Are Pirates the New Hot Bad Boys of Fictional Romance?

This blog post is a long time coming because this really needs to be discussed.

Let's talk about Captain Hook. You know, the bad guy from Peter Pan. He has gotten quite a few makeovers throughout the years and I am here writing about them because it is a phenomenon that never seems to get the acknowledgment it deserves.

First I will provide examples, and then follow up with my argument.

J.M. Barrie created Captain Hook as an adversary to his titular character Peter Pan. Most children, myself included, were first introduced to him through the 1953 animated Disney film, Peter Pan.

Here he is wearing the iconic red swashbuckler outfit and of course, the famed hook. This look will be the basis of the character's overall style and is the one most associated with him.

Captain Hook has had many different incarnations since, such as the Dennis Hoffman portrayal in the Robin Williams 1991 film Hook.

Here he looks quite similar to the original. He has the same outstretched mustache, flamboyant clothing, and flowing black hair.

Then a live action version of Peter Pan (the first authorized and faithful one since Disney's version), which for me is what probably kicked off all of these Disney remakes lately 10+ years later, was released in 2003, starring Jeremy Sumpter as Peter Pan and Jason Isaacs as Captain Hook.

This Captain Hook is still designed a bit similarly, but perhaps is not as goofy looking as Hoffman's. He still has the flowing black hair and red attire, but his facial hair is a bit more normal and subdued and he comes across a tiny bit more serious throughout the movie while still being insane.

But then, a few mere years later, something interesting happened. The ABC live action show "Once Upon a Time" premiered in 2011. Season 2 introduced their version of Captain Hook, played by Irish actor Colin O'Donoghue, and eventually he became a principal character and fan favorite. He also transitioned from villain to hero, which is a rarity for him.

Here we see a drastically whole new Captain Hook. He is usually referred to just as "Hook" in the show and we learn about some of his background, such as his "real name" (in quotes because this is the only version that refers to him as "Killian Jones") and his history with the military. He has also traded in his red jacket for a more modern black leather one. Given that the show gears its attention more towards Hook's origins (or rather their retelling of them to fit the story) and have him as an active main character, it's understandable that he's going to look more youthful.

Going along with this pre-pirate persona is Garrett Hedlund's rendition of James Hook in the 2015 film Pan, which is considered a prequel to the Disney story.

This one often goes forgotten, so much so that I often confuse Hugh Jackman's Blackbeard as the actual Captain Hook character. :P Pan was not that much of a success from what I gather. In this Hook is actually blond and does not comes across looking like the character by any means.

Finally, even much more recently, on July 21, 2017 to be precise, we were introduced to Captain Hook's latest incarnation, or rather, his descendant. But it still counts in my argument. Meet Harry Hook, Captain Hook's son, played by Scottish actor Thomas Doherty (22).

Harry is Hook's only son. He makes his first appearance in Descendants 2, the sequel to Descendants, which is a Disney Channel film series directed by Kenny Ortega that focuses on the teenage offsprings of the classic Disney characters we have all come to know and love all living in the same universe. Harry adopts his father's red design and style but his personality is interestingly enough compared to the Gotham City Joker by fans. Out of the three primary villains in the sequel, he is considered the psychotic one. Upon seeing Harry, I felt that he bared a resemblance to O'Donoghue, so it made sense to me that they would be related.

In fact, it is O'Donoghue's portrayal that first inspired this blog post and then Doherty's reinstated it within me.

There have been other versions of the character, such as staged versions and even older films, but I think we have enough here to achieve my point in this post. Let's analyze this evolution of Captain Hook's character just based on physicality alone...

...Captain Hook was always a stupid looking big-nosed freak with absolutely zero redeemable features! What was the reasoning behind gradually making him sexy throughout the years???

That's right! I said it! Captain Hook is now sexy and I have no clue where this idea came from and why it exists in the first place!!

It is now that I realize that I am comparing the original animated design to ONLY live action incarnations, mainly because I have never really seen any other animated version, BUT MY POINT STILL STANDS!

Actually, you know what? Let's throw in another animated version for argument's sake. I never knew this, but in 1990 FOX produced an animated show called "Peter Pan & the Pirates". It ran for only exactly one year and had Tim Curry voicing Captain Hook. For this show, he had a totally different design than any of the examples above. In fact, if anything, he resembles Hedlund's version the most with his color scheme.

