13 April 2011

Verdict on Guilty Pleasures: Overall I enjoyed it. It was light and frothy. The people it showcased were all very endearing and quirky.

But, I would have liked to learn more about why these people read Mills and Boons; for instance how did they start? What drew them in the first place?

I would have liked to learn more about the model Stephen and what it meant for him, to be the pin up of so many women’s fantasies. All we learnt about him was his work out routine and eating habits and that he has a veritable self-help library! And that rather worrying propensity to walk the streets in nothing but his speedos and a smile.

It would have also been nice to see some more writers and their stories depicted, even though Roger (Gil Sanderson) did a great job of dispelling the myth that all M&B writers are genteel old ladies.

Overall, the people in the documentary seemed to prove some sort of widely held notion that these are prime examples of the average M&B reader/writer/male model. And I don’t think that’s the case at all. I think the documentary only scratched a very narrow surface and reinforced as many stereotypes as it tried to demolish.

It seemed to me to just touch on the surface of a much more satisfying documentary, I came away feeling as if the M&B world is a somewhat furtive one, which is plainly not true when so many people write it, read it and generally celebrate it every day.

x Abby