Alert Bitchery reader JMC was forced to change seats on the DC Metro this week. Why?
Because she didn’t want to face this crapful advertisement.
The Greater Washington Initiative, creators of that lovely ad, is an organization attempting to market the greater DC area to businesses looking to expand, touting high percentages of residents with advanced degrees and other hallmarks of smarthood. They’d love that expansion to land in the VA/DC/MD area, but I guess the romance novels will have to be part of the yard sale before the businesses move on into town.
Oh, the rage. JMC said, “Romance readers are uneducated and less desirable employees, apparently. And having a degree or an advanced degree obviously makes people smarter, too, in their minds. Forget the fact that I’ve known some people with advanced degrees who are dumber than a bag of rocks and utterly unproductive human beings.”
I know those same people – I think I was in grad school classes with some of them.
Once again, the romance reader is portrayed as dumb, uneducated, and – get this – economically undesirable. Well, it will be my pleasure to make sure that Smart Bitches, LLC, never expands into the DC metro area.
There is a difference between real literature and popular novels. I don’t read much romance, but I would feel the same if the ad featured comics or mysteries or sci-fi or Harry Potter books. Those are all relatively passive entertainment—the author tells a story and you’re along for the ride. With literature or scholarly nonfiction you’re required to be much more active, following multiple arguments, picking out flaws, and generally wrestling with the text on many more levels. Which isn’t to say that you can’t delve into the craft of a comic or romance, just that there’s less depth to them. They’re meant to entertain, not to challenge/educate you.
Wow, so many directions to go with this. How about, Shakespeare was as much mindless entertainment for the masses as he was Great Literature (said with snooty accent). I’m sure Eloisa James would back me on that one. Oh, and Shakespeare was an unabashed plagiarizer, for what it’s worth.
Trash for the masses, off the top of my head: Byron, Frankenstein, Richardson’s Pamela, Dickens, Tolkein.
It’s only in the 20thC that we started to separate “trash” from “Great Literature” to the extent that we do nowadays.
Oh, and speaking of Eloisa James (or Laura Kinsale or Jenny Crusie or Nora Roberts), did you fully understand the literary references and layers of meaning in their books? Laura Kinsale’s novel written in frigging MIDDLE ENGLISH that was a rewriting of “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” that had the hero make up an Old English poem out of his head?!?! Or what about Eloisa James’ use of Shakespeare in her novels. Or Jenny Crusie’s rewriting of the fairy tales? Or Loretta Chase’s brilliantly researched, layered books about Albanian history, for heaven’s sake.
Yeah, some of it is “trash,” but if it’s entertaining trash, hey, maybe in 500 years it’ll be studied more than, say, A.S. Byatt.
It’s all about perception. SF/F doesn’t have as much a reputation of being trash as romance because the academic critics latched onto it in the 70s. Well, academics are latching onto romance now, so maybe in 30 years, we’ll be taken seriously. But if we all stand up for romance now, it’ll take much less time.
I saw that ad a few days ago and felt the outrage, and then kept reading my romance novel.
As to not seeing other riders reading romance, that is true in the Metro system. I get looks based on what I am reading. I just look back, smile and keep on reading (it unnerves people).
~But here’s the thing: how many of us educated, smart, successful, articulate, independent, sassy women are actually out there publicly talking about how intelligent some Romance is, and how legitimate a fictional enterprise it is?~
I do on a regular basis to my girlfriends and coworkers.
~ With all due respect, I kind of get where that ad’s going. There is a difference between real literature and popular novels. I don’t read much romance, but I would feel the same if the ad featured comics or mysteries or sci-fi or Harry Potter books. ~
I am a bit offended by the implication that romance novels are not ‘real’ literature. What we now consider ‘real literature’ were at one point just popular novels that have endured time and many readings. And as for being as equally offended if HP or sci fi etc were featured, I don’t buy that. When HP came out every other person had a copy of it, sci-fi and comics are perceived to be read only by nerds/geeks etc (confession I love hard sci-fi and any comic book work by Neil Gaiman) and that kind of person is seen as being bookish and smart and we all know how romance readers are perceived.
I think the ad projected the either/or stand.
Which is why I don’t understand (well, I think I understand it, but I find it frustrating as hell) why the response to that logic is often to reverse the terms from Romance bad, classics good to Romance good, classics bad. Beyond the fact that such an equation is as untrue as the first, it’s a response whose logic mirrors the offense itself.
