Anyone want to check out a documentary film premiere at the Cut Film Festival in San Diego next spring? Novice filmmakers Cindi Finneran and Charley Reeves are premiering their documentary Reading, Riting, and Romance: Taming the Alpha Male, which examines the Romantic Times convention through footage of the 2007 convention and interviews with the attendees.
The documentary came about when Sharon Sala, who works with Finneran, suggested they “team up and document [the] convention,” and off they went.
There’s a 4 minute teaser video on YouTube featuring Kathryn Falk, conference attendees, and several of the ‘07 Mr. Romance contestants:
I’m really curious about this documentary, and I’m of three minds about what the trailer seems to indicate.
First, I don’t think you can properly appreciate or even understand the experience of the RT convention unless you’ve seen one and been there for the whole of it (which means my opinion means diddly since I had to leave early to go feast on the matzo this year). So to try to reveal the convention to outsiders, both to the convention itself and the genre on the whole, might backfire and invite more snide and demeaning comments about how silly, sexist, and sophomoric romance and its fans are, don’t you know.
I honestly don’t know that it’s possible to capture on film what makes RT the giant cluster of ?!! that it is, because underneath the costumes and the feathers and the contestants and the male beauty pageant and the balls and the matched sets of luggage that hold six foot chiffon wings are a dedicated posse of readers and fans of romance who live for that weekend. They save up all year and work for months on their costumes. It is impossible to overstate how much happiness the attendees squeeze out of the RT convention. They love it like I love donuts. I don’t know if it’s truly possible to capture that happiness beneath the costumes and festivities, which from the outside looking in miss ‘joyous and fun’ and might land squarely on ‘just plain weird.’ RT is a lot of, ‘You had to be there.’
Second, the degree to which the interviewees discuss Alpha Males in the trailer makes me pause. Phrases like, “We bring these women into the fantasy” and “We’re here for the ladies” give me the shudders because nothing says “silly empty-headed women” like the phrase “bringing into fantasy.” I didn’t think RT was so much about the Alpha Male, or the ever-present hero that embraces that archetype with his steely gaze and rock-hard abs. It’s certainly true that alpha maledom is a known element in the genre, but is that the avenue through which to introduce folks who aren’t familiar with romance to the genre? It’s not all Alpha males and wings, folks. Neither is it all women who “live in their books.”
Thirdly, I have to wonder about the way in which the RT Convention is being held up as indicative and representative of “Romance.” Given the “Romance is….” headers to each segment of the teaser, and the fact that the documentary revolves around the convention, the fans, and the authors, it would be easy for anyone who views the film to then presume that all romance readers are like those featured in the documentary. And if there’s anything I’ve learned in the three-plus years of running SBTB, it’s the simple fact that sometimes the only thing romance fans have in common is the romance novel itself.
My questions and reservations aside, I’d love to see this film, simply because RT and its surrounding Fiesta of Whoa are no doubt a ripe subject matter for documentary-style exploration. If you get a chance to go see the premiere, let me know how it is.
ETA – Thanks to Jane, here’s a link to the Daily Oklahoman coverage:
I might be the one who set off the comments about readers living in our books. I didn’t mean it that way. I meant it as a form of escapism. When tragedy happens—and I don’t want to get into that—I want something to just take me away for a little while. It is neat to fall into a world you enjoy. Like Ward’s series. You think I’m thinking about anything but the world she’s built while I’m reading? I don’t think so.
And I’m not saying that my books provide that kind of escapism for everyone. Hell, someone said she wanted to throw my first St. Martin’s book against the wall (which just went into it’s 6th printing). But for some people it does allow a little escape, and the letters and emails tell me that. I don’t set out to touch someone’s life, I set out to write a good book that I hope my readers will enjoy. If I can allow someone to forget the tragedies and pain they might be going through, then that’s a special thing.
As far as the documentary, can we judge before we even see it?
I personally have enjoyed every RT I’ve gone to and I’ve been to 5. I have made some friends with some of the male models who are good guys. Like Rodney and CJ. You couldn’t meet nicer guys. I’m personally not a male model show attendee, but what’s wrong with it? Let people enjoy what they enjoy and don’t tear them down for it.
I honestly don’t get why people ridicule others for something they enjoy. If you don’t like people ridiculing romance, why do you ridicule those who enjoy seeing some sexy men? It’s just for fun.
I agree with what Gennita had to say as well.
I’m still trying to get over the trailer—and I am shamelessly judging that.
If anyone’s “ridicul[ing] those who enjoy seeing some sexy men” IMO it’s the filmmakers vis a vis that trailer and interview. Listening to them talk about how we all wonder at the bizarre behavior of others doesn’t, to me, sound like they’re on the “it’s just for fun” ride at all—more like “isn’t it funny.” Do you really see those shots in that trailer as flattering to anyone portrayed there (with the exception of the cover model CJ, who, as I said before, came across to me as the tamest interviewee)? Beyond the fact that with so many different aspects of RT that trailer has a pretty explicit theme, the *way* that “sexy men” aspect of RT was portrayed did not seem to me respectful or good natured or flattering to those simply enjoying the less buttoned up aspects of the convention.
I don’t know, but from the article link given above of the filmmakers,
http://newsok.com/norman-couple-make-film-about-romance-novels/article/3263896/?tm=1214796142
they came across as not making fun of the convention, but really enjoying the “sense of community” and the “passion” among romance readers. After all, they plan to return next year as attendees, not film makers. I understand, though, that they are not showing what some readers here want them to portray about the readers and romance books. I believe it’s just their newness to the whole industry coming through.
What I like to see is that relative strangers to the books AND the industry make an effort to study it and hopefully, they will start reading too, and appreciating the other aspects that you and I do. I imagine that when I started reading romances, I didn’t think of the genre and its impact on women and how a whole industry could be maligned just because it entailed other activities besides the books.
It takes years of reading to know and understand why one enjoys reading a certain genre. Some of us are more eloquent in voicing and discussing it than others, but all of us enjoy that particular genre in our own way. I don’t know this couple (only seen them holding the cameras at RT), but I’m sure they aren’t returning year after year because they enjoy mantitty. There’s something about RT that appeals to certain folks, and as these two said so in the article, they felt it—the sense of community and the passion (their words)—and hopefully, they were able to capture their vision. Hey, they are amateurs at the game, and I expect they’ll get a ton of cynical critiques at the filmmaking end as well as from smart bitches. Maybe it’ll generate enough publicity for people to look a little deeper.
Nicollette, you are right, this is a broad assumption and one I apologize for.
Cheyenne, I don’t know that there are many, if any, that are ridiculing RT convention goers but rather the way that they were portrayed which is as desperate man hungry individuals who are paying to have their fantasies come to life in the form of some guy riding a stick horse that children play with.
Apologies for screwing up the HTML in the prev post… I hope people can tell from the tag shrapnel which comment is quoted and which is mine.
I’m coming late to this party on account of my intermittent net access over the last week, but I wanted to say that, based on the trailer and article, I’m a little nervous about the documentary. Hopeful, but nervous.
The Trekkies documentaries were a mocking but IMO affectionate look at some extreme fans. Regular fans are socially acceptable: everybody likes Star Trek. The subsequent series were quality television. A person could admit to fandom without shame, and even gain a little cache of perceived smartness for having the brains to appreciate the series. (And, of course, there’s the whole sexist aspect of it: guys like Star Trek, girls like romances.) The shows had actual scientists on retainer to advise their writers as to the plausibility of some of their projections about how technology works.
There were also documentaries—well, television specials, anyway—touting how Star Trek influenced the development of real science. Those colourful 3-1/2 inch firmie disks for computers were modelled after the original series’ method of programming the replicators, for one example.
Star Trek inspired fans to choose careers in science, so no matter how weird some fans get, the mainstream fans can always fall back on the utter coolness of having the imaging system of an actual robotic explorer modelled after the TNG holodeck.
I hope the RRR documentary is respectful of romance readers in an Isn’t This Cool way, rather than contemptuous of us in a WTF, Look At These Freaks way. Because we don’t have a treasury of well-publicized, respectable examples of how romances have enriched people’s lives, empowered people, or made the world a better place to balance a WTF view.
And I hope this makes more sense than I think it does…