I’ve heard the romance genre describes as the poor stepchild in publishing’s attic, but in reality, romance is treated more like the harelipped baby the family parades around for expense money instead of giving the infant minor surgery it needs.
Huh? You say. Okay, let’s face it. As much as I am a defender of romance I realize that it is also a problematic genre. Not only do we get flak from the reading public that thinks we peddle smut and prose that is purple, our own publishers micromanage our output, pay us smaller advances (and push our work less) than if we published say sci-fi or mystery and can, at times, treat us like we are all interchangeable and therefore expendable.
Even within the romance reading community, we have to admit there are problems. Romancelandia, that parallel universe where many romances seem to take place (since none of this crap would actually happen in this one) becomes less and less relevant to today’s readers who want more and more of a sense of reality in their fiction. Secret cowboy babies, millionaire SEAL heroes, amnesiac brides or whatever, are so far removed from normal life that these genre conventions are constantly under attack.
Under siege from without and within, we often turn to a popular defense–you shouldn’t pick on romance because it is feminist literature (and therefore has value). Then someone trots out their favorite Jenny Crusie novel–the one that for them defies all convention–and that is supposed to be that. Puhleeze, someone get me a fainting couch.
I have to say I do enjoy Ms. Crusie’s work and the fact that she manages to tell a good story without resorting to many of the conventions inherent in romance. But every genre is judged not by its outliers but by those smack dab in the middle, what expectations readers and writers hold for a particular type of book. For the most part, romance is still all about the hero–how gorgeous he is, how rich or powerful or in some way (ahem) larger than life, and how special we are that he wants us.
Most often, that hero is some sort of alpha male, someone strong, capable, in charge. I mean, who wants Barney Fife when you can have Andy Griffith and your stepson Opie grows up to be a millionaire? Here’s how alpha heroes–the self-described staple of Harlequin Presents line– are described on the new I Heart Harlequin Presents blog:
“The Alpha Male hero is the man who embodies women’s most compelling fantaseis, so romance writers need to keep his key qualities in mind, for example he always knows what he wants and how to get it. If he needs a wife, he will use skill, style and intelligence to offer the heroine an opportunity she can’t refuse.
The heroine — whom the reader wants to be — is in love with the hero, and so should the writer be. There’s no better way to get the feeling!
The Alpha Male is a challenge. He doesn’t wear his heart on his sleeve, so he’ll make no mention of love until the very end. It’s up to the writer to bring the developing relationship to the boiling point, through the hero’s outer expression of innner turnmoil, sexual tension and pure charm. Only then, when the hero has confessed his feelings for the heroine, can we enjoy seeing his true emotions laid bare.”
Hey, I wouldn’t mind swooning over this guy, if it weren’t for one problem: half the time alpha male translates into overbearing jackass who treats the heroine like crap for some real/imagined/unnecessary reason for three quarters of the book–and worse, the heroine takes it. She (for some reason I can’t gather) lurves the hero and is willing to put up with a lot of crap on the way to a (many times forced-feeling) happy ever after.
Either that or you get the tstl heroine, often in a romantic suspense here, who will run off doing all kinds of silly things to get herself in trouble or danger or whateva and the hero must ride to her rescue, when what you really want is for the man to strangle her on behalf of all womanhood (die, stupid bitch, die) then kill himself so that no other woman will be subjected to him. Now there’s a murder-suicide pact I could get behind.
Seriously though, it does seem to me that women get the short end of the stick even when we are writing about ourselves. I’m not ready to throw away the alpha male, but I keep wondering where’s that alpha female, the strong capable woman who doesn’t take any crap from anybody? If we’re so bloody feminist, how is it Bombshell could fold while we get endless strings of Bad Boys using women as toys? They’re out there, but in way smaller numbers than I would like.
If you’re wondering what got me started on this topic it was a post I followed the blogosphere that led me to Lilith St. Crow’s blog, where she’s talking about us living in a male-dominated society and its impact on romance novels:
“What if the misogyny in romance novels is a feminist statement?
No, really. Hang with me here. Remember in the Fifties, when there were things you just didn’t talk about? (Like incest? Peyton Place blew the lid off that one, didn’t it?) The Sixties were not just a revolution in social and sexual mores, they gave credence to the idea that you could speak about certain issues–war, women’s rights, sexual politics, drug use–openly. To name something is to claim power over it, and also to strip it of its power to hurt you. The unnamed monster is the most frightening. (Remember The Wizard of Earthsea? Man, I love that book.)
What if the misogyny in romance novels is the naming of the monster? What if it provides a framework for us to draw the teeth and analyze the venom of that particular one-eyed serpent? (Ha ha. Cheap shot, I know.) What if the HEAs of sheikh-secret baby-lonely millionaire-boardroom virgins are the equivalent of a binding spell? Which, whether or not you believe in spells, does provide a powerful psychological method for overcoming fear and finding a solution.”
Maybe I’m reading her wrong, but this strikes me the same way black people calling each other the n-word and calling it progress does–good place to start a discussion but a bit delusional. If we women were truly empowered, we wouldn’t need to hide our dissatisfaction with patriarchal strictures behind over-age virgin widows and hea endings with husband and baby in tow as if that is the ONLY thing that makes real-world women happy–or should.
What I think we as romance authors need to do is break free of the constraints both we, the industry and even the readers have placed on us, get rid of the old hooks and overused contrivances that deprive our works of a sense of reality and relevance or shut the fuck up the next time someone says romances are nothing but trash.