Pamela Regis interviewed a number of romance authors at the Smithsonian Institution at the end of last year/beginning of this year. Eric Selinger is teaching university courses on romance novels. We’ve got a blog going that’s explicitly written from an academic perspective and there are articles and books published and in the works on romance which are appreciative of the genre. I think there’s gradually going to be more awareness of this type of academic interest in romance novels, but it’ll take a while for perceptions to change, so those of us who want it to change will have to be persistent.
Thanks for pointing out these examples, Laura—I had actually forgotten about the Smithsonian series (in DC, nonetheless—and I have to say I adored Seidel’s Mirrors and Mistakes, some of which takes place in DC, IIRC), but I should have included Pamela Regis, you, and Eric Selinger in my examples. I had just finished reading an interview with Eloisa James when I clicked here and saw Sarah’s post. I also think you’re right that it’s going to take some time. And seriously, I often feel like I’m fighting against some long-standing aspects of the genre itself in this endeavor, namely the COVERS! Yeah, I know in the ideal world that we should be able to proudly display those covers regardless of how bad they are, but IMO they often do cheapen the genre, making it even more difficult to get that whole “don’t judge a book . . .” thing across in any convincing way. And given the fact that a couple of years ago the RWA publically declared that according to its “research” that the number one quality Romance readers looked for in a hero was . . . muscles . . . I wonder how many readers would be disappointed if the clinch cover disappeared.
First: a guy reading romance? The vast majority of romance readers are women. Why not use a woman in the ad? Unless the implication is that fewer women are smart enough or educated enough to read Plato or be the target employee of the GWI.
I agree with the poster who suggested that GWI was afraid of pissing more women off by placing a woman behind the Romance novel. Which is sort of an interesting thing, in and of itself—- no less condescending, perhpas, but intriguing to me. Frankly, if more men read Romance on the metro, I think it would be a huge sign that they’ve become better educated.
It’s ironic because the friend who introduced me to the genre is a respected academic, while most of my friends who don’t hold BA’s or advanced degrees don’t read Romance, and I think it puzzles them a little that I do.
I think this is part of the problem, actually. There is a respected section of academia that has a vested interest in reading romance critically. Romance as a genre is a wonderful place to look at sociology, at how publishers and readers interact, at women’s expectations and how fiction can reflect that—and that’s just off the top of my head.
But. That acceptance has not filtered out of academia. The majority of public intellectuals seem to be focused on…well, not literature, and certainly not “women’s” literature. It seems the only nat’l commentary on literature tends to focus on the wildly popular faddish things like The DaVinci Code and Harry Potter (which, for the record, I love and have presented on at academic conferences). None of these so-called “intellectuals” really tries to revise the public image of romance novels. And that’s a problem, from where I’m sitting.
(Of course, even in academia, romance readers are looked at a bit askance. When I admit to/am found reading a romance novel, I always do that kind of half-disparging laugh and shrug and say that it’s a “break” from my dissertation.
But here’s the thing: how many of us educated, smart, successful, articulate, independent, sassy women are actually out there publicly talking about how intelligent some Romance is, and how legitimate a fictional enterprise it is?
Not enough of us. That’s for sure.
There is a difference between real literature and popular novels.
No, there’s not. That’s the thing. Yesterday’s popular fiction is today’s literary classic. Take Dickens. Dickens was the Dan Brown and the JK Rowling of his day. Getting novels—ANY novels—accepted as anything more than trash was an uphill battle all the way. The difference now is the size and scope of the publishing industry. And don’t think the industry doesn’t have the power to define what we think “literature” is.
I’ve never understood the concept of “real literature,” though.
Also, re: men reading romance, I admit that the one and only time I remember seeing it outside of a university environment, I nearly fell off my chair.
Mall food court. Height of the Christmas shopping season. Middle-aged man at the table next to mine was reading a Fern Michaels novel in all of its flowered-cover glory.
I nudged my mother, and we both tried not to stare.
Okay I read something in a blog that similarly attacks romance in a rant. Here’s the site. http://gunshyvw.wordpress.com/2006/09/21/rant-watch-it/
~Okay I read something in a blog that similarly attacks romance in a rant. Here’s the site.~
Wherein the ranter states he/she has never actually read a romance novel because he/she KNOWS exactly what they are.
Which corresponds precisely with a comment I made this week on Dear Author, stating that those who denigrate the genre very often haven’t read it.
Those are the people I can’t be bothered with.
Ok, I can’t find the image online, but BART has a whole series of “thank you rider” ads up right now (Thank you KNITTING Riders; Thank you SPORT FAN Riders) and one of them is Thank you ROMANCE READING Riders. It totally made me smile.
It’s not my intention to insult anyone. I read this site, after all, because I like to read what intelligent readers think. But it’s admitted in the site’s title – romances aren’t highbrow literature, they’re “trashy books.†And that isn’t a bad thing, and it certainly doesn’t mean they’re valueless. If a romance can help a woman figure out what she wants and inspire her to go out and look for it, that definitely has value. If a romance can provide an escape from the tedium of daily life, that has a value, too. But the vast majority of romances aren’t works of art.
And as for being as equally offended if HP or sci fi etc were featured, I don’t buy that.
Ah, but you missed my point. I wouldn’t be offended. I’m saying that today’s romance and sci-fi and comics and all that are roughly equivalent, art-wise, but that “real†literature (I’m sorry, I can’t think of a better term) is something else.
Yesterday’s popular fiction is today’s literary classic. Take Dickens…
To clarify that, yesterday’s lasting popular fiction is today’s literary classics. A lot of Dickens’ contemporaries wrote worthless books, and they’ve been forgotten. A lot of today’s romance (and sci-fi, and comics) are worthless, and they’ll be forgotten, too. In 100 years, what survives will be the best of the genre, which I’d agree is equivalent to “real†literature. But right now romance (and sci-fi, and comics) are so awash with mediocre stuff that trying to equate the whole genre of romance with time-tested, time-sorted “real†literature is just silly.
I agree that the ad is a cheap shot at one of today’s least respected branches of writing. I agree that the ad wouldn’t have the same punch with anything other than a romance – suspense is too mainstream, and these days comics indicate geekiness and corresponding intelligence. I agree that the ad is going to insult a lot of romance readers. But despite all that, I still think the ad works – it gets its point across immediately and clearly and even amusingly. I understand that’s hard to appreciate when its punchline rests on one of your favorite genres of writing, especially one which is routinely belittled, and I understand why most people here feel insulted by the ad, but I still get where the ad’s coming from. And I still think it’s kind of funny. If the ad inspires all of you to go out and get the world to accept romance as a legitimate art form, I’m all for that. But if I were in the DC area, I would still smile whenever I saw the ad.
I think we are all a little biased here. My grandmother and many of my coworkers would see nothing wrong with the ad. I blatenly (have no clue if that’s spelled correctly) read romance, scifi, fantasy and comics on the metro. Of course, I wear an oversized hot pink faux-fur pea coat to keep people from sitting next to me but when they do, I am rather surprised at how many people read over my shoulder. I’m also surprised at how many men I’ve seen reading Laurell K. lately. I’ve also known many a man who will read romances, normally caue they picked up their wife’s book and got hooked.
The really funny thing is that the people who actually look at and read these posters are the ones who don’t read.
Kat said: Seriously, I thought it was an ad for removable book covers to put on top of trashy romances (I use the term lovingly) with Fabio covers. I’d really love one of those…
Hey Hey Kat! Why not trashy clinch book covers to put on your copy of Plato! I did that to all my textbooks when I was in collage.
~But right now romance (and sci-fi, and comics) are so awash with mediocre stuff that trying to equate the whole genre of romance with time-tested, time-sorted “real†literature is just silly.~
All fiction is routinely `awash’ in mediocre books. And always will be. And as such things are subjective, what is mediocre to one will be art to another.
While I enjoy this site tremendously, and appreciate the tongue-in-cheek name of it, I don’t consider Romance a genre of trashy books.
I don’t write trash. (And that, too, is subjective.)
And while it’s silly to equate the entire genre with “real” literature (whatever that may be), it stands, imo, to be equally silly to dismiss the entire genre as low-brow.
So to single out Romance remains, imo, lazy and cliched.
I also emailed them. I lived in the DC area for 28 years and graduated from college there. I find the ad insulting and told them so.
Kat said: Seriously, I thought it was an ad for removable book covers to put on top of trashy romances (I use the term lovingly) with Fabio covers. I’d really love one of those…
Actually, I think it would be great if someone produced removable covers like these: Aristotle and the Billionaire Sheikh’s Virgin Daughter, or Sex and The Single Philosopher, What a Dickens Little Dora Was, or A Side Plato of Love with that Republic, please. Well, someone who could actually write funny would have to come up with some. But if they did, I’d buy ‘em for sure.
