Para Porn, Chick Lit, and the whole world going to hell in a handbasket...

I’m one of those people who hates unsubstantiated book snobbishness.* You want to hate something and tell everyone around you that it is part of the ever growing corruption of Literature or the female mind or the male mind or a child’s mind. Great. But the biology major in me says prove it. Back it up with facts, figures or something beyond your subjective thoughts and conclusions drawn from a complete lack of scientific evidence. If you can’t do that, then stick with what you can back up: why you did or did not like it. Which means, of course, you would have to actually read something that represents what you claim is corrupting.

It’s like writing a high school book report:

“I did not care for the use of Melville’s Billy Budd in this A.P. English curriculum because the heavy reliance on the reader to grasp Melville’s Christ allusions, which requires the reader to be of, or have a passing familiarity with, the Christian faith. In a country that houses a multitude of different religions and many non-practicing people, I feel that this is a novel’s narrow focus…yadda…yadda…yadda…spend the next two pages supporting argument.”

Notice the paper starts with an “I,” singular, and proceeds to outline the thesis (which, if it’s a good essay, will also address counter arguments), and does not attack the whole of English Literature. The essay is not calling for the removal of Budd, simply supplying the thoughts of the reader on its suitability for high school classroom use after having read the whole damn thing. And I’m cool with that, just as I’m cool with reader reviewers. I like hearing readers’ thoughts and opinions on novels. I’m interested in reading what different people liked and disliked, what allusions are obvious to some and not to others, etc. That’s interesting. We’re all going to take something different away from a reading experience—some of it universal and some of it not—and not all of it is going to be everyone’s cuppa, which is why an informed reader may seek out many different reviews on the same subject to form their own opinion about whether or not to give this book or that one a try.

Denigrating an entire genre, sub-genre, or type of book when you’ve barely read any of the titles housed there-in? Not interesting, just sloppy. Very, very sloppy.

So when I first read the Independent’s article on Horror that I outlined in my last column, I was more than a little taken back on the bit (and yes, I mean that with all British connotations) tacked on to the bottom addressing the popularity of “Para Porn.” This would be Urban Fantasy or Paranormal Romance for those who might be wondering. Two different sub-genres (actually three as they throw Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight into the mix) all smashed together in a derogatory way because, according to the experts, this does not deserve to be mentioned within the same breath as Horror.

How derogatory? Well let’s see:

“Horror expert Steve Jones says that "Para Porn" represents a new genre, though he regards it disdainfully as women's fiction rather than horror. "It's aimed at a different audience to traditional horror," he says, with the hint of a sneer.”

Wow, it’s not Horror because it’s Women’s fiction, not because it doesn’t contain traditional Horror elements, but because it is aimed at women or has female protagonists who have sex. Gotcha. I see the light! You have converted me to your higher purpose! And, gee, thanks for clearing that up for me. If I still worked at a bookstore I would put up a sign warning all my male customers away from buying the Kim Harrison or Kelley Armstrong novels (because men did indeed buy them), and instead direct them to the more Manly novels of King and others. Because women surely do not read Horror! Gads, no, nor do they make up a large percentage of the book buying population. Obviously these books need to be placed all together and quarantined away from serious Horror.

Sarcasm aside, I’m slightly amused by the fact that even as it’s considered porn, the publishers admit that “they are starting to sell really well over here.” And that even as they denigrate the influence that Buffy that Vampire Slayer may have had on this growing trend of kick-ass heroines, they praise it for resurrecting the Horror genre (see the first part of the article). I think this is truly the definition of a back-handed compliment, or maybe they’ve been reading The Game and this is really a come on. Hiding a compliment in an insult will really capture a girl’s attention, you know.

But I’m willing to give the British publishers a bit of a pass in that they recognize what people are reading and that it is a boon to what had previously been a dead genre. Maureen Dowd does not get the same kind of treatment. She had to go and resurrect the old “Is Chick Lit sucking the brains out of the female population? Why yes it is” argument and then proceed to make mistakes all over the place, which are addressed here, here and here. I wouldn’t even mention Dowd (and why she chose to discuss a four year old argument now since other writers have done a much better job of covering the fiasco) except for the fact that her argument echoes that of the British pubs in the whole “it’s focused towards women and therefore has no redeeming value” opinion, which saddens me.

