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My group blog, Writers At Play, today is interviewing Romantic Times’ Mr. Romance 2008 2nd Runner Up Jimi Gaskin.

We’ll be giving away prizes throughout the day so be sure to drop by and say hi to Gaskin, ask him questions, or to just join in the fun. Each comment you make enters you to win a prize!

Gaskin is more than just a pretty face, he’s also studying Physics at the University of Hawaii. Interviewer Janice Lynn says that Gaskin is:

Real as in the good-looking guy you had a major crush on while growing up. Real as in the guy next door you wished would notice you. Real as in you don’t suffer worries that your bra would fit him better than it fits you. Real as in someone you’d introduce your best friend to, your daughter to & keep your fingers crossed. That kind of real.

Lynn goes onto point out that Gaskin isn’t overly polished: “You didn’t have a fake tan, veneers, over-styled hair, or muscles that could give a woman a complex about her own chest size. I really like that ‘realness’.”

We hope this future physicist continues keeping it real.

(#25)

1. It’s Science Fiction. You can say “it’s just a drama that happens to take place in space,” but the main conflict/plot — and most of the inter-/intra-personal conflict — comes right out of a Science Fiction premise. If describing it this way brings an audience to Science Fiction who normally wouldn’t chance it, then great, but this show is asking Big Questions About Humanity and what it means to be human, the kinds of questions Science Fiction poses all the time.

2. Starbuck, in all her frakked-up craziness.

3. Jamie Bamber’s perfectly amazing fake American accent.

4. It portrays a polytheistic society, and doesn’t try to make the case that this kind of religion led to their destruction. The Colonials didn’t create the Cylon “toasters” because they’re polytheistic, they created them because humans make mistakes all the time. It’s easy to see how our own largely monotheistic society could create the same technology and seeing that comparison is part of the show’s Big Question About Humanity.

5. Starbuck, in all her frakked-up craziness.

6. The multicultural crew of the Galactica: We get to see characters portrayed by such diverse actors as Grace Park, Edward James Olmos, Kandyse McClure, Alessandro Juliani, Stephanie Chaves-Jacobsen, and Rekha Sharma.

7. Jamie Bamber’s guns. (Does this mean I have to make this a Gaze post as well?)

8. All the strong female characters in the show playing every role from president to fighter pilot and press secretary to mother and priestess. I was ready to get indignant at the last episode’s development with Rekha Sharma’s character Tory Foster — that the other three male Cylons expected her to sleep with Baltar to get information from him — but then Baltar had a real human moment and created a great story reversal. I’d still rather see a female character at the helm of that kind of reversal though, and hope I get it with Starbuck at some point.

9. Waiting to see who else is suddenly going to pop up in Baltar’s demented head.

10. Starbuck, in all her frakked-up craziness.

11. For Science Fiction, it’s actually pretty low-tech.

12. Dogfighting in space has no sound because there is no atmosphere in which sound waves can travel. Doh. (Take that, Lucas.)

13. The writers just plain rock. I want to be one when I grow up. They “re-imagined” one of my favorite childhood shows into the dark, edgy drama I knew it had at its heart once stripped of the cheese-factor.

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I thought I’d have some fun this Friday morning and post something in The Gaze category, where I talk about how women look at men.

We’re so used to the Male Gaze in movies and TV — meaning that the viewer is assumed to be male and therefore women on the screen are portrayed that way — that if we keep showing the flipside maybe the common way of doing things will balance out eventually. Plus, I’ve read articles for years portraying men as very visual creatures and tacking the reason for all the female skin all over the media on that. The same articles often explain that women are just not visual creatures, and say this is why women can be attracted to older men and why men are not attracted to older women.

Anecdotally I think these assumptions are untrue. I can point to my recent post on the James Marsden interview where he said that older woman can be sexy, and my other posts in The Gaze category have shown that women do ogle men. Women are indeed visual creatures, maybe not to the extent that men are, but we shouldn’t discount it altogether.