When I was in grad school, I had a very wise professor who told us “Never apologize for the book you are reading. At least you *do* read.”
And you know, she’s right. I can read the stuff with $5 words, but really, when you get down to it, I think I get a lot more out of a book when it’s a really good story.
But if the genre isn’t read today, the good books will never get filtered down to be the classics of tomorrow. Hell, they won’t even get written—nothing is produced if there is no market. And even some of Dickens’ stuff is crap. How can you tell and only write the ‘good’ books if you don’t at least write a few of the bad? If people hadn’t read all manner of crap in the earlyl to mid-19th century, we wouldn’t have our Austen, our Dickens, our [insert name of your favorite classical author here]. If people hadn’t been going to lots of plays in the 16th and 17th centuries, we wouldn’t have our Shakespeares, our Johnsons. So why do we pick on people who participate on the natural gleaning process, who read books and then toss them aside or tell others to read them and so make them immortal? Reading is reading, whether you are simply participating in the brownian motion of creating the next generation’s classics, or reading the books that have already been elected classics based on their merits. It’s completely unfair to compare the two processes, and you really can’t have the classics without the dross.
I also think the ad is rude, condescending and just plain old incorrect in its assertion that those who read classic literature would wear a dark red tie (good, God, it looks like it’s knitted! Tell me that’s an image quality problem!) with such a bright electric blue shirt! They have much better fashion sense!
Honestly, they’ll never attract new business to the metro area if they continue to portray lovers of Plato as such fashion disasters….
😉
I went to the website of the Greater Washington Initiative and emailed the executive director the following:
“I find your advertisement on the DC Metro contrasting “Average Subway Reading” with “Greater Washington Subway Reading” to be offensive and insulting. I am not only an MFA graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, but I also hold an MA in Literature as well as a BA in Literature. I am also a reader and writer of romance. The implication that romance readers are somehow less educated and a less desireable demographic is insensitive and uninformed. Simply go to http://www.rwanational.org and you can view statistics there that directly contradict your slander of romance readers. Must we denigrate any form of literature? Is that really a valid basis for determining someone’s sociological and economic viability? You should be ashamed for perpetuating a stereotype that has no basis in truth.
My one consolation is that I am not a DC resident, and do not have to view your derogatory, narrow-mided ‘work’ as I ride public transportation.”
I’m not usually an outraged letter writer (okay, once I did email Fox because they were showing a “humorous” film clip of an obese cat trying to navigate around its home, including the stairs), but this really got me. Maybe it will show up in my FBI file one day. I can only hope.
I had a rant ready, but it’s already been most beautifully said.
I live 40 minutes from downtown DC, in Virginia. 20 minutes away from the nearest Metro station. I am an erotica/ romance publisher.
I will be making my opinion known.
Sorry, just noticed I forgot to capitalize Brownian motion, not to mention put an “l” on the end of early.
When I get passionate about something (ie, reading for reading’s sake leading to reading for edification) I tend to forget things like rules of grammar, spelling, etc. 🙂
Oh, God, and now I’m going to have to give Nora’s regular stand-alones *not* set in New Orleans another shot (I always read the NO ones, if only because she gets the aura right.) I think I picked up the one non-New Orleans book that wouldn’t be to my tastes and tossed it too early. Now the intellectual and well-written aspects of her arguments have me thinking perhaps I have formulated a faulty hypothesis on the basis of an inadequate data set. 😛
Step 1: to GWI:
I’m sure you’ve received several comments on a certain advertisement concerning a comparison involving romance readers, so I’ll be straightforward.
I’m an erotic romance/ romance publisher, and I live in your marketing area. While you may consider my company beneath your notice, it’s never wise to alienate possible clients.
I am not a publisher of these tomes because I lack the capacity to read—or publish—anything else. I publish them because I enjoy working with talented writers in a lucrative market. Despite the erroneous position many take that romance is ‘easy money’, it requires the same hard work, honing of skill, and committment as any other genre.
To insinuate otherwise in a media repesentation of your company is not recommended, and we are not amused.
