for to save her shoes from gravel: Action vs Romance
In het-male-oriented action stories where the hero gets the girl, his manly efforts at saving the day serve as the narrative justification for the romantic outcome: he has done X, therefore he wins the lady. But because the story is all about the hero’s wants and…
I found the OP deeply insulting; I cannot stand romance novels and rom coms and never have, because the whole point of the plot isn’t saving the world or solving the mystery or fighting evil or learning or anything else. IT’S FINDING AND GETTING A MAN. PERIOD.
And I’m sorry, but women’s lives are about a lot more than finding a guy, settling down, and having baybeezzzzzzz. Give me an action flick where the man and the women pair off and have adventures together in the future any day, because at least then their narrative is open instead of being channeled into that nice, safe, culturally accepted “daddy, mommy, and kids” trope that’s the endpoint of a damn romance novel or rom com.
If that makes me someone so deeply imbued with sexism that I can’t see, tough.
OK.
So.
I’m comparing the the treatment of relationships in action stories to the treatment of relationships in romance stories in order to critique how those relationships are treated differently by their respective narratives. You have responded by saying that romance narratives suck because they’re only about women finding men, so therefore my analysis doesn’t matter.
This is a bit like if I said that, despite some similarities, basketball and netball have different rules, so their players will use different strategies, and you responded by saying that netball sucks, so why bother?
I’m not saying your argument doesn’t have merit. I’m saying it’s a different argument to the one I’m making, and therefore doesn’t really work as a rebuttal.
In action stories where the hero gets the girl, the girl’s internal desires are treated as irrelevant and boring, which, in the context of discussing relationship dynamics in fiction, is clearly a problem. That doesn’t mean such characters aren’t interesting in other ways, or that they don’t get to do awesome things like save the world, and it also doesn’t mean that romance narratives don’t have their own sets of problems. As you say, there’s something very troubling about the fact that the majority of narratives deemed ‘feminine’ are all about the pursuit of male attention. Obviously, women’s lives are about more than finding a guy!
But by the same token, there’s nothing wrong with women wanting to find a man, either. There’s nothing wrong with enjoying romance narratives, or with women wanting families. Saying “I prefer stories with little or no romantic focus, and therefore enjoy action over click flicks” is one thing; but screaming about how chick flicks are inherently sexist and awful because traditional femininity is disgusting while totally ignoring the gratuitous sexism in action stories, let alone the safeness (to use your word) of having your burly hetmale action hero kiss the lone female character and drive off into the sunset? Yeah, I’m going to call that internalised misogyny - and you know why?
Because I used to do it, too. I still do, sometimes, because that shit goes deep, and it’s difficult to unpack.
As a teenager, I LOATHED romances, chick flicks, and anything else that was culturally earmarked as feminine, and felt myself wholly morally justified in doing so, because I was a tomboy and not like those icky feminine girls at all, because I knew better. I felt superior, both intellectually and socially, to girls who liked shopping and makeup; superior to girls who wore pink and high heels and openly talked about the hotness of various boys; superior to friends who watched romcoms and chick flicks; because I liked gaming and action movies and swords, and wore daggy clothes and no makeup and had mostly male friends, and therefore I’d dodged The Trap of femininity and was a better human being.
But what I was really doing was hating women, and therefore, by logical extension, hating myself. To fit in better with male friends, I told appallingly sexist jokes and laughed when they were told in turn by others. I complained loudly whenever anyone made me watch a chick flick, even if (as was sometimes the case), I was really enjoying it. I felt guilty and cheap whenever I thought about buying or enjoying nice clothes. I felt super-awkward when other girls talked about their periods or bodies or anything like that, because that stuff was gross, wasn’t it? But then I’d happily joke about teabagging with my guy friends, because that was somehow OK.
Point being, I’d been looking on traditional femininity and its various trappings as The Enemy Of All Things Rational And Progressive. But the thing is, historically speaking, women were never oppressed because dresses and romance and other traditionally feminine things are both fundamentally lesser and inherently demeaning as concepts or activities; the problem was with patriarchy deciding such things were worthless because women liked them while simultaneously insisting that we were capable of nothing else.
So, yes. The legacy of historically sexist bullshit is still with us in myriad ways, one of which is that romance is culturally coded as feminine, while action is coded as masculine. That’s something we all need to be aware of if we’re going to progress, and it’s definitely important to point out, loudly and often, the ways in which it informs our narrative structures. But it’s also necessary to realise that, for the exact same reasons, feminine things are still culturally coded as inferior while masculine things are coded as superior - which means we have a tendency to be hypercritical of 'feminine’ narratives as regressive and bad while giving a free pass to 'masculine’ narratives, because we’ve been told they’re inherently more worthy to begin with.
And thus, my original point: if someone is both vehemently pro-action AND vehemently anti-romance, rather than simply stating, sans vitriol or mockery, their preference for one over the other, then I’m going to call shenanigans because THAT is just one of the many fun, day-to-day expressions of sexism our culture takes for granted.
(via ellidfics)
blanklinedpaper reblogged this from tielan
something-writing liked this
sirens-called liked this
ouchmaster6000 liked this strinak liked this
breaksoo liked this
sequinedk liked this
foucault-co-chanel reblogged this from fozmeadows
rubyredicefields liked this
belsperell reblogged this from fozmeadows
curliestofcrowns liked this
sequinedably reblogged this from fozmeadows
keelan-666 liked this
powerchuff liked this wintershieldshock liked this
karinta-agogobell-unified liked this
hahshhdbajbd reblogged this from rhegar
hahshhdbajbd liked this
glamourweaver reblogged this from jacamimdecostasbrancas
mauve-soul reblogged this from jacamimdecostasbrancas vivacephoenix reblogged this from fozmeadows
jacamimdecostasbrancas reblogged this from rhegar
flipsquipsandthwips reblogged this from rhegar
flowersgrowback reblogged this from spacefxcker
flowersgrowback liked this trickstaar reblogged this from rhegar
queenjulietteferrars reblogged this from rhegar
scratchandwin reblogged this from rhegar trickstaar liked this
actualstarmabelpines-blog liked this
rhegar reblogged this from spacefxcker
rhegar liked this
spacefxcker reblogged this from fozmeadows
annfosterwriter reblogged this from sarahreesbrennan
arrodynamic liked this
spindizzily reblogged this from heyheyrenay dr-dendritic-trees reblogged this from fozmeadows
dr-dendritic-trees liked this
paraka reblogged this from concinnities
edenfalling liked this
skallagrimjones liked this
interrosand liked this
apunctuationmark liked this
fozmeadows posted this
- Show more notes