I think Fabio is the single biggest figure of the 1990s in need of re-evaluation.
The biggest misconception people have about the community surrounding romance novels in the 1990s, is that people were unironically into Fabio. Romance novel readers were always savvier and more ironic and smartassed and “in on the joke” than people realized or gave them credit for being. Romance readers thought of Fabio with the same affection that Generation X has for Gary Coleman, or how comic book fans have for Adam West: a strange mixture of ironic appreciation and sincere delight for his cheeseball ways and campy goofball antics.
To be clear, Romance novel fans were “in on the joke” with Fabio in a way the greater culture didn’t realize, and they were, for the most part, pretending that Fabio, this Italian demigod who was 6’3” but who nonetheless acted and sounded like Tommy Wiseau, was the most handsome man in the world and the ultimate lover.
Whenever Fabio made the news for things like ramming into a duck at full speed on the inaugural ride of a roller coaster surrounded by women dressed as Greek goddesses (yes, this happened), the Romance novel fanzines treated it with a near avuncular “hey guys, guess what our favorite goof uncle is up to, now.” Likewise, the response to the “Fabio-written” novels was very much like the response to those KFC-promotion novels where Colonel Sanders is a stud lover, more like a “ha ha, can you believe this is a thing?”
The Adam West comparison to Fabio is especially good because it shows how appreciation can sometimes be this weird mixture of sincere and ironic. Adam West’s antics made me groan sometimes, but I’m sorry to say I never met him, and if I did, I would shake his hand. I laugh at Adam West, but I like him. Other people in this weird zone would probably include Shatner and David Hasselhoff. Adam West is my hero, and someone I chuckle at affectionately simultaneously (the Batman the Animated Series episode guest starring the Grey Ghost played by Adam West, where Batman said “I used to watch you with my father, you were my hero. And you still are” brings me to manly tears).
The comparison between Adam West and Fabio gets stronger when you consider that a lot of romance novel fans who were deeply insecure about their hobby (all the girls in black who read romance novels, in other words), hated Fabio with disproportionate and unearned intensity and were embarrassed he was the symbol of this entire genre, the same way the more insecure and pseudo-intellectual comic fans get mad at the 1960s Batman show.
Another person I would compare Fabio to would be Brendan Fraser, who is a big goof but who ladies are unironically thirsty for because he’s gorgeous and brawny, and the fact he’s a beautiful cornball is actually a part of the appeal. Again, the taste for Fabio was a mix of ironic and sincere, to the point you no longer know which end is up. Yeah, I said that romance novel readers were in on the joke and people didn’t “really” think he was a God of Love or the World’s Greatest Lover, but nonetheless, there was lots of thirst for Fabio, because a lot of girls, fully aware of his cheesiness, thought his muscles and long hair were cool, and being his girl would actually be neat and probably a lot of fun…though you’d have to hold back a laugh when he’s on the bed with a rose between his teeth, that bizarre version of human sexuality.
The story of Fabio is actually kind of interesting. Fabio did the Steve Holland or Lynde route and modeled for covers, and not all of them were romance, incidentally. He was Tarzan a bunch of times, and Casca, the Eternal Warrior, too. Eventually, he posed for a few hundred before Romance Times, in 1990, did an inquiry on who the heck this ubiquitous cover model was. The person who discovered her was superfan Kathryn Falk, essentially the Bjo Trimble of romance novels, and who founded the first Romance Novel conventions in 1982.
(That reminds me, one of these days, I have to write about Romance Novel conventions because it is far far more insane than it looks.)
Fabio, by all accounts, was not the symbol for love and romance the world over, cooing love poetry in his Wiseau accent. He had that role thrust upon him when the Romance Times analysis put him in the limelight, and like a good pro wrestler, now lives his gimmick entirely in kayfabe, but at the time he became known, his publicist had to keep secret he was dating Shoshanna Lonstein, who was…shall we say…well, well under 18. If her name sounds familiar, it’s because she dated the 50 year old Jerry Seinfeld at 19. His publicist threatened to blackmail Fabio with this in the early days of his career if he didn’t play ball.
tangentwithtanner
yousharknotpass
titsay
germansingergirl
blakekathryn
pixelskylines
prguitarman
