Romance Novels: It's hip to be snide

Hickepedia, fantabulous husband that he is, pointed me toward this epic, awesome article by Maria Bustillos at The Hairpin. Go ahead. Read it. I'll wait.

Back? Good -  what is your favorite line? Mine is "Usually, I just prefer my escapist fiction a little less terrifying and horrible." - so perfect for summing up the awful rape-tasticness of some of the Old Skool (in addition to The Sheik, to which she actually was referring).

First off, it's lovely to see a meaty, in depth article that doesn't focus on the whiny, sour-grapes question of "How come THEY get all the readers? We're better than them!" I am heartily, yea, heartily, sick of that particular refrain. It's particularly jarring to hear writers of other genre fiction thumbing their noses at romance, as if somehow including a love story with a happy ending makes romantic fiction magically craptastic.

Secondly, I love the way Bustillo flips it over and points out strong, excellent males enjoying romance - and writing it. She poses the question of when it will be acceptable for men to like romance novels. You know when? Now.

Finally, it really got me thinking about some things. It's a lot about gender roles and expectations.

From the top: why is it okay for men to like fantasy fiction or science fiction, but not romance? What is it about romance as a genre that makes it so uniquely gender-bound? I think Bustillo hits this on the head when she talks about romance as feminism - it's written by women, about women, for women. It's woman-centered. And not only is it woman-centered, it's also empowering - especially the more modern romances. Women in romance novels can be or do anything - that's part of the fantasy. And the best part is that by holding up the fantasy, the authors of romance present the POSSIBILITY of attainment. That's a powerful idea. When Nora Roberts writes a story about a child-star actress finding peace with herself as a general contractor*, well there's a whole heap of empowerment in that. Let's think about that. First, we have a woman who is talented enough - even when she counts herself only mediocre - to work a long-running TV show. And she's smart enough to manage the residuals and the money and parley it into a whole new career. She studies to be a general contractor, she holds her own in the jobs on the site, and she does it without making her gender a big deal. THAT is quietly powerful. It's quietly powerful because the characters in the book present an idea of how women SHOULD be treated - as if gender were irrelevant to capability. Not that gender is irrelevant completely - only irrelevant to capability. Maybe a lot of men don't like their stories woman-centered. Maybe they like to read man-centered things. Which is fine. But if they DO like to read woman-centered stuff (and, hey, here's a hint: if it's woman-centered, you're likely to get a good idea of what is going on in the woman-brain), they should feel free to do so. And they should feel free to tell any belittlers to stuff it.

By the way, the previous paragraph points out one of the reasons the hue and cry raised by "feminists" against romance novels makes me so irritated. Far from "belittling" or "subjugating" women, romances free them. Romance novels free women to imagine anything - and to know that it's possible to attain it. But that's a whole other issue.

Another thing that comes up a lot - and several blogs touch on this - is the idea that women can't draw the line between the fantasy of romance novels and the reality of real relationships. That romance readers have somehow internalized unrealistic expectations because of the "false image" portrayed in romances. I think this is a cop out. It assumes readers of romances are idiots and incapable of a basic skill of reading: willing suspension of disbelief. It's one of the first things we learn about life - some stories aren't real. Some stories are. And we learn early WHICH ARE WHICH. For readers, I think, the willing suspension of disbelief is universal. When you open a book (or turn on your ereader), you are making a deal with the author that you will put aside what you know of reality and allow the author to convince you of their reality - the reality of the story. This is true in any fiction - literary, genre, whatever. All fiction assumes that the reader can tell reality from non-reality, but CHOOSES to accept the non-reality for the duration of the story. Romance isn't different here - women (indeed, all reasonable people) know that life is not an unending parade of perfectly perfect days. Women know that in reality, relationships take work and effort, care and dedication. Women don't think that romance novels present a photograph of reality. Instead, it's like photoshopping reality - emphasizing some things, skimming over others. Romance does this most overtly with relationships - but the mechanism and the reader expectation are no different from thrillers or mysteries or fantasy. In a thriller the reader doesn't think that what Jack Reacher is doing is actual reality - instead, it's a photoshopped version of reality in which the fights and the explosions are supersized, because that's what makes a thriller a thriller. 

Similarly, the point of a romance is the love story. Yes, it's formulaic, but so is all genre fiction. THAT is what makes it genre fiction. In a mystery, you KNOW there will be a crime of some kind and that it will be solved. It'd be a pretty crappy mystery if it weren't solved. It's the PROCESS of the solving that's fascinating. In a romance, we know there will be a happily ever after (or at least a happy for now) - it's getting there that's interesting.

I don't know a single romance writer that snidely puts down other genres. Romance readers and writers are, by nature I think, a catholic (little "c" - as in universal) bunch. Most are voracious readers, and I know I read not only romance, but mystery, fantasy, sci-fi, non-fiction, thrillers, classic literature, and the occasional bit of literary fiction. And as much as I might love, say Roberta Gellis's Roselynde, Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird is my all-time favorite book. And as much as I might adore Linda Howard, I also have a thick stack of Stephen King. In fact, a quick look around my office yields everything from Shakespeare and Yeats (I dearly love Yeats) to Emma Holly to Anne Bishop to Ray Bradbury. I'll admit freely that I reread Kresley Cole more often than I reread Tim O'Brien, but they both get re-read.

So the snide nay-sayers can keep looking down their nose at me. I'll take my multiple degrees and my ivy league graduate degree and I'll keep reading and writing romance. Because it makes me happy - and by all that is, making people happy is a worthy cause.

Dammit.

Elise

*In case you didn't pick it up, this is Tribute by Nora Roberts. Which I have done major disservice to by chopping off big chunks of the plot and not even mentioning the other amazingly awesome characters.