It’s 2007, folks. I realize that I’ll never be able to wrestle the classics from the cold, dead hands of a bunch of old white guys, but can’t we open our eyes a little? Can’t we begin to realize that everyone brings something to the table? The people read for a myriad of reasons and therefore will be attracted to a myriad of different genres and reading levels? That we cannot command the reading public to like one thing and dislike another just because we feel that it is not up to our superior standards?

And why, WHY!, does the fall back insult/argument still have to be about women? Oh, you know, only women read that. It’s Women’s fiction, and not worth my time. This will only appeal to women.

Well, guess what, buckos. Readers change. The reading environment has changed. And while it is still hard to get men to pick up a book written by a woman, I wonder how much of that is a negative feedback loop we, as a society, have created by telling them they won’t be interested because it’s “Women’s fiction.” If I, as a woman, can identify with a male spy/playboy is it really that hard for a man to read a story told from the point of view of a female lawyer or cop?

I’m not asking them to walk a mile in a Chick Lit heroine’s Manolos (if that heroine even owned Manolos, a shoe stereotype that owes more to Sex and the City than any Chick Lit novel I’ve ever read), nor do I think it’s necessary for me to shove my size eights into one of Don Pendleton’s character’s army boots to understand what some men see in his novels. Some books will play out better to a more masculine audience and some to a more feminine, which is something I accept.

That doesn’t mean, however, that one book is better than the other or that you can even compare apples and oranges. Had Maureen Dowd sat down with those thirty-odd Chick Lit novels and discussed why she, and solely she, couldn’t get into them, then maybe I would have understood where she was coming from. Maybe. But she seems to be missing the point that the Horror publisher’s at least got that any fiction genre and its popularity hinges on the public’s need for escapism of some sort (whether it is escapism with a side of trying to understand the world around them or simply to fully escape the world around them). Chick Lit at its best fulfills that same need by taking the pressures many women suffer under (trying to do well at a high-pressure job, find someone to spend their life with, and achieve some type of economic stability even if it can only be measured in shoes) and discussing it a fun, one-on-one manner.

Telling someone that their time would be better spent reading The Red Badge of Courage misses the point. My time, and what I do with it, is my time and until it affects the great and judgmental you in some detrimental way you don’t have a right to infringe upon it. Maybe my time would be better spent writing my own memoirs, or cooking up enough dinners to freeze for the next few weeks, or helping the homeless, or (in my personal case) finding a job. And maybe most of my time, or your time is spent doing this, and worrying about that, and dealing with that other thing.

But maybe we need to channel that tension of all the things we should be doing or having to do into some sort of release, find something to open that pressure valve and let it all out so that we can continue to function as proper members of society. And maybe we find that in books that let us relax, escape our world for another or teach us in some funny, distant way to handle it. If it educates us at the same time, great, but what stands for education is subjective as well.

If it expands my vocabulary, does it count?

If it educates me in pop culture, something that our world trades upon as heavily these days as solid facts, have I wasted brain space or increased my knowledge in other areas more accessible to those around me?

If it gives me a breather, takes me away from this world for 400 pages, and allows me the distance I need to later revisit what is going on around me and perhaps deal with it critically, is it not performing the greatest public service of all?

There is a reason fiction—of all kinds—exists, and it is up to the reader whether they choose to read to learn, to think, to escape or all three. And beyond introducing new titles and authors to try, there is nothing you or I can do about it. So stop trying to tell someone what they shouldn’t read, and pick up a new book.

You might be pleasantly surprised when something that constitutes Para Porn or Chick Lit appeals to you. And if they don’t, well then, you have something slightly more empirical to back up your arguments when someone asks you why not.






*I’ve been doing pretty well with my own snobbishness when it comes to role-playing books and game, thanks to some wonderful customers I had that were very open but their thoughts and opinions on the subject.