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On The Portrayel of Romance In Fiction
Oct. 2nd, 2005 09:01 amNot too long ago, someone was ranting on ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
fanficrants about the prevalence of romance in fiction.
That really got me thinking. I have no issue with romance in fiction - I'd be hard pressed to name a book I've read recently that didn't have some form of romance in the plot - but I do have an issue with the way it's sometimes portrayed.
There was this author - her name slips my mind at the moment - who's books I picked up at a bargain sale. It was some bonus buy and they were light, crunchy humor. So I read three of them and already something was very, very glaringly obvious: the female main characters considered themselves worthless while single. They moped and whined and schemed and tortured themselves all in an attempt to get a man. And the thing that really bugged me was that at the end of the book, instead of the heroine realizing that life was grand without a man, got their man and were happy and fulfilled. I didn't read another of her books.
This is the same issue I take with all of Tom Robbins' novels other than Skinny Legs and All. This idea that a person needs a significant other to be happy. His novels have a tendency to fall back on that - not just as an ideal, but as a cosmic truth. That fate or the powers that be have deemed it necessary for people to have significant others, and aren't living their lives to their full potential alone. And even in Skinny Legs and All, there is a hint of that at the end.
This idea is repeated again and again in fiction and the media. Not so much anymore, but there's still plenty of examples of it. Hell, just look at Sex In the City, the 'ultimate women's show'. The underlying sense is pretty much 'you're not happy without a man'. The show's main character searches for love and examines her life and what she's doing wrong when she doesn't have a man. The majority of sitcoms and dramas that star a single female seem to generally rely on plots revolving around the woman trying to get a steady man. And the same goes for signle men - there's plenty of fictional men who mope and whinge and rage because they don't have a woman and they need one in their life.
It's perfectly possible to be single and happy. It's perfectly possible to date without sizing someone up for long termness. People don't need significant others to complete their existence. Who we are shouldn't be defined by who we're sleeping with or going on dates with. If more people didn't have this idea that they need to be validated by another person, I think they'd be a lot happier.
fanficrants about the prevalence of romance in fiction. That really got me thinking. I have no issue with romance in fiction - I'd be hard pressed to name a book I've read recently that didn't have some form of romance in the plot - but I do have an issue with the way it's sometimes portrayed.
There was this author - her name slips my mind at the moment - who's books I picked up at a bargain sale. It was some bonus buy and they were light, crunchy humor. So I read three of them and already something was very, very glaringly obvious: the female main characters considered themselves worthless while single. They moped and whined and schemed and tortured themselves all in an attempt to get a man. And the thing that really bugged me was that at the end of the book, instead of the heroine realizing that life was grand without a man, got their man and were happy and fulfilled. I didn't read another of her books.
This is the same issue I take with all of Tom Robbins' novels other than Skinny Legs and All. This idea that a person needs a significant other to be happy. His novels have a tendency to fall back on that - not just as an ideal, but as a cosmic truth. That fate or the powers that be have deemed it necessary for people to have significant others, and aren't living their lives to their full potential alone. And even in Skinny Legs and All, there is a hint of that at the end.
This idea is repeated again and again in fiction and the media. Not so much anymore, but there's still plenty of examples of it. Hell, just look at Sex In the City, the 'ultimate women's show'. The underlying sense is pretty much 'you're not happy without a man'. The show's main character searches for love and examines her life and what she's doing wrong when she doesn't have a man. The majority of sitcoms and dramas that star a single female seem to generally rely on plots revolving around the woman trying to get a steady man. And the same goes for signle men - there's plenty of fictional men who mope and whinge and rage because they don't have a woman and they need one in their life.
It's perfectly possible to be single and happy. It's perfectly possible to date without sizing someone up for long termness. People don't need significant others to complete their existence. Who we are shouldn't be defined by who we're sleeping with or going on dates with. If more people didn't have this idea that they need to be validated by another person, I think they'd be a lot happier.