Sincerely,
Nora – No offence meant. Years ago, after being subjected to numerous derisive comments from friends about my addiction to “trashy romance novels”, I decided to reclaim the term for myself and refuse to apologise for my reading habits. Personally, when I use it, I don’t mean to imply that romances are trash. (Much like “queers” who have reclaimed the term don’t really think they’re queer at all.) My friends ask what I’m reading, I tell them I’m reading a trashy romance, they roll their eyes and I tell them, “It’s SUCH a good book!” It makes them question their use of the term “trashy” and it gives me at least half a minute to talk about the book while they’re speechless. I’ve convinced a few friends to give the genre a chance using this method.
BUT I can see how others may be offended, particularly authors, and so I shall try to refrain myself in public. 🙂 (I did say TRY.)
Miri – OMG, that would have been perfect for Philosophy 101. “Oh, you mean this? I’m reading Plato but I don’t want my mother to know.” *lol*
Robin – I love it! Freuda’s Penis Envy? I’d consider buying that. *grin*
(opening umbrella to deflect decomposing vegetables)
I’ve read probably a hundred or so outright genre romances—I like mysteries more. Some of the romances I’ve read, especially those written in the last decade, were damned good stories (and yes, at least one was a Nora Roberts given to me by a friend who knew I didn’t like cheesy formula because it was ‘different.’) There are some terrific books out there, in print and in download.
But dear lord, there is also a mind-boggling mountain of rubbish. I’ve bought only a handful of downloads because I can’t struggle through the horrible grammar in 80% of the sample excerpts, and when a writer promos her own book with commas and apostrophes flung around like so much confetti, I don’t even look at her excerpts. It’s not just e-books, either—I have tried to read Kat Martin’s highly-blurbed books and can’t get past her faux old-timey dialog, and I’m willing to put up with a certain amount of oddness because I like historicals. (It’s not only Martin. Her name comes to mind because I recently tried three in a row and just gave up.)
And yet these books seem to sell well and are praised to the heavens on the lists. Maybe the authors have friends shilling for them, maybe not. But it’s clear that there are many, many completely uncritical readers out there who will consider any writing wunnerful if it has an ‘alpha’ guy with big muscles and a heroine who looks sexy even when she wakes up after a drunken orgy. Or if there are vampires, it’s deep and penetrating, pun intended. If there’s a cowboy involved that pushes the fantasy button, that also seems to override whatever critical sense may exist. I think romance readers are more willing to overlook even major faults if the formula fits their craving.
I’ve worked with some of the lasses who are stereotypical romance readers, and there are a lot of them, and many of them do not read anything else. Are they “average?” Of course not. After all, an “average” IQ of 100 means that there are people far above and far below that mark. One of my sisters lives in a small town where about two-thirds of the library’s fiction section consists of romance books. She can’t get the library to consider buying SF or mysteries because they say the majority of the patrons aren’t interested. I guess this is good news for romance authors and the sci-fi and mystery book clubs, but it doesn’t make for literary diversity.
Romance has its formulas, and it has a high-demand market, and that combination means that the average product is not likely to be of superior quality. Most of the romances I’ve read partway through were McFiction—filling, if you can digest the grease. I’ve skimmed and tossed a couple that I swear were written by a computer program.
I think the ad is obnoxious, using a man as the ‘typical’ reader was lily-livered and silly, and using Plato’s Republic was even sillier. But I would bet that most of the people who read romances would not tackle Plato voluntarily, just as I suspect most of the people who read Plato without being required to would not pick a romance as their first choice for light reading.
I have thoughtful, intelligent friends who happen to enjoy college football. They aren’t ‘typical’ football fans. Along that line, I don’t think the readership of this list could be considered ‘typical’ romance fans, either. The kind of conversations you have here would be banned from the ‘typical’ list—if member numbers are any indication—because you actually dare to ridicule the Sacred Cover Art and discuss story content in a thoughtful manner.
I’m curious as to what books you all would prefer to have seen in place of the ones used in this ad. Because every genre has its rubbish, and no matter what you put in the dodo’s hands, it’s going to offend somebody, even if it’s a porny skin mag. (Or, in DC, maybe that should be the journal of the man-boy-love pervs, if they publish such a thing.)
But seriously—if you were creating that ad, what books would you have used? Never mind that it’s pandering to the obnoxious sort of snob who would never read Plato himself—what books fit the concept?
OK, I haven’t read through all the comments yet, but I have to pipe up here and say: we all agree that stereotyping romance readers as mouth-breathing troglodytes or whatever is a douchey thing to do. But dude, the flip side holds true as well: stereotyping people who read heavy works for fun as pretentious nits and/or assholes trying to impress other people is an equally douchey thing to do.
