HelenKay pointed out today that chick lit is being blamed for all sorts of ills. Now, mind you, the few chick lit books I’ve read have annoyed me (for which I got lots of flack), but I certainly don’t think they’re destroying all that is good and right with civilization.
Few things annoy me more than some self-righteous douche trying to blame some undesirable social aspect or another on fiction. In the case of so-called feminists who get their panties in a massive wad about the pernicious influence of chick lit or romance novels, I feel the overwhelming urge to shake them while bellowing “HOW STUPID AND IMPRESSIONABLE DO YOU THINK WOMEN ARE, YA CONDESCENDING ASSMUNCH?” I mean, please. For people who are supposedly all rah-rah women’s rights, we deserve equal treatment and equal respect yadda yadda yadda, they have a pretty low opinion of the average woman’s ability to think, reason and distinguish reality from make-believe. But THEY’RE not average, of course. They’re brilliant, and are able to discern which works are dangerous to our impressionable little minds and which ones aren’t.
If this sort of attitude sounds suspiciously similar to the asshats ranting and raving about how dangerous Rainbow Party is to children and how reading about teenagers engaging in oral sex will turn 13-year-old Joanna into a godless, ravening whore who constantly craves hot, hard cock, that’s because it is.
So the two articles HelenKay links to are pretty interesting, but the one that really got my hackles up was the Nerve.com article Monica Jackson linked to a while ago. Alas, the article is now subscription-only, but thanks to the magic of Google’s caching technology, the article can still be viewed in its entirety here, though there are no guarantees how long the cached page will remain. Anyway, I’d forgotten about it, then reading HelenKay’s article reminded me, and re-reading it--gah gah gaaaaaaaah I can’t even express to you MUCH this self-righteous douche annoys me.
Let’s start with some choice quotes, shall we?
I am with you about the noble attitude that young girls should read what’s “good for them” and the entire generalization of what married sex is like. Scheduled? Hardly! It SUCKS when you schedule it - all the mojo takes an appointment elsewhere!!
The entire article would have been a much more thought-provoking and far less asshatted piece of writing if it had focused on the messages being handed out by a great deal of chick lit novels - not regarding sex, but regarding personal fulfillmen. A number of them (Note, I did not say “all") focus on self-fulfillment through external means - finding The Guy, getting The Promotion, or losing The Weight.
In my humble opinion, the major sin of chick lit is the inculcation of the idea that women are fulfilled outside of the workplace, and that the advent of chick lit itself is a response to the number of women flooding the business world straight out of college, delaying marriage and childbirth until later in life to seek professional aspirations first.
Were I a true conspiracy theorist, I’d say chick lit is a thoughtfully produced themed genre meant to hold those women beneath the glass ceiling until they realize they need to go home, lose the weight, land the man, get the minivan, vanquish the icky women in their lives, have kids, and seek fulfillment in traditional venues. In short, it is better to look good than to feel good.
You said everything I’ve ever wanted to on the subject. Am bookmarking the site right now…
Lani
Because of reading chick-lit I now have a closet full of pointy-heeled Manolo’s, chicky business suits with mini-miniskirts, and a liquor cabinet full of fixin’s for bunches of alco-tini’s. I have also had vaguely dissatisfying sex with bland, tapioca pudding-men but then waited for them to dump me. Rightiously indignant, I immediately burned their posessions and bought more shoes to soothe my traumatized psyche.
I have also been charting my loss and gain of the same ten pounds in a little notebook that I spatter with witty snark, britishisms and life lessons.
All because I read the insidious Chick-lit! *sobs* Stay tuned for the results of my lawsuit towards Barnes and Noble and the Manager that shot chick-lit books out of his ass (directly towards me!)
NOTICE: The above comment was meant to be somewhat funny and totally tongue-in-cheek. Fans of chick-lit, please do not claw my eyes out. Thank you.
Amen. But then, we already know what I feel about people trying to censor fiction or blame fiction for the messes of society at large. People who are going to act irresponsibly and then say a book “made them do it” are the same people that said “the devil made me do it” back in the Middle Ages. Are we really supposed to censor fiction just because some asshole decides to blame fiction for his/her own irresponsibility and general idiocy? Not!
As for chick lit: I read a few, enjoyed one or two, and feel no need to go back there. But I don’t call for censoring it, nor do I think chick lit is any more salacious than, say, a Clive Cussler novel. Or a Tom Clancy novel. all of them have cliche’d and stereotyped gender roles and ideas about sex, it’s just that the chick lit is weighted on the woman’s side and the Clancy/Cussler is weighted on the men’s side. And that, dear friends, is probably why so many people have a problem with chick lit: it is weighted towards women as a matter-of-course, and we all know that in our culture being a slut is fine if you’re Repentent Enough. Unrepentent sex is fine for a hero but not for a heroine, the old double standard that fiction points out and sometimes explodes.
As for teenage girls: they’re a lot smarter than anyone gives them credit for. You won’t catch me censoring what my kids read.
I have a special soapbox, stamped with Feminist Bitch From Hell in big red letters. It’s got worn spots from all the times I’ve pulled it out to stand on while I give my standard You Can Do Anything You Want and Don’t Let Anyone Tell You It’s Impossible speech to my daughters. The elder is 20, so close to 21, she can smell the vodka, and the younger is 18, freshly graduated from high school and anticipating college in the fall.
My oldest is majoring in social work (to go save the world), but plans to go to law school (so she can afford lattes while she saves the world). She rolls her eyes when I tell her it’s a hