Why the glamorisation of dangerous men needs to stop

BBC2’s Northern Irish series The Fall concluded last Thursday night and to say that Jamie Dornan’s performance as Paul Spector was nothing short of scary and manipulative is an understatement. If you’re not aware, Jamie Dornan plays a murderous psychopath nicknamed “The Belfast Strangler” – who rapes and murders women around Belfast. His acting is genuinely impressive and completely captivating – he does a great job of playing an evil, woman-hating man. However, as I watched the gruesome scenes of the series finale, I couldn’t help but think of the roles Dornan has chosen to play in the past. I’ve noticed a pattern. His most high profile roles all happen to be abusive men treating women badly. In Fifty Shades of Grey he plays billionaire and S&M obsessed Christian Grey, who controls, sexually exploits and emotionally abuses his interest Anastasia Steele. Between Christian and Paul – they’re all brooding characters that women for some reason, can’t help but find attractive. Yes, Jamie Dornan is a very good looking man but I can’t help but feel a bit uncomfortable knowing people fancy his character in The Fall.

At university, I studied an English module called “From the Vote to the Pill” which was all about female writing and trends throughout the 20^th and 21^st century in literature and society. Towards the end, we learned how massive sellers had male love interests that were actually dangerous to women and created harmful expectations of relationships to readers. Twilight and Fifty Shades were on the syllabus and as a former Twilight and Robert Pattinson fan, I can no longer look at the series in the same light again. It totally sets the wrong expectations of love and relationships. All these contemporary book series glamourize dangerous and abusive relationships which is not ok, especially to young, impressionable readers.

Perhaps it’s the case of Jamie Dornan being pigeonholed in these roles or that he simply enjoys playing emotionally broken men, no one can say for sure. He does play these characters fairly well – I just hope he realises that he is helping push this idea that men who manipulate, stalk and harm women are somehow considered desirable and sexy.