From mythical beasts and blue-skinned mutants to men made entirely of wicker, monster romance is challenging Hollywood’s traditional ideas of attraction. In these stories, the perfect romantic partner isn’t necessarily a handsome human man. Instead, he might be a creature who offers kindness, emotional understanding, and respect in a world that often denies women those things.
The latest example is Wicker, a provocative fairy tale from husband-and-wife filmmaking team Alex Huston Fischer and Eleanor Wilson, adapted from Ursula Wills-Jones’s short story “The Wicker Husband.” Starring Olivia Colman and Alexander Skarsgård, the film explores gender expectations, social class, and sexual pleasure through an unconventional romance.
A Wicker Husband Who Changes Everything
Early in Wicker, Colman’s Fisherwoman is mocked when a disheveled villager jokingly proposes to her in the town square. The crowd laughs at the idea that anyone would want a woman they consider undesirable. Unmarried, working an unglamorous occupation, and occupying a low social position, she exists outside a community where women are expected to marry young and depend on their husbands.
Elizabeth Debicki’s Tailor’s Wife reinforces the humiliation with a smug look that suggests the Fisherwoman should consider herself lucky to receive even such a proposal.
Everything changes when the Fisherwoman returns with a husband of her own: a tall, intricately woven figure played by Skarsgård beneath layers of practical effects. His arrival disrupts the village and exposes the insecurities of the men who once mocked her.
The film joins a growing collection of monster romances, including The Shape of Water, Your Monster, and Lisa Frankenstein. Although their creatures differ, these stories share a central idea: the romantic partner society considers strange or frightening may offer something conventional relationships cannot.
From Ancient Myths to Modern Monster Romance
Romantic relationships between humans and monsters are hardly new. Mythology, folklore, and countless versions of Beauty and the Beast have explored love and desire across the boundaries of human appearance.
Traditional stories, however, often presented monstrousness as a symbol of male violence and power. Gods transformed themselves into animals to pursue their desires, while supernatural husbands threatened or imprisoned women in stories that frequently treated marriage as the expected resolution.
Contemporary monster romances increasingly shift the focus toward female desire and emotional fulfillment.
In Your Monster, Melissa Barrera’s character encounters a towering creature while coping with a painful breakup and a cancer diagnosis. In Lisa Frankenstein, a resurrected young man becomes part of a teenage girl’s journey through grief after her mother’s death. Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water follows Elisa, whose connection with an amphibious creature grows from her longing to be understood.
In each case, the monster provides a form of acceptance that the human world has failed to offer.
The Wild World of Monster Romance Fiction
If Hollywood’s monsters seem unusual, contemporary monster-romance novels push the concept much further. The genre has developed a passionate following alongside the broader rise of romantasy, with imaginative premises that stretch conventional ideas of romantic attraction.
In Ice Planet Barbarians, human women become stranded on an alien world inhabited by blue-tinted humanoids known as the Sakh, who are eager to mate. Morning Glory Milking Farm follows a financially struggling postgraduate student who takes a job collecting minotaur semen for a pharmaceutical company. Meanwhile, Tusk Love explores orc romance in ways that would likely surprise traditional fantasy readers.
These stories may invite ridicule, but dismissing them as merely outrageous misses their appeal. Women’s romantic interests—from boy bands and teen idols to fictional characters and celebrity crushes—have long been treated as objects of public mockery. Monster romance embraces that transgression, using increasingly fantastical scenarios to explore desire and challenge social conventions.
When the Monster Is a Better Man
At the heart of these stories is a question about masculinity. A sentient basket may sound like an absurd romantic prospect, but if he is more thoughtful, capable, and considerate than the human men around him, the unconventional choice begins to make sense.
Monster characters are often outsiders who face prejudice because of features they cannot change. In that respect, they can reflect the appearance-based judgment that women themselves experience. Some express insecurity about how others perceive them, creating a bond with partners who understand what it means to be misunderstood or reduced to physical appearance.
These characters can also display emotional qualities that conventional romantic heroes sometimes lack. Fiction has long imagined men who are compassionate, self-aware, and emotionally available. Yet when real-world messages increasingly portray tenderness as weakness, those qualities can begin to seem fantastical.
The more society celebrates aggression and emotional detachment as masculine ideals, the more appealing an alternative may become—even when that alternative has fur, fangs, blue skin, or a body woven from wicker.
Nightcrawler and the Appeal of Kindness
Janelle Okwodu offers her own example of an ideal fictional man in Kurt Wagner, better known as Nightcrawler from X-Men. The blue-skinned mutant loves swashbuckling stories and possesses an extraordinary capacity for kindness. He is deeply religious without being preachy and remains gentle despite having three fingers on each hand and a prehensile tail.
His goodness, however, is repeatedly punished. The second season of X-Men ’97 ends with Nightcrawler sacrificing himself, drawing on an unmistakable religious allusion.
That tension between goodness and punishment also runs through Wicker.
Why the Wicker Husband Threatens the Village
The Wicker Husband is attentive, considerate, and devoted to his wife. He treats her with dignity, makes her the center of his world, and participates in domestic work without complaint. Even his ability to repair the bed the couple repeatedly breaks becomes an embarrassing contrast to the shortcomings of the village’s human husbands.
His presence challenges the community’s assumptions about marriage, intimacy, and what a husband should be. The village women begin to notice his affection, while the men complain about his behavior and sexual prowess. The Tailor’s Wife also reacts with hostility.
The film’s central threat is not simply that a woman has chosen an unconventional partner. It is that her relationship demonstrates how much better a marriage can be when a man treats his wife with genuine care. The resistance that follows reveals how much the existing social order depends on keeping women’s expectations low.
The Internet’s Reaction—and the Joke It Missed
When the Wicker trailer appeared, Skarsgård’s character quickly became an online sensation. The actor already has a following for his unconventional romantic roles, including the BDSM romantic comedy Pillion and his portrayal of a Nordic vampire in HBO’s True Blood.
On TikTok, viewers labelled the Wicker Husband a “hear me out”—internet shorthand for an unexpected attraction. Wordplay about “wick” followed, while IKEA’s official Instagram account joined the conversation by sharing images of baskets and rattan furniture under the caption “husband material.”
Alongside the jokes, however, some commenters struggled to understand why the character appealed to women. They attributed the excitement to Skarsgård’s looks or to an audience starved of romantic films.
That response echoes the very attitudes Wicker satirizes. Just as the village men fail to understand why their wives might admire the Wicker Husband, some online critics overlook the qualities that make him desirable beyond his appearance.
The deeper attraction is not simply the actor beneath the wicker. It is the character’s tenderness, attentiveness, and willingness to share the responsibilities of everyday life.
Monster romance may be deliberately outrageous, but its underlying desires are familiar. Beneath the fantastical bodies and provocative plots lies a longing for partners who offer respect, emotional connection, and genuine care.
Ethan’s penchant for the pulse of the fashion world extends to covering lifestyle topics, offering readers a seamless blend of the latest style updates and lifestyle trends.