fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #5397 ]

[ SECRET POST #5397 ]

⌈ Secret Post #5397 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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[MCU]

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05. [SPOILERS for Midnight Mass]

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06. [SPOILERS for Far Cry (series)]

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07. [SPOILERS for Midnight Mass]

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 00 secrets from Secret Submission Post #772.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

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01. https://i.imgur.com/APqPgBX.jpg

In general, any time someone starts talking about why they don't read anything from some genre or type of fiction, there's about a 90% chance their reason is going to be a ridiculous caricature with almost no relation to the actual books in question. Many such cases.

Absolutely.

Where does that tumblr post claim that romance novels are the ONLY option where women are happy and loved?

Yeah, I don't think that's what the tumblr op meant either, they never said romance novels are the only genre where women get happy endings. And they're specifically referring to romance novels only, so idk why the op of this secret is so defensive?

It implies it.

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(Anonymous) - 2021-10-16 00:10 (UTC) - Expand

It's stated as explicitly as it can be without those exact words being typed. Stop being deliberately obtuse.

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(Anonymous) - 2021-10-16 13:42 (UTC) - Expand

I mean the whole "Excuuuuuuse meeee if I don't want to read books where women are punished and killed for being happy and enjoying sex" pretty much is saying that's what books that aren't romance novels are.

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(Anonymous) - 2021-10-16 00:16 (UTC) - Expand

"Happily Ever After or Happy For Now" is baked into the definition of romance novels...

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(Anonymous) - 2021-10-16 13:44 (UTC) - Expand

It declares that romance novels are the (implied, the only) genre where women get happy endings and don't die as a result of having sex. Don't play dumb

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(Anonymous) - 2021-10-16 13:49 (UTC) - Expand

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(Anonymous) - 2021-10-16 13:46 (UTC) - Expand

Related: I’ve seen people defend romance novels by arguing that action movies are just as cliche. That’s an argument for why action movies suck, not why romance novels are good.

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+1

(Anonymous) - 2021-10-16 13:49 (UTC) - Expand

I saw this post in the wild and all I could think was that of the sample size of romance novels I've read, in about one in three, the female characters just come across as miserable to me. If that's your thing, that's your thing, but it certainly does irk me that the poster proclaims that there's less female suffering in that than any other given genre--the suffering looks different, but it's about the same percentage.

Since when is the #1 criticism of romance novels that they're "limiting", "juvenile", and have "happy endings for women"? Isn't most people's first response more likely to be "aren't those pretty sexist?"

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+1

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Re: +1

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Re: +1

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OP

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Re: OP

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I see this less as someone who hasn't even tried other genres and more as someone who has found the one genre that will never blindside them with stuff they hate.

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bookblather - 2021-10-16 00:55 (UTC) - Expand

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(Anonymous) - 2021-10-16 10:09 (UTC) - Expand

(Cozy Werewolf Anon)

the only thing I really want to comment about the original screencap I guess, is this can be said about almost any genre that's not "Literature." YA, Scifi, Fantasy.... Literary bros are going to call it limiting and juvenile and be up your ass about it.

I mean, maybe not mysteries and thrillers or westerns or even horror, but those are such a TINY part of the book market, they mostly get ignored. Romance is the largest part of the book publication market and literary bros HATE it. I mean it sells more than the next three categories put together. So, yeah.

write what you want to write, read what you want to read, let's stop judging all around. Sigh.

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(Anonymous) - 2021-10-16 00:22 (UTC) - Expand

I assume romance novels are like fanfic in that they fulfill certain expectations, satisfy a certain craving, and so on so if you're just looking for comfort reading, you go with the framiliar because you know it's not likely to hurt you.

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(Anonymous) - 2021-10-16 14:45 (UTC) - Expand

I don't think there's anything weird or bad about what that person is saying, but then, I'm a romance reader. It's not the only thing I read but even if it was, lol, who cares.

because it couldn't be possible that a lot of women hate romance novels due to the sexism and heterosexism of the genre, no...

Huh. OP, you're reading some deep offense into this that I'm not really seeing. That post reads like it's response to a specific criticism from a specific source, i.e. "literary bros". You know. The guys who write literary fiction where women suffer and sound like the dudes on r/menwritingwomen, but it's considered High Art while romance is held in contempt by people who don't like that women enjoy reading fluffy, trope-filled fantasies. And the post itself doesn't say anything about every other genre besides romance being crap.

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(Anonymous) - 2021-10-16 14:47 (UTC) - Expand

I don't read a ton of romance novels, but I feel like some of the people commenting know romance genre conventions and some don't.

To be a romance novel and not just a book that has romance in it, THERE HAS TO BR A HAPPY ENDING, either "ever after" or in some more modern ones "for now," which get abbreviated as HEA and HFN.

Other genres may have happy women having fulfilling sex and romantic lives or whatever, but they guarantee that you'll find out whodunnit, or that there will be speculation about future societies or novel technologies, or that there's magic, or humans dealing with their mundane lives with lots of navel gazing and angst and maybe some adultery, or that you're gonna be taken on a wild ride by an author playing with literary convention who's gonna try and turn your brain into a mobius pretzel with the power of prose.

... Not a HEA for the protagonist.

So people who love romance may read lots of other genres and kinds of book, incorporating romance or not, but only romances ALWAYS end well for the protagonist, and some people enjoy that certainty.

It doesn't make romance as a genre stupid or predictable, anymore than mystery novels are stupid and predictable because people always solve crimes in them.

We get it. You're not like the other girls.

OP

(Anonymous) - 2021-10-16 06:52 (UTC) - Expand

I find you more obnoxious than that relatively tame Tumblr post, and just as willing to police women's tastes and opinions as the jerk offs she's talking about.

LOL, you are exactly the problem the OP of that Tumblr post is talking about. Congratulations on your ~evolved~ taste in literature, I guess, get that superiority kick however you can!! 💪💪

You know, I wonder if there's a disconnect here in what "romance" means?

First I thought of Mills & Boone novels, where women get put through the wringer and are kind of miserable until The Guy appears and sexes them into happiness. But then I remembered the novels with titles like The Cornish Cupcake Cafe and The Little Shop in Devon - trashy, kind of bad, but predictable and safe. For the most part the women just start out in a bad place before moving to somewhere rural-ish and then everyone likes them, their skills are exactly what's needed to save the day and they get a hunky man to boot.

Everyone I know thinks of the as trash and I certainly wouldn't admit to reading them to anyone who doesn't read them themselves, so I can see the post being about those.

That post is hyperbolic, but it's super weird that you're taking an obviously hyperbolic post (on a site where it's practically convention to be hyperbolic about ANY topic) as this serious an argument.

And frankly the bare bones of this are right. Romance as a genre ensures that it's main characters have a "happy*" ending, and because it's the genre that women have been shunted into (even with novels that strictly speaking aren't romance) historically that usually includes main character women.

I don't know, it seems hyperbolic of you to imply that main character women are the majority in ANY other genre, and that happy endings for these women prevail in quite the same way.

*the happiness of these endings are very very socially prescribed, unless they're deliberately making a point, but that's a different conversation imo.

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