What does this have to do with facial hair? Cultural writer Brian Appleyard just posted the article ” Stubble? Beard? What Is It?” on his blog about how he dislikes what I call the “sorta beard,” short-cropped facial hair that doesn’t quite qualify as a full-on beard. Appleyard is not a facial hair fan:

“The result, gentlemen, is that you end up looking as scruffy and suspect. . . and you just can’t wear a suit when your chin’s in that state, not without looking like The Defendant.”

Some of the commenters disagreed, but no one really cited any examples of how this look can work well by defining the chin and, like bangs, accentuating the eyes. Two cases in point: Gerard Butler and Eric Dane, both of which sport sorta-beards and look good doing it. Appreciating facial hair is partly a generational thing and, of course, partly personal preference. I find it interesting how we as a society try to accentuate gender differences by having women remove nearly all body hair, but then we don’t continue that idea by finding male facial hair “manly.” Maybe if we were more comfortable with overt testosterone markers like facial hair, then we wouldn’t be so apt to infantilize women into being hairless.

I’m not saying that clean-shaven men aren’t sexy, they are, but Tom Selleck, often considered to be one of the sexiest men alive, doesn’t look as good without the mustache and it’s all about his eyes. They’re a great feature, but they just don’t have the same visual impact without the mustache.

The same thing is true of Gerard Butler, who has sported quite a range of facial hair from being clean-shaven in the movie Shattered to the Leonidas’ Moses-beard in 300. So you’ve probably by now realized that I picked that scruffy photo of James Marsden deliberately. Facial hair doesn’t work for every guy, just like every hairstyle doesn’t for all men and women, but if Gerard Butler and Eric “McSteamy” Dane’s fanbases are any indication, a whole lot of women disagree with Appleyard.

I think that needs to be on a t-shirt or something.

In a recent CNN interview, the actor who played Cyclops in the X-Men movies waxes on about how a guy’s clothes should never be wearing him and how sexy his wife’s neck is, but most especially about fatherhood, role models and how sex appeal is really about confidence not age:

What does your wife find sexy on you?

A button-front shirt with [baby] spit-up on the shoulder. That means a guy is taking care of the kids and is a good father — that’s sexy to a woman. The adult version of rose petals and champagne is if I let my wife sleep in and I get up to change the baby’s diaper, feed the kids, and do the dishes…

Who inspires you?

Paul Newman. My middle name is Paul, and my grandfather once said I was going to look like Paul Newman. That stuck with me. Beyond being a good-looking guy, Newman is a great actor with a long career, and he’s got a life. He’s married with kids and lives in Connecticut, sells popcorn and marinara sauce, and gives the money to charity…

Don’t you agree that guys have it easy — they are considered “distinguished” as they grow older?

I don’t think it’s guy-specific. As women get older, they become more comfortable with themselves. Susan Sarandon is the poster woman for that. A lot of guys fantasize about being with women who are in their forties or fifties.

I like that the interviewer asked not only what Marsden found sexy, but what the woman in his life found to be sexy — turning that gaze around for the audience.

Well, the fang fans have spoken and the winner of the Favorite Fang Poll is Kyle Schmid, who plays 450 year old vampire Henry Fitzroy on Lifetime TV’s Blood Ties with 56% of the votes (101).

Second place goes to Gerard Butler for his role in Dracula 2000 with 29% of the votes (53). Alex O’Loughlin from the new CBS show Moonlight takes third place with 9% of the votes (17). I really thought Alex O’Loughlin would have garnered more votes since Moonlight is turning out to be fun show. In fact, I’ve been enjoying Moonlight as well as Blood Ties.

Thank you everyone who voted! Please stay tuned this Friday for a Blood Ties related Danger Gal Friday post.

Kyle Schmid	Gerard Butler	Alex O’Loughlin

This post has been updated.

Seeing as how I unintentionally left out a few real contenders in the first round of the Your Favorite Fang Poll, I decided to offer a second round. Gerard Butler was the clear winner in the last round, so it will be interesting to see if that title holds. Enjoy!

THIS POLL IS NOW CLOSED.