...Okay...So like I said, MY POINT STILL STANDS!

Clearly in his earlier days Captain Hook was never considered a heartthrob, and understandably so. I'm going to go ahead and assume that that was never the intention with the character. So who was it that said, "Hey, let's make Captain Hook a sex symbol" and actually made it work?

For me it kinda started with Jason Isaacs's portrayal of the character. He's not exactly "hot," but nor is he really unattractive either. Jason Isaacs is a handsome man.

However, Hook's sex appeal really took off with Colin O'Donoghue's portrayal. Both he and Doherty's Harry Hook are considered the heartthrob's of their respective franchises. What's even more interesting is that, unless I'm missing something, Gil (Dylan Playfair), son of Beauty and the Beast's Gaston (the guy who was designed, animated, and CREATED to look hot ON PURPOSE and even has a song dedicated to how foxy he is), doesn't even take the heartthrob title for Descendants 2. Harry, CAPTAIN HOOK'S SON, does.

Why?? How??

In fact, Gil is so far removed from sex symbol status for me that when I first saw him, I thought he was supposed to be Smee's kid or just a random background pirate. Nothing against Playfair, but there is nothing about Gil physically that connects him to Gaston. He is not designed like him nor does he bare any genetic similarities to him whatsoever. The only thing comparable is that they are both dimwitted. Also, what on earth is Gaston's kid doing as a pirate anyway??? Gaston was never associated with the ocean!!!

...

But I digress. You get my point.

Then in 2014 we also had to deal with Christopher Walken playing Captain Hook in NBC's "Peter Pan Live!", which threw off everything about this tantalizing evolution. 

You know, I don't have much good to say about that whole production, but Walken's performance gained a reputation for just how unusual it was. This was just a random version thrown in there during this time that briefly brought Captain Hook back to his initial unsexiness and original style.

Oh! And I almost forgot! We also had Kelsey Grammer (and other actors) playing Captain Hook in Broadway's "Finding Neverland", which played from March 2015 to August 2016 and is now on tour. Not to mention the Finding Neverland (2004) film version played by Tim Potter.

Then again, it could just be an age thing. The Hook versions are at their hottest with O'Donoghue, Hedlund, and Doherty simply because they were Hook when he was younger and more vibrant and in in Doherty's case, his teenage son. Perhaps the older Captain Hooks are designed to look more "grotesque" for the sake of the plot. Peter Pan is about children never growing up, literally and figuratively, and because Captain Hook is technically the only adult in the story, he is a caricature representing adulthood to combat the pure childhood theme represented by Peter Pan.

In fact, this very idea could answer my question. Perhaps the younger Hooks are more attractive simply because they fit into the mold of childlike "innocence" more easily. The older you get, the further you get from childlike innocence, and so therefore the "uglier" you become.

Whoa. That's deep.

But wait. Hook and Harry aren't necessarily "innocent," hence why I keep putting this word in quotes. I mean, they ARE the bad guy and son of the bad guy.

Captain Hook is a pirate. From my recollection, pirates, no matter what age, are never necessarily presented as men with attractive qualities. They're smelly, dirty, probably diseased and/or alcoholics, a rude and uncouth bunch, and most importantly, thieves. 

Pirates are simply defined as "people who attack and rob ships at sea," so basically they're not exactly a good group.

So are we supposed to assume that pirates are the new "bad boys" then? Is this what it ultimately comes down to?

They even go as far as making O'Donoghue's and Doherty's characters LOVE INTERESTS to the main girl! In "Once Upon a Time", Hook develops a romance with Emma Swan (Jennifer Morrison), and according to a behind the scenes inside joke among the Descendants cast and Ortega to explain the chemistry between the two young actors (who are now dating in real life), Harry used to date Mal (Dove Cameron), Maleficent's daughter.

Now "bad boys," on the other hand, are extremely attractive for some reason. They've always been so. Other common archetypal fictional figures who come to mind that also fit this scenario are vampires. Because of Twilight, The Vampire Diaries, and others, having a sexy, dangerous vampire boyfriend was suddenly the fantasy of many teenage girls (and apparently women in their 40s). Like pirates, vampires started off as villains too in the form of Dracula. I'm going to assume that perhaps they too weren't initially intended to evolve into the heartthrobs they eventually became. Though pirates are not nearly as popular as vampires, they could very well be set to replace vampires as the "bad boys" of fictional romances in the near future. It seems to be already starting with Captain Hook and his son thanks to recent developments. "Killian Jones" even wears a black leather jacket, which is pretty much the official bad boy symbol!

