The Phantom Project Forum

I read your review of Amanda Ashley's story "Masquerade" and I laughed my arse off at how terrible it sounds.

Still, it strikes me that the "Phantom" connection in this story is extremely tenuous and it makes me wonder why you even bothered to review it.

I mean... the only Phantomish thing about it is the fact that the main character is a fan of the Lloyd-Webber musical and neatly embodies all of the fangirlish misconceptions about this story that Lord Andy's theatrical behemouth has spawned.

There's a scene in Alejandro Amendabar's film "Open Your Eyes" (remade in Hollywood as "Vanilla Sky"), where the therapist of a disfigured man mockingly refers to his patient as "The Phantom Of The Opera". Does that mean you'll be reviewing that too at some point?

I also seem to recall there being an episode of "Boston Legal" where Tom Selleck plays a guy who is contemplating divorcing his wife because she's such an insufferably squeeing phangirl. Are you going to review that?

Don't get me wrong, I got a great deal of reading pleasure out of your review of "Masquerade", but I wonder if you are casting your net too wide and torturing yourself unneccessarily in the process.

Was it marketed as being a Phantom story? Is that why you reviewed it?

Just how closely does something have to be connected to the Phantom story in order to count as something worthy of reviewing?

I've had plenty of trouble with the line between vaguely Phantom-related and actually Phantom-based, believe me. I can't tell you how much stuff I've plowed through, reading review after review after blurb to try to figure out if the film or book I'd been recommended actually had anything to do with the project. Vampire stories, in particular, seem to be prime candidates (blah!).

I generally try to look at a few criteria when it comes to Phantom stories. There's always the helpful look through the author's acknowledgments to see if they mention it, but a lot of them don't. Then I check to see if there's a deformity present (which can take a lot of tiresome forms, and there are a lot of romance novels, for example, that deal with disfigured or mask-wearing heroes but definitely aren't related at all), and do a cursory look into its origin, though the origin is less important since so many derivative versions of the original change that. I try to see if there's a musical element involved, and if there isn't, if there's a certain teacher/student power balance, and if there's a third character involved to set up the conflict in relationships (I also like to look for murder or nastiness at this point, but a lot of modern versions soften the character of the Phantom, so that isn't always present). And if enough of those elements are present, I buy it and pray that I didn't waste my pennies when it comes time to review.

Obviously, it's not a perfect system. I've gotten at least three duds so far, all recommended by others in the Phantom community, that just didn't turn out to be actually based on the story at all but only sort of vaguely similar. The single biggest problem is accidentally getting something that's based on the Beauty & the Beast fable, because (since the Phantom story is heavily based on that archetype) they share a lot of themes and elements, and that story's never gone out of style. I keep swinging and hoping I don't get too many misses.

Heh, it's funny that you use the Ashley story as an example... I'd been pointed toward it several times by other readers, and each time I read the blurbs and said, "This is vampire fiction and not related," and ignored it. But eventually, someone sent me a copy, and when I sat down to read it I realized that it did belong in the list (sad as that made me, since I had to read the rest of it). The story of Jason and Leann was obviously based on the Phantom story (or rather, the romanticized version of it in the Webber musical, with Raoul's character removed for expediency), and the mentions of said musical throughout the text seemed to be there primarily to shore this idea up and to clue the reader in, just in case they didn't see it.

However, you're right. That story is about the fringe of what I'd consider acceptable. I certainly won't be picking up anything that just mentions the story in passing, or anything that doesn't seem to be intentionally grounded in the tale (at least, not on purpose). I've been thinking about slapping up a section on things I've rejected for not actually being related... I wonder if I should get on that...