Kelly Evaluates Romance as Entertainment, Catharsis, and Activism

I am very excited to introduce you to Kelly from Reading With Analysis today.  I think her title says it all, so without further ado, I leave you with her . . .

-------------------------

Romance as entertainment, catharsis, and activism: 

A limited ethnography of one romance reader

I’ve been a romance reader for a long time. It started with some Harlequin Presents stories I found on my mom’s bookshelf about twenty years ago and went on from there. I find a lot to love in the genre, and it satisfies nearly all of my reading and thinking needs.

For many years, I read for escape, seeking entertainment that would distract me from my difficulties and help me achieve a more positive outlook on life (something I, as a cynical idealist, sometimes struggle to find). I read also for catharsis, seeking out stories whose drama and emotion would help me express the deeply repressed feelings that sometimes held me in a chokehold. Lately, I’ve been finding myself reading for activism, reaching for stories that include and explore social issues within the narrative setting.

It started with Courtney Milan. Obviously I don’t mean that Milan was the first romance writer to get involved in social issues, but it was through her books that I first discovered that a romance novel could be a sweeping and emotional story of passion, an exploration of human nature in both the individual and the general scope, and a discussion piece on social issues, modern and historical. Throughout her many historical romances, Milan has written about sexual abuse and the silencing of victims, the evils of protectionism, marital abuse and the historical difficulty of divorce, inequalities of class and gender, bodily autonomy, the societal double standard vis-à-vis men’s and women’s virtue, medical autonomy, the historically narrow confines of a woman’s life, women scientists and the men who claimed their work, etc.

Milan’s rather serious and deliberate voice works for me (these books are definitely not carefree and fun, although they are sometimes funny), and I have loved every single book of hers because she sets these love stories in (what seems to me to be) realistic conditions that highlight and validate the emotional punch of love’s triumph.

Milan’s impact on my reading extends beyond her own books. After I read through Milan’s body of work, I got to thinking about some other books that flirted with social issues. Tessa Dare, another historical romance author, writes in her Spindle Cove series about a group of women who have each discovered a disgust for society’s bullshit and have taken shelter in a community founded on the acceptance and empowerment of women. Spindle Cove exists as a feminine idyll until some soldiers descend on the place and wreak manly havoc.

Dare’s stories are wildly entertaining – full of humor, snappy dialogue, and emotion – and it’s easy to overlook some of the deeper currents. (But they are there nonetheless. The first Spindle Cove novel, A Night to Surrender, can be read as a treatise on feminism in which the community of women withdraws from the world to establish a female-centric society; then a group of men move in and attempt to reassert normalcy (meaning the supremacy of the male); and then both groups learn compromise and find true equality in working together and valuing each other.) With her latest release, Romancing the Duke, Dare eased back on the humor a little bit to reveal a story that touches on more than a few social issues. I’m sure you’re not surprised to hear that it’s my new favorite Tessa Dare book.

Historical romances aren’t alone in exploring social themes. Robin York’s New Adult release Deeper sets its college-age love story against the backdrop of revenge porn. Its heroine Caroline finds herself imprisoned by a chattering Greek Chorus of internet asshats and by the victim-blaming cultural message -- reinforced by her school’s administration and her own father – that she herself is to blame for allowing such an apparent douchebag to take photos of her during sex. Hey women, that message says, you are not allowed to trust anyone, ever, because some people turn out to be untrustworthy. York balances the love story and the narrative context nicely, with everything built around the theme that trust, the freedom to trust, is not a luxury but a necessity. I’m incredibly leery of the New Adult trend, but I loved how this story took what seems to be a genre requirement for NA – the heroine’s traumatic back story – and knocked it out of the park with a sharp discussion of a contemporary social issue and what it means for young people trying to find love, trying to come of age in a time when the Internet is forever and none but the victims are held accountable for such public betrayals of trust.

So here’s what I’m wondering… Is there a tradeoff in terms of the entertainment or cathartic value of a love story when set against the backdrop of deeper social issues, or does the context actually increase that value by demonstrating all the reasons why we need love? I know what the answer is for me, but I’m curious to know whether others feel the same. Join in the discussion! Have you read any books – they don’t have to be romance novels – that incorporate social issues into the story? What do you think: is there a tradeoff?

-------------------------

Thank you Kelly for a very thought-provoking post!  

Please share your thoughts in the comment section below.  You can find Kelly over at Reading With Analysis and on Twitter.