hero and he catches her hand. Wait, he seems to say. She turns back and there’s a long tense moment between them. The reader grins, and looks back at his book, turning the page.

    It’s so nice when the only drama in your life is safely tucked between the pages of a book.

    So I acknowledge the points in this article, I do.

    Still, despite the room for improvement, I can’t help but feel that, in the original videos, there is more playful mockery of the genre and the stereotypes themselves than of the actual readers.

    This is not a case of “the joke’s on us” so much as an inside joke with the rest of the romance community.

    A little nudge, nudge, wink, wink, “how’s your new book boyfriend”?

    *hits play again*

  31. Ellen C. says:

    I like that Harlequin tried something different. I think they just need to refine the content. Everyone here had great suggestions. Thanks for sharing.

  32. Robin K. says:

    I don’t understand why less people found the second ad just as offensive. Am I the only one who noticed in the second ad that the woman reading was sitting on top of the running washer? Has no one ever heard the sexists jokes, of the past I hope, about housewives who loved to do laundry? Because of the spin cycle vibrations?!! It’s like a subtle suggestion of a woman getting off while reading a romance.

    These ads were just embarrassing to watch. I get enough grief from people who are stupid enough to think that romance equals porn without Harlequin reinforcing the stereotype.

  33. SandyCo says:

    This article is timely. I saw the ads via Facebook, too, and although I laughed at first, I didn’t share them. Why not? Because of some discomfort, although I couldn’t pinpoint where it came from. These ads are denigrating to men, as if romance readers are just dying to escape from their clueless husbands into the “arms” of the hero. I don’t read like that; I also feel like more of a voyeur than a participant. Besides, after reading romances for the past 38 years, I tend to skip over the sex scenes (sorry, authors!), especially the ones that go on for pages and pages. I wouldn’t mind seeing more ads like these, but with everyone’s suggestions taken in account to improve them.

  34. Katie Lynn says:

    When I first saw the couch one, I thought it was funny. Until it panned out to her husband. Then? Not so much. I just found it sad and squicky.

    I agree that if they had shown the wife in character DOING something, and then being pulled back into real life, I would like this much better. With actual dialogue between the wife and fictional hunk.

    I’m with most of you, that I don’t use the heroine as a stand-in for myself. I read books to connect with all of the characters, not to pretend my life is different.

  35. Kelly S. says:

    I’m on the “Didn’t like them” bandwagon.

  36. ML says:

    100% concur. My reaction on watching these was NO. Just NO. I never project myself into a romance I read, and I found the connotation that this is what romance readers do (from one of the foremost romance publishers) distasteful. Add the article’s comments on diversity and the treatment of men to this makes it an epic fail on Harlequin’s part to me

  37. Disclaimer: As a Carina Press author, I think I’m obliged to be pro-Harlequin. 😉

    But that said: I haven’t even looked at the videos, just on the grounds that I was already pretty certain that what I’m into would not be covered by them. To wit: yeah, f/f emphasis in romance, pretty thin on the ground.

    Or even if still for het romances, yeah, what I’m into is way less about the sex scenes, as Elyse wrote. I don’t generally read romances for the sex, and as I’ve mentioned before, the endless parade of shirtless, faceless, over-muscled chests on covers bores me to tears. (And I say that as somebody with a shirtless dude on one of her books. ;D ) What I’m into are heroes who use their brains, heroes who aren’t threatened by women holding their own beside them in adventures, and bonus points if they’re also heroes who know their way around musical instruments because swoon.

    But then, you wouldn’t have to make a whole campaign of advertisements. I could just point you at any De Temps Antan or Le Vent du Nord videos on YouTube!

  38. Heather S says:

    I just watched both vids and found them utterly cringe-worthy. Harlequin’s “Love of Reading Lasts a Lifetime” video is SO MUCH BETTER – and it shares what many readers know to be true: that reading romance is a legacy passed down by the women in our families (well, not in mine, but for lots of you guys). Check it out – it makes a great palate-cleanser after those yucky videos.

  39. Fluffy says:

    I’m another of the “could have been done well… but wasn’t” crowd. If I hadn’t known what I was getting into, I’d have been expecting, say:

    Woman makes out with hot but faceless military dude. Husband interrupts with “what are you reading?” Wife slowly turns to him, grins, grabs him — and fade to black. Or throw couch cushions around or something.

    It doesn’t bother me to have the fantasy guy be a bit one-dimensional. Of course, I’d then pair it with something like:

    Woman is standing in a ballroom with a man beside her. He says, “I am a dashing naval captain, on the run from the law after being mistaken for my ne’er do well brother.” She blinks, turns, and is suddenly in a cowgirl costume, with a guy dressed to match on her other side. “I’m the gruff, sensitive type who loves dogs and horses, trying to build a life for me and my herd of disabled goats while a slick city banker tries to ruin my life.” Third blink, and both guys are book covers. She grabs both and makes her way to the cash desk.

    Etcetera.

  40. Tam B. says:

    The first ad’ made me cringe. What I could not accept was the distance between the couple, the body language and her closed posture. It says, to me, that these two are strangers. I’ve spent many an hour sharing the couch with my husband whilst he watched the golf and you know what? He shows affection during that time and we don’t ignore each other even if we’re not sharing an interest.

    My idea of showing a Harlequin escape.
    The busy mother, the new mother, the harried assistant, the ambitious exec’ – pick your type – walk in to Cafe Harlequin for a coffee and five minutes of peace. As they sit down they’re transported to a light repast at a regency ball, beer and grits in a saloon, cocktails on the billionaire’s yacht, an MRE before the mission. Flash back to find them reading the related book over a coffee. Further you could have the cowboy invite the debutante to two-step as the various women (and/or men) get chatting about their various books.

    I don’t read books for the sex. I read for the story and the characters. I think Harlequin needs to rethink this media strategy as it plays to all the stereotypes that it’s very readership dislike and fight against.

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