Do not be a douche. People read what they read, and they all have different reasons. Sure, there are idiots who read romance, and there are also pretentious nits who make calculated comments about how they refuse to read the Iliad in anything other than the original ancient Greek because so much is lost in the translation, don’t you think?, but in between there are all sorts of other people, reading whatever they do, mostly because they enjoy it. I’ve been guilty of hefting around a veterinary nutrition manual and psychology textbooks on vacation with me, not because I’m planning to go to vet school or because I had homework to do, but because I actually like this sort of thing. I’ve always been peeved by the anti-intellectual bent I sometimes see displayed by certain factions of romance readers, though I understand the urge to lash back against the people who’ve marginalized our enjoyment of romance novels, and to our credit, we’ve by and large managed to steer clear of that sort of rhetoric on this website. I just get the feeling it might start showing up in this thread, so I’m speaking up in support of all the eggheads who read Hegel or Sartre or Ovid (in the original Latin, natch) for fun. Let your Geek Flag fly, and fly proud!
But I think we can all agree that the ad is douche-a-riffic.
(Anyone else like the word “douche” as much as I do? It’s so satisfying to say. Srsly.)
But seriously—if you were creating that ad, what books would you have used? Never mind that it’s pandering to the obnoxious sort of snob who would never read Plato himself—what books fit the concept?
I can’t think of a juxtaposition of books (or books genres) that wouldn’t be insulting to someone. But why does it have to be this invidious-comparison, snottier-than-thou type of ad anyway? Why not an ad that has a car full of Metro riders, all reading, all reading something different, with a title that says something like, “Our riders are readers” or something far more effective than I can come up with.
I think others have countered your arguments better than I can by rehashing them, but I’ll just close with: why is it that when we get into the argument about how literary or non-literary romance novels are, someone has to point out that there is tons of dreck surrounding the really good stuff. In what genre, or form of expression, for that matter, is that NOT the case? When someone gives me a convincing example of an art form that is all high quality, then I’ll start to worry about the ratio in romance. Which is just a wordy way of saying what Ms. Roberts already put much more succinctly. Which is why she’s a best-selling writer and I’m an academic.
~But seriously—if you were creating that ad, what books would you have used?~
I wouldn’t have created this kind of ad, because it’s elitist and insulting whatever type of books are used. It just sends a snotty message, period.
~I think romance readers are more willing to overlook even major faults if the formula fits their craving.~
I think avid readers of ANY genre are willing to overlook even major faults if the formula fits their craving.
It’s really, REALLY past time to stop pointing this finger at Romance, as if only Romance readers tolerate crappy books—or what others deem crappy (and which I may very well think crappy myself.)
There’s a lot of dreck out there, paper and e—in every genre, in every area of fiction. Unless it’s self-pubbed, SOMEBODY didn’t consider it dreck and bought it for publication. The reader who buys it and enjoys it is entitled. The reader who buys it and thinks this sucks out loud is entitled. The sheer volume of Romances published very likely means there is more dreck, and there are more gems, than in other areas of fiction. And a lot more than fall somewhere between.
But the Romance reader, the ones on-line, or the ones who aren’t, don’t deserve to be constantly smirked at or considered low-brow because of their choice of reading entertainment.
And the genre itself doesn’t deserve to be constantly ridiculed and measured by what you—or I—might consider its lowest water mark.
And seriously, I often feel like I’m fighting against some long-standing aspects of the genre itself in this endeavor, namely the COVERS!
Are these mostly on single-titles? Like I’ve said, in the UK the most visible type of romance are the Mills & Boons, and they don’t tend to have snarkable covers. There is nonetheless a lot of prejudice about M&B romances. So while the covers may play their part in creating negative impressions of romances in the US, changing the cover art wouldn’t necessarily raise the status of the genre as much as you hope.
Sunita, our last comments must have crossed.
I thought you said it perfectly.
Good question, Lia. I actually don’t have an insurmountable problem with the ad. I just think it’s a little silly and, as Nora said, lazy.
So…as to alteratives. Well, let’s compare like with like. A person reading a tabloid versus one reading a well-respected broadsheet or Forbes. But these play to stereotypes and are therefore bound to offend some sections of the community. I can’t think of book examples that wouldn’t alienate big groups of people or lose its impact, precisely because of the stereotyping required. I mean, a person reading Dan Brown or Stephen King next to someone reading Nietzsche just wouldn’t have the effect.
