Romance’s Baggage Will Not Fit in the Overhead Luggage

 With the release of the Fifty Shades of Gray film, every blog seems to have an opinion on what it means for feminism, BDSM, consent, abuse etc… and a lot of these themes get brought up every time a book, movie or tv show with a romance theme gets popular. Romance is the chocolate of fiction. We love it but we aren’t entirely sure it’s good for us. And it’s got a lot of baggage attached to it.

The genre has many troupes inherent to it: damsel in distress; a bad boy (generally on the aggressive, if not stalker, side); changing said man; and art galleries (how do so many people have this as a job?). A lot of these are fairly sexist to both genders and it doesn’t wholly reflect the world we now live in. Other genres, such as sci-fi and fantasy, have (slowly) evolved out of their stereotyping. It’s no longer acceptable to have a story centered solely around only white, male characters. Romantic comedies, a genre that seems very reluctant to change, no longer rules the box office and even Matthew McConaughey and Katherine Heigl had to go get serious TV jobs.

That is perhaps why women feel guilty about liking this genre, as the memes, being an insecure, skinny blonde who own an art gallery or café, trying to fix a man, like she would a broken nail, isn’t just unrealistic, it’s of another generation. Which is why it’s so frustrating that we still get super popular books like Fifty Shades and Twilight that keep to these stereotypes…and we like them! I made it through 3 of 4 of the Twilight books and 100 pages into Fifty Shades. There are Man Booker prize winners that I’ve given less of a chance.

So maybe we need to breakdown the elements of romance to see why our hearts have highjacked our brains. First of all-the insecure, super pretty girl/woman. This is the real reason I didn’t make it through the aforementioned books, not the sexism, creepy men or bad writing (I’m not one to judge on that account). Insecurity cannot be a defining characteristic in a lead character. Everyone is insecure in some way, we don’t need to hear constantly about it, it’s boring and annoying. Look at how interesting Mindy Lahiri (The Mindy Poject), Arya (Song of Ice and Fire), Veronica Mars and Clare (Outlander) are. In fact, in the Outlander series, it would have made for a very disturbing book if Clare had not been strong and confident. This troupe is no longer acceptable, it’s again, not realistic and sets up a bad example for how a woman should feel about herself.

Now this gets us into a bit of sticky situation, if we have a strong female lead who isn’t about to get distracted at the first sniff of AXE, how do we proceed to write a romance? They can’t just coincidently keep running into each other at the juice bar (the new art gallery). Enter then, a semi-aggressive/stalker man. He knows she likes him and that he likes her, so he’s going to go after her. Half of the greatest fictional romances would never have happened if the guy had respectfully walked away when told to. Logan Echolls(Veronica Mars) and Chuck Bass (Gossip Girl), who both definitely crossed the stalker line, would never have won their co-part’s hearts without doggedly pursuing them (and/or getting arrested).

This all falls into an uncomfortable hunter/prey dynamic, which is why this has to be tempered by our third troupe, the guy must be fixed. It’s kinda sexy that he puts all this attention into getting the girl, even occasionally punching someone for her but this is not the type you can take home to Grandma. Also his job/manners/porn collection/clothes/obsession with football are also a deal breaker. And let’s be honest the joy of escapist romance is the fantasy of wish fulfillment, that one day your boyfriend will pick up his socks too. But that’s a habit, not an inherent character trait. If the guy is fast to throw a punch in your honour, which seems sweet at the beginning, likely points to a bad temper and the later consequences of that make for a disturbing and perhaps destructive relationship. But these characters are interesting, they are three-dimensional, they have massive, screwed up back stories, that it seems our lead female character lacks. I mean I didn’t just watch twelve hours of Gossip Girl in a row because I thought Dan Humphreys was a nice guy.

But us girls are happy to help out guys with their semi-fixable problems because really it’s a thank you for saving the lead female’s life/job/dog/sexual awakening. This damsel in distress element is so strong to the genre, that when it doesn’t happen, it oddly seems to emasculate the man. If this was a same sex buddy comedy, it would be totally fine, in fact encouraged, for the characters to save each other. It creates a bond and trust, that not only brings the characters together but incorporates the audience too. But when it’s men and women, gender politics totally mess this up.

If it’s sexist to both genders, sets up expectations that can wreak havoc on our real relationships (never watch The Notebook) and it promotes behaviours that in a court of law would send people to jail for (While You Were Sleeping would definitely have gone another way if the genders were reversed), why do we still love it? Why do we allow for such traditional, even backward, stereotypes to flourish and give all our hard earned cash to? It’s relatable. There are very few things in the world that everyone can relate to and love is one of them. Especially messy, complicated relationships with people we shouldn’t spend five minutes with, let alone eternal life. No one actually wants to date the Damon Salvatores (Vampire Diaries), Logan Eccles or Mr. Darcy’s (well…) of the world. At certain point, cuddling up on Sundays and watching Netflix is an amazing way to spend the day, not having some dramatic confrontation every two hours. But just as we like watching car chases and alien invasions, romance is human drama at it’s finest.

And I bet even Christian Gray could agree with that.

Originally Posted - March 19, 2015