Gerard Butler	Alex O’Loughlin	James Marsters
Kyle Schmid	Stuart Townsend	Mark Frankel
Grandpa Munster

Fans have voted. Gerard Butler came in as the #1 Fang in last week’s poll with 69% of the vote for the title role in Dracula 2000. Coming in second was Alex O’Loughlin from CBS’ new show Moonlight with 17% of the vote. Third place goes to James Marsters for his role as Spike in Buffy the Vampire Slayer with 6% of the vote.

Gerard Butler	Alex O’Loughlin	James Marsters

Thank you to everyone who voted. Round Two of the Favorite Fang Poll will be available shortly and will include a few fangs left out of the first round, namely Kyle Schmid from Lifetime TV’s Blood Ties — the second half of the first season starts this Friday — and Mark Frankel from Kindred: The Embraced.

Suggestions are definitely welcome in the comments section of this post. Also, since this is the Danger Gal blog, it would be fun to have a Female Favorite Fang Poll. Suggestions are welcome for that as well.

This post has been updated.

Even Danger Gals need to have fun once in a while. Take a look at the list below and vote for your favorite Fanged One. I am quite the connoisseur of vampire movies (and books, but that’s another poll).

Can one be a connoisseur of trashy vampire fiction? I aim to try.

VOTING FOR THIS POLL HAS NOW CLOSED. PLEASE TUNE IN FOR ROUND TWO.

Click here to see the results of Round One.

Alex O’Loughlin	Gerard Butler
David Boreanaz	James Marsters
Brad Pitt	Tom Cruise
Kiefer Sutherland	George Hamilton
Wesley Snipes	Stephen Dorff

This week’s Danger Gal and Female Gaze installments are related: Tomb Raider 2’s Lara Croft and her love interest/partner/sidekick Terry Sheridan.

Gerard Butler’s character of Sheridan is, much to many a female’s delight, objectified but not emasculated. In fact, the Female Gaze celebrates ultra-masculinity while at the same time valuing the character’s emotions.

Sheridan first appears in the movie when Croft rescues him from prison. In this first meeting he’s working out by doing pull-ups from the ceiling and is dressed in less clothing than Lara.

Throughout the movie, Sheridan attempts several times to reconnect with Croft, and his appeals play more to her emotions than to remembered sexual chemistry. The former is more often employed by female characters, the latter by “macho” males. For example, take the following exchange:

Sheridan: So, where do I fit in?

Croft: What do you mean? You’re the guide.

Sheridan: I mean, when you think back on the vast scheme of your hugely adventurous life… where do I fit in? Was I the love of your life, or just another bump on the road? Was I time well spent? Four months? More good than bad? Come on, it had to be more than that, am I right?

Croft: You’re right. It was five months.

At one point in the movie, Croft watches Sheridan undress from afar in a scene that obviously is meant to appeal to a female audience and depicts a woman who clearly has a libido, has in the past acted on that libido and has not been penalized for such actions. (more…)

There’s a new category on the Danger Gal blog: The Female Gaze.

Both myself and my friend Leslie Dicken have talked about the recent study revealing just how visually stimulated women really are, debunking the myth that only men appreciate visual stimulation. This series of posts will examine how the male body is used to market to a female audience and how a female audience dictates that content. (Moreover, it’ll be a reason for me to post photos of hot guys for all my girlfriends to ogle.)

The concept of the Female Gaze came out of the more general concept that analyzes how an audience regards the people presented in any type of performance. It grew out of postmodern philosophy in the 1960s and encompasses not only a spectator’s gaze, but a character in a text looking at another person or object, a character addressing the audience and the camera’s gaze, this last type often attributed to a director of a film.

Feminist theory took this concept a step further and applied it to the fact that men controlled most of the media (and still do), and so the “looker” in the gaze concept is most often going to be that of a male. I don’t see this as some conspiratorial oppression, but rather a natural tendency of creative agency, albeit reinforced by the discriminatory aspects of culture. The more egalitarian a culture, the more varied the gaze. While some authors excel at writing the opposite gender and we should all strive to write our characters realistically, it’s ultimately important to build most of a character’s conflicts from their sense of personhood, to make their conflicts and motivations spring from universal problems that aren’t gender specific. Few of us can live up to the example of James Tiptree, Jr., who for years kept secret her gender and many in the industry had to eat crow when her identity was discovered. (more…)