In the 1910 story the Phantom of the Opera, the plot partly involves romantic lead Raoul de Chagny a

In the 1910 story the Phantom of the Opera, the plot partly involves romantic lead Raoul de Chagny attempting to romantically pursue his childhood friend, the Swedish soprano Christine Daaé, not knowing that she has her own problems going on with the titular masked murdered in the basement at the moment. When she declines Raoul’s advances, he decides to keep pressing her anyways, only to flip out when he hears her talking to a man in her dressing room (the Phantom), where upon Raoul flips out, and goes on at length about how promiscuous Christine must be to turn him down and implictly accept the advances of some other dude.Now, from a 2020′s perspective Raoul’s entitled, misogynistic behaviour is itself very crappy, but when seen in the historical context young women in the Paris Opera were treated in the period the story is based.. It kind of becomes worse?See, a lot of young women entering into the Opera Garnier were themselves from poorer backgrounds, which meant that many were pressured either by their own economic circumstances or their parents to get a patronage from one of the many rich men, known as abonné, who happened to treat their season tickets as in much the same way that Donald Trump treated the Miss Universe pageants. Which is to say, they would all sit in the ballerinas practice area to watch them rehearse and get changed.Y’know, like creeps.These abonné had a reputation for stalking the ballerinas and pressuring them for sex, and because misogyny in the entertainment industry is sadly a constant, many came to see the fact that young women were being pressured into relationships with rich older men in exchange for “patronage“ as being a result of the moral failings of the young women themselves rather than the people choosing to exploit them.Now, this state of affairs wasn’t some obscure, hushed up secret that was swept under the rug, painter Edgar Degas was noted as having used the ballerinas of the Paris Opera and their creepy patron as subjects in his art, while author Émile Zola also wrote stories about them as well. Additionally, as a theatrical critic and journalist who had an extensive knowledge of the behind the scenes goings on the the Opera Garnier Gaston Leroux more than likely knew about the situation as well…So, with this context in place, it can be inferred that while Raoul himself may have been attempting to pursue Christine romantically, his assumption that Christine was sleeping with someone else may have been based in his presumption that his orphaned former friend was engaging in a form of sex work to support herself… Which in Raoul’s mind made Christine a bad person?Now, it should be noted that within the context of the story, Gaston Leroux doesn’t particularlty seem to like Raoul that much (his sympathises and characterisation are reserved for the Phantom, Christine, and the Persian ex-policeman that’s absent from a lot of later adaptations). So his depiction as a entitled, misogynistic weenie may have actually been on purpose, particularly in light of how the story is structured as Leroux constructing the story in-universe from interviews, police reports and such. -- source link

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