Why not an ad that has a car full of Metro riders, all reading, all reading something different, with a title that says something like, “Our riders are readers”
Very good point, Sunita. The thing is, successful advertisers, like successful politicians, make bold, not nuanced statements.
Here’s a bold statement: Have the DC Metro guy reading a book and the NYC subway guy picking his nose.
(Anyone else like the word “douche†as much as I do? It’s so satisfying to say. Srsly.)
Candy, that’s so bizarre. An hour ago I was trying to blog about the Napoli thing, and the post wouldn’t, well, post. I kept saying, “Blogger’s being such a douche today,” even though I’ve never used that word as a slang in my life.
It is satisfying to say, but odd that it came to me just as you were writing this post. Get out of my brain, woman!!
(running to fetch my tinfoil hat)
I love reading these comments because it reconfirms what we have always known: most romance readers are intelligent, thoughtful and positive people who are passionate in a world where cynicism is the only world view which isn’t derided as naiveté.
I really wish someone would explain to me why it is considered more acceptable to read about a gruesome murder in a hard-core mystery or suspense novel then it is about the triumph of the human spirit in romance. No one would blink at me reading a P.D. James on the train, but if I have a paper back romance, especially an erotic romance or a Harlequin, I would get sideways looks and snickers.
Well joke’s on them because clearly they are dead inside.
To clarify that, yesterday’s lasting popular fiction is today’s literary classics. A lot of Dickens’ contemporaries wrote worthless books, and they’ve been forgotten. A lot of today’s romance (and sci-fi, and comics) are worthless, and they’ll be forgotten, too. In 100 years, what survives will be the best of the genre, which I’d agree is equivalent to “real†literature. But right now romance (and sci-fi, and comics) are so awash with mediocre stuff that trying to equate the whole genre of romance with time-tested, time-sorted “real†literature is just silly.
Of course we can’t equate entire genres with what you’re calling “real literature.” “Real literature,” in as much as such a thing exists, is made up of all kinds of genres and plots and reflects the beautiful, the dark, the absurd, the ugly, and the profound and everything else under the sun.
And, yes. Some of the stuff being published today IS crap. But not just in romance, and not just in genre fiction. (For my money, The DaVinci Code is absolute crap. But I can guarantee you that I could teach that in one of my classes and get fewer raised eyebrows than if I decided to teach a Nora Roberts or Jenny Crusie book, despite what I feel to be the literary superiority of the latter two.)
But the trouble with your comment is that this so-called “real” literature does not exist in a static form. It’s not like Dickens knew his books would last. The man wrote for money. The Old Curiosity Shop was the DaVinci Code and the Harry Potter of its day. And it might surprise you to know that in literary studies these days, the “forgotten” literature—the “trash,” if you will—is at the center of some of the most exciting critical work.
What makes literature last? People read it. Some professor somewhere decides to teach it. A text catches the eye of an anthologist or a critic. A publisher revives a lost work.
Longfellow was once considered high literature. To the best of my knowledge (and I admit that I’m shaky on American lit), he’s now clinging to the fringes of the canon of “real literature.”
The “Big Six” Romantics that you may remember from high school or college lit courses—Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats, Byron, Shelley—were the Big 5 until someone resurrected Blake’s work in the mid-20th century, and the concept of the Big Six is dying as people start taking seriously the poetry of Romantic women writers.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning was considered trite and uninteresting until the 1970s. Even now you can’t buy a complete edition of her works. Why? They’re out of print.
Frankenstein was remembered only as the movie and read only in super-specialized grad classes until the ‘70s. Now students are more likely to be familiar with Mary Shelley than with Percy.
Unless you’ve got a time machine and can bring back the Norton Anthology of Literature (or similar—the Norton certainly has its biases) from 2106, I doubt anyone can say with any certainty right now what books will or will not eventually be defined as “real” literature.
One of the great things about this site (and why I keep re-bookmarking it despite my ongoing attempt to force myself to type in all non-research-related URLs), is that it mixes high and low criticism, high and low comment, on just about every topic. But it doesn’t often get truly nasty or petty. That’s a rare occurrence, in my bloghopping experience.
