I remember a blogger - and I wish I could remember who - complaining a couple of years ago about the lack of politics in romance. It's certainly the case that party politics doesn't tend to feature highly but more and more I'm noticing the politics-with-a-small-p in romance.
Politics is about what society should be; how we should live and be governed. Every romance novel depicts a society of some sort. Sometimes it is a society that the protagonist(s) are at war with, and sometimes it's a society they are happy in. Sometimes the events of the novel will reaffirm the rightness of that society and sometimes it will reject it. Sometimes the novel will actually depict a wholesale change in that society.
How the author describes the society in which the characters live and the characters themselves can be quite politically charged, albeit the text might lend itself to multiple interpretations, depending on the reader.
Take a book with a military protagonist. Perhaps one who has served in the Iraq War. Maybe one who has been decorated for bravery and returned home, retired from the services. Does the mere choosing of such a character have a political slant? Does that alone posit anything about the Iraq War, for example? Is your view changed if the character in question is male or female?
Or take a Regency novel with an aristocratic hero. We are told he feels a sense of keen responsibility to the people in his estate/village. What does this say to the reader? That patriarchal society is good? That the political system in Britain in the early nineteenth century with its limited suffrage was acceptable so long as those in the privileged position of the hero had a right and proper sense of responsibility to those born into lower positions than himself? What if the hero is depicted as the exception to the general rule, one responsible aristocrat among dozens of irreponsible ones? What if there is also a heroine who chafes against the patriarchy, perhaps literally in the form of a father figure? Does it make a difference if these characters go further and actually argue against the system?
Such layers can add degrees of nuance or, if taken further, may topple a book into preachiness (on which see this post at TMT). It's often plain when an author has a particular axe to grind, but hints of authorial-view will often escape despite best intentions.
The reader too has her part to play. In previous blog posts I've spoken about reader lenses and how these can influence how the text is received, as well as reader creativity, such as where readers 'fill the gaps' in a text with connections/material acceptable to them and sometimes even edit and actively 'change' existing text internally to enable them to complete and enjoy particular books.
I've avoided referring to particular books or authors in this post in an effort to talk generally about the way I see politics emerging in romance novels and how readers engage, perhaps even subconciously, with political ideas. However, I can think of a number of examples of books that I have reacted to, both positively and negatively, in this way.
What about you?
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8 comments:
"I remember a blogger - and I wish I could remember who - complaining a couple of years ago about the lack of politics in romance."
It could have been me, because I've written about it in the past.
The link you've got to a post at TMT isn't working for me, so I don't know which one it is, but Bridget Fowler and Peter Darbyshire have pointed out the capitalist (in contemporaries) and pro-aristocratic (in historicals) bias in a lot of romances. And then there's Stephanie Laurens, who believes that romances encourage women to have babies and that
romance novels came into the 70s at a relatively low level - because they weren't needed. There was no threat to marriage and birthrate through the 60s. But then came the Pill and feminism, and women heard the feminist's message - but most of them thought, well, yes, but that's not how I feel. I want love, marriage and the whole nine yards - so they reached for reaffirmation. It wasn't Kathleen Woodiwiss writing the Flame and the Flower that sparked the modern growth of romance - it was women wanting to hear the message that book contained. They grabbed it, and started looking for more. [...]
On through the 80s, romance readership grew exponentially - just like the US's birthrate. In the 90s, it hovered, just like the US birthrate, but never really slid back - most likely while women were subconsciously assessing whether the threat was gone, but it wasn't. Over the last decade, romance has gradually pushed up again.
The US sales of romance novels directly parallel the US improving birthrate.
The romance readership is now at a level supporting a birthrate of 2.1.
I'd need to see a lot more evidence before I'd be convinced there's any direct correlation between romances and birthrates, but I do think that romances have a tendency to convey particular attitudes towards marriage and reproduction, and the attitudes conveyed/choices made by authors can be political in a non-party-political sense. The same goes for the jobs which are considered heroic, attitudes towards guns and the military, whether there are LGBT characters/protagonists, whether there are non-white characters/protagonists, whether the characters have religious beliefs, the social class of the protagonists etc: these can all be read as political choices, particularly if one looks at trends within the genre as a whole, rather than just at individual novels.
By now I know what to expect from the genre, politically speaking, so it's only when a novel is particularly blatant in its defense of a political position I disagree with that I get really irritated.
I don't think it's possible to answer the questions you pose without first asking and answering what romance fiction is, or perhaps what its purpose is.
I imagine most authors of historicals, for example, have some bias toward the Regency period, probably a bias towards liking it and the politics of it. Or perhaps they just find the period more apt for the story they want to tell. They are also writing for an audience of contemporaries and that would certainly influence how they present the hero. As would, I think, the necessity, especially in romance fiction, of making the hero admirable within the context of the story they are telling.
So, I guess I wouldn't find the author's presenting the hero as being concerned about his dependents of any kind as in any way political.
And is it really a surprise that a capitalist bias in contemporaries and pro-aristocratic bias in historicals prevail, as Ms. Vivanco suggests? Surely millionaires and billionaires, dukes and earls and viscounts, better fulfill the role of hero in the fantasies of romance fiction than would a homeless wanderer or a groom in a stable.
I guess my response is that I would no more seek politics in romance than I would in the Cinderella story. Even if a romance includes a politician as the hero or heroine, the story would surely be about the relationship. The hero's or heroine's politics might provide fodder, but surely the relationship would be the substance.
To me, romance fiction is about the mating dance. Everything else in it merely supplies orchestration.
Laura - it was this post:
http://teachmetonight.blogspot.com/2010/06/well-thanks-for-letting-me-know.html
I had the Stephanie Laurens essay in mind when I wrote this post.
Anon - your opening assertion is that one has to decide what romance fiction is/what its purpose is before you can answer the questions I posed (although I should point out the post only poses a single question: whether anyone else reacted to political slants they perceived emerging in the romance books they read).
I have to say I don't see that there's any inherent logic in that assertion. It seems to me that you either perceive political slants/ messages emerging from your reading matter (like me) or you don't (like you). What a romance novel *is* doesn't to me seem to me to be logically connected to that subjective perception of the reader.
Also, I'm not really sure what you mean by your next assertion: that you imagine:
most authors of historicals, for example, have some bias toward the Regency period, probably a bias towards liking it and the politics of it. Or perhaps they just find the period more apt for the story they want to tell.
What do you mean when you think of an author "liking" the Regency? I see a writer like Madeline Hunter engaging with issues like political reform, women's suffrage etc. and yes, the Regency period lends itself very well to examining that: you have the likes of the Peterloo Massacre and the Cato Street Conspiracy in the 1820s, and the Great Reform Act coming along in the 1830s. So in this situation, the Regency setting is more than mere wallpaper; this is posing questions to the reader about what a good society is and maybe trying to create that good society in some way for the hero and heroine. With respect, it seems to me facile to say that a writer might choose to write in the Regency because she 'likes' the politics.
Also, no I don't find the capitalist and pro-aristocratic bias surprising but I do find it a little disappointing. I don't see why there can't be more diversity in historical romance. I love the Regency period but would like a greater range of heroes and heroines within that period.
However, all that said, I hear what you're saying. There's quite a lot I didn't put in my post that occurred to me as I wrote it. One of those thoughts was that readers may often actively not want any sense of the political creeping into romance novels - that romance novels are what they go to to absolutely avoid thinking about the political. Perhaps some readers edit those ideas out? I certainly don't think that, of the books I've perceived a political slant in, all of the authors in question intended to make a political statement. What I do think is that politics-with-a-small-p are unavoidable to some extent. When an author creates any kind of setting and then puts characters in it, political ideas begin to emerge whatever the author's intention might have been - although, perhaps those ideas are only perceived by those who go looking for them?
@Tumperkin:
When I wrote the passage you quoted, I was thinking what you state much more clearly: "When an author creates any kind of setting...political ideas begin to emerge." My point was that I don't think those ideas are intentional except as they fulfill the romance author's purpose, which I hold to be telling the story of a male/female relationship getting to an HEA.
As to my comment about authors perhaps "liking" the politics of the Regency: Fictional characters need a setting, and I assume that authors try to find one which "fits" the story they wish to tell, allows them to frame the story in a background providing conflict of some sort, and one which has some intrinsic interest in itself; I think authors might "like" the Regency era, including the politics of it, because all of those things can be found there.
However, reading widely in the genre suggests to me that if anything in the setting, the conflict, or in the interest provided subverts achieving the HEA that thing will be manipulated or set aside.
On that, I think, the logic of the opening assertion in my post rests. If the primary purpose of a romance is to delineate the relationship leading to the HEA, everything else in the book is but a vehicle to achieve that end. It doesn’t really matter whether that vehicle is political, economic, spiritual, paranormal, or whatever, for both the author’s and the reader’s primary concern is getting the hero/heroine to the HEA; even though neither authors nor readers can help but notice things about the vehicle, those things remain tangential to the central purpose. Sometimes, of course, the vehicle itself offends, but if the central story is good enough, I don’t think even that will keep a reader from pursuing the HEA.
Isn’t it equally logical, then, to ask what romance is? Is it primarily a story about the ever-recurring mating dance a la Cinderella and the Prince? One which entertains while insuring a happy ending? Or, as your question suggests, is it more than those things?
dick
Dick - your comment seems to assume two things: first that I was arguing authors were doing this deliberately (I don't think those ideas are intentional except as they fulfill the romance author's purpose) and secondly that I was arguing that political comment was the author's objective(Or, as your question suggests, is it more than those things?)
In fact, I wasn't saying either of those things. As it happens, I sometimes think authors do place political comment/ideas deliberately but actually I mostly see it emerging as part of the author lens. I think authors do also sometimes (a la Madeline Hunter) engage with those ideas in a more meaningful way. But I wasn't making any claims beyond that.
It's interesting to me that you seem to have assumed that my post was seeking to make claims for the genre you seem to feel are not deserved - I don't think there's anything in the post that suggests that's what I was saying (although, as I've already said, I think there are writers who engage in interesting ways with interesting ideas within the genre). If you're interested in what actually prompted the post it was my subjective/anecdotal readerly perception of the preponderence of conservative ideas in romance - though largely in a wallpapery sort of a way - and wondering about its influence on readers.
I wasn't suggesting any conclusions at all. I'm just interested to know whether other readers have similar responses that I do.
@Tumperkin:
I mis-inferred, but our exchange demonstrates, does it not, how what a reader brings to a reading influences the response to it?
What I brought to your post is a conviction that romance, because it's stringently formulated, does not lend itself to disquisitions on "great" questions. And what I forgot to bring was that your primary interest is what a reader experiences while reading.
You've mentioned Madeline Hunter several times as an author who inserts political messages. I think I've read everything she's written and never noticed. Would you mind sharing the titles of those?
dick
Dick - her current quartet of novels seems to be looking (again) at the position of women in that period and their lack of power. She looked at that more obviously in one of the Easterbook books (sorry I'm awful with book titles and too lazy to check her website) - the heroine, Phaedra, is the daughter of a feminist and tries to live her life in accordance with her mother's ideals - though they never seem truly her own.. There's another book in which she looks at the rotten borough voting system. I wouldn't say she's *dealing with* big questions in any of these books. As you've suggested tends to happens, she's true to the form primarily and this is therefore basically setting - certainly it doesn't impact really on the character journeys etc. However, she does raise these issues expressly and deliberately and I think probably causes readers to ponder these issues in an ancillary way.
Janet W: You know there's more politics in Regency novels than at first meets the eye. I'm thinking of An Unwilling Bride by Jo Beverley -- the power and position of women in society is examined there and it becomes a continuing thread. Or His Lordship's Mistress ... the two political parties and the Corn Laws is an important backdrop. Sometimes I pick up these themes the 2nd time through a book.
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