And another thing! O'Donoghue's Hook and Doherty's Harry both wear eyeliner/guyliner, which further emphasizes the connection between the two! If pirates are as careless about their appearances as I feel they are, and if Hook and Harry are both pirates, then we must ask ourselves: What man who DOESN'T care about his appearance is going to make the effort to apply eyeliner??!

That above point may be moot because men also wear stage makeup for performances and that could be the only explanation needed to justify Hook's and Harry's use of it. Something I notice about Harry's eyeliner is that it gradually gets darker as the film progresses, which to me symbolizes the crazier he is getting. But, we can also say that such eye application isn't used on other male characters but is just given to the key sexy pirates to give them that extra seductive edge.

Bottom line, let's just say that Hook and Harry look a little too groomed for pirates.

But the idea of a sexy pirate actually isn't new. In 2003, I guess a few months before Jason Isaacs's Captain Hook graced the big silver screen, another Disney pirate movie came out into the spotlight, which is what I believe started this whole trend...

YEP! Of course! It wasn't even Captain Hook who accomplished all of this! It was Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow! People are still salivating over him to this day and I think it's safe to say that Captain Jack Sparrow, and perhaps Edward Scissorhands as well, are the main iconic roles of Depp's career. I mean, they have been making Pirates of the Caribbean movies all this time, so the character and the story continue to be popular and audiences were never given any reason to miss him. I don't recall people finding pirates desirable prior to this character's debut. Plus, as an additional bonus, he too wears eyeliner. More proof.

What's even more intriguing is that this movie came out two years before the first Twilight novel was released, so unless there are other vampire or pirate tales out there that serve this "sexy bad boys" concept, perhaps the popularity of sexy pirates has been around for way longer than that of sexy vampires.

So, you know, I don't exactly know where I am going with this, but it seems to be a new trend that is trickling by audiences and readers alike without much heed.

Once again, what is the root of the current growing obsession with sexy pirates? Is it their swagger? Their impetuous attitude?? Their EYELINER??? Are we going to be soon seeing an influx of young adult romance novels with star-crossed lovers starring indifferent pirates???? Should I be the one to write said novels?????

I guess in order to receive more feedback on this subject, I should turn to the masses. I took to Facebook and Twitter and these were the responses I received:

"Captain Jack was only attractive due to his portrayer. IMO. Lol. I don't think I would have watched those movies or that character otherwise."
-Cathy Cangelosi Lameiras

"I think they're just making sexy everything these days lol Like sexy vampires was a thing and Twilight added the sexy werewolf. There are also sexy elf characters. Sexy demons. Etc. So I think it's natural that sexy pirates would come about. Sexy satyrs might be next. I better get on board that before someone else does XD

In my opinion, I think people just relates to pirates in a sense. The adventure, the action, the society-sees-you-as-bad-but-you're-actually-pretty-noble-at-heart idea. I think that's what makes it convincing. People can relate more to pirates because they're not the perfect Prince Charming hero types, I guess."
- Lucero Calleo

"Yeah I think that's the best explanation for it, if it can be convincingly made sexy, inevitably it will be"
-Kelly Trochanowski

"Daredevils like Robin Hood and some pirates are often admired. Media (film) has romanticized the law-breakers and now they are seen as macho and sexy."
-Ibby Taylor Greer

And then there were people who saw my point of view:

"What's so sexy about a thieving man who hasn't bathed in God knows how long? Pass
I dislike the sexualization & hyper sexualization of characters Especially if plots aren't furthered by doing so
Lol. OMGosh Hook 🙈 he was best as an anti-villain. I don't like he's supposed to be swoon worthy. Pairing him w/ Emma weakened his character
What annoyed me was the episode he tried getting his hand back. I saw it as the writers way of 'curing' his disability"
-@fairlyliterary

"Pirates can be sexy?

I'm sure anyone of any gender out at sea for as long as pirates were, would smell horrid and be covered in filth."

-BrileyK

Well, there you have it, folks. Captain Hook and the rest of his pirate friends are now sexy why? Because we can. And we do. Screw realism and history.