So given that we are smart, thoughtful women who are able to comprehend that genre and “literature” are both worth of respect, and not always that far apart, why do we let our debate slide into the “trashy v. literary” dichotomy? Some works in the romance genre are going to wind up as literature down the road, and a lot are not. So what? I read 19th century novels that are not high art, and 20th and 21st century novels that are. I imagine most of us here do something similar.
And as an academic, I strongly object to using “taught in the academy” as the mark of legitimacy. There are trends in academia as much as in other parts of life. Besides, if I believed that, then I would have to accept that Keanu Reeves is one of the great actors and symbolic figures of our time. And I can’t do that without having my head explode.
Sunita-
I agree. “Taught in the academy” is not a mark of legitimacy or quality, and I didn’t mean to imply that it was. But given that teaching and anthologizing are key elements in canon-making, we can’t ignore the academy’s impact on people’s ideas of the definition of literature. I guess I meant to talk more about perception than I wound up doing. 🙂
Sorry snarkhunter, I wasn’t thinking of your earlier comments when I wrote my post and didn’t mean mine as a dig at what you said. You are absolutely right that the academy is a large part of making the canon, and as such, we shouldn’t ignore its impact. And undoubtedly, as more and more people like Laura V take the romance genre seriously, it will gain respect.
I meant to rant against the tendency to accept the trash v. literature dichotomy and get sidetracked by it, rather than rejecting it and framing the question another way. I’m as guilty as anyone; it’s hard to break out of dominant patterns of discourse.
I loved Sunita’s ‘our riders are readers’ concept. I reckon it’s catchy enough to appeal to the target market too 🙂
What I really find ironic about the ad is that the question that begins the entire Republic is, “What is justice?” And as an avid “trashy romance novel” reader, feminist, AND academic, I find this question often doesn’t apply to me in a positive way. The DC ad is a perfect example of the fact that those involved in its creation obviously missed the irony here. Even though they were “sensitive” enough not to make the commuter reading the romance novel female (puh-leeeze).
Also, what most folks fail to remember when arguing issues of what constitutes good “literature”—that is, what is so often referrenced in academia as the canon, is that canonical authors such as Dickens, Thackery, Austen, Henry James, and many others first published their novels as serials in popular magazines of the day. In other words, they were the “trashy romance novels” of their time, and now they are supposedly the”real” literature of ours. So, my advice to Kaitlyn O’Connor and other romance writers is (again, ironically enough) to “stay the course” because, one day, she too may be taught in high schools and universities every where as a literary great!
Oh, don’t worry, Sunita. I really didn’t take it personally. But your comment had me thinking a little harder about my own, and I definitely didn’t want to further the idea that academia = sum of all that is Good and Legitimate, b/c, uh, NO.
it’s hard to break out of dominant patterns of discourse.
No kidding. I feel like I should say something profound about that, like how that idea fits right into my diss, but I’m tired and ready to pitch the whole thing out the window. Down with academic discourse!!! 😀
Jeri:
How odd. That’s exactly the reason I gave everyone when I moved from D.C… that it was sucking the life right out of me. I worked for the government, too. That’s a special kind of hell.
It has been interesting following this conversation.
I am a business owner and serve on a few different community/business boards. I love all types of romance novels. When I read them I don’t consider the quality of my experience as a “thinking” issue but rather how it makes me “feel.” As a web programmer I spend most of my work day in a zone thinking. When reading for recreation, I don’t want to think, only feel. Reading romance novels gives me the HEA that I crave. I just cannot get into horrors, heavy suspense and complicated sci fi for recreation. I don’t see that as making me any less intelligent because I choose to spend my rec time in a less academic endeavor.
But isn’t it cool that a genre can bring together so many different types of readers to rally around the same books? If I were in the business to market Romance, I would really push the fact that at its best, it’s a genre that provides great emotional and intellectual satisfaction. You don’t want to think about stuff when you read—you can enjoy Romance. You want to think about stuff when you read—you can enjoy Romance. That I can read the same book in either mood is one of my favorite things about Romance. The genre—and certainly the best books in it—really offer an incredible array of riches and treats for the reader.
Don’t you think this is because there is still such a moral dimension to reading—not just in whether or not you read, but what you actually read, as well? And to make matters more complicated, genres like sci-fi and Romance themselves implicate (and sometimes overtly incorporate) moral issues, such that there are value judgments made about different types of fictions on several levels at once. We all make certain value judgments, of course, whether it’s to embrace certain moral imperatives or to question them, and I’m not sure if it’s even possible to completely eliminate them.