Illustration by Linde Vergeylen.
A 90’s style small paperback. A man on the cover, his white blouse billowing. It barely covers his abs. A wide eyed woman gazes at him adoringly, her hair flowing behind her. The book itself is filled with sex scenes and melodrama. You call it a ‘guilty pleasure’ and don’t display it on your bookshelves when you have company. This is the idea most people have of romance novels.
Of all genre fiction, romance novels are the most maligned despite their popularity. A romance novel must first centre a romantic relationship and secondly, end with the characters together. Though there are male protagonists and authors of romance novels, and there are many queer romances today, it is still generally viewed as a genre that is “by women, for women”. Falling in love is a subject most people want to consume media about. Despite this, romance novels have a long history of being dismissed as frivolous, cheap, and even morally damaging pulp.
History
What we think of as the romance novel today began in the 18th century with the works of authors such as Jane Austen and the Brontë sisters, who created the gothic romance. In the 1930’s, Rebecca and Gone With The Wind popularised the romance genre further.
The 1970’s introduced what would become the face of popular romance: ‘the bodice ripper’. Gone were the days of Lady Chatterley’s Lover, banned in the United States for its sex scenes. These novels featured explicit sex. Cover art reflected the scandalous nature of these works – popularising the ‘shirtless guy on the cover’ phenomenon that we associate with romance today. In the last few years, romance has seen a boom in popularity. Commercial successes Fifty Shades of Grey and Twilight spawned movie series and dedicated fanbases. Romance novels are simultaneously bestsellers and the subject of disgust and ire from critics.
Criticism
The most widely accepted answer for why romance novels are the subject of scorn is simply misogyny. Stories centring women are often subject to criticism, especially when they focus on ‘feminine’ themes of love and sex. Musicians like Taylor Swift or One Direction are seen as unimportant and romcoms are regarded as a lesser or more of a guilty pleasure than Marvel films – anything which is geared towards a female fanbase is seen as frivolous.
Twilight and Fifty Shades of Grey became cultural running jokes while movies such as Transformers did not receive the same animosity. In her time, Jane Austen was dismissed as an imitative writer with no substance. When we take a look at the literary “canon” of classic works it seems to be a given that ‘literature’ are books written by men for men. You have your Eliots and Brontës, but it is primarily male authors who have been praised as geniuses and had their works taught in schools for decades. Romance novels don’t fit into the general conventions of ‘High Art’.
The genre is also beholden to feminist discourse around the expectations it sets for readers. Romance novels exist as a progressive and conservative space. They have always been about women, by women – which appears feminist. However, the books prioritise women falling in love and getting married. They glorify male heroes who are toxic at best and felons at worst. The ‘Alpha Hero’ is a staple of the genre and love interests who are sweet and non domineering are (affectionately) referred to as ‘Beta Heroes’, aligning romance novels more with toxic masculinity. Twilight, Fifty Shades of Grey and Colleen Hoover’s novels have all had think-pieces written about them, asking if they are promoting unhealthy relationships. On one hand, they are looking out for young women and trying not to reinforce patriarchal romantic ideals. However, it can be paternalistic, implying women cannot think for themselves.
The way romance novels put women’s autonomous desire at the foreground is undeniably feminist. Female characters are vocal about their desires, and sex is a mutually enjoyable experience – something that two people do with each other rather than something that is done to a woman. The derision around romance novels can be attributed to cultural discomfort around women desiring sex, which also affects their perception in the art world.
Art or cheap pulp?
Generally, genre fiction is seen to have less merit artistically than literary fiction, with some exceptions. Literary fiction does not fall into genre conventions and focuses on language and character studies or having something to say about society. Much of what we consider to be classics today were genre fiction during their time. What gives a book artistic merit is subjective and contentious. Definitions of art are notoriously flimsy – Marcel Duchamp’s ‘The Fountain’ isn’t one of the most important pieces of 20th century art for nothing.
If we take the idea of ‘High Art’ in literature as novels emphasising language, themes, and characters, then there’s no reason certain romance novels wouldn’t fit here. Let’s go back to the two requirements for romance novels for a minute. Two or more characters must fall in love. That lends itself quite well to character studies. The second one is more controversial: the book must end with a Happily Ever After. Darker, grittier novels are much more likely to be taken seriously as high art because they are about ‘the real world’, not ‘escapism’. There is very much an idea that novels which are happy are not critical. Sombre topics and morose themes are seen as more serious and artistic by default. Ursula K. Le Guin put it best, saying “we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting”. Romance novels can certainly deal with dark topics, but the fact they are centred on love and happy endings causes them to be diminished.
Romance novels are also populated by tropes. There is an expectation that artistic novels should not follow predictable tropes and conventions, but should innovate in some way. Personally, as primarily a literary fiction reader, I’ve read enough stories about sad college-educated people having affairs and nervous breakdowns to not be convinced by this. All genres have their tropes. A mystery novel where the mystery isn’t solved or a fantasy novel with no magic would certainly leave audiences annoyed.
Romance novels centre women’s voices and they speak to experiences most can relate to. What could be a more universal theme than falling in love? They can be profound explorations of characters and themes. Normal People is a romance blending the personal and the political by exploring class, the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis, men’s mental health, and the effects of this on the protagonists’ relationship. For every ‘trashy’ or ‘escapist’ novel full of tropes, there are romance novels which fit the definition of ‘literary’. Like any other genre, it depends on the book. I’m not going to go out to bat for Colleen Hoover but romance is an extremely diverse genre with different levels of merit and insight. To dismiss this as lesser art by default is extremely shortsighted. After all, people have been falling in love since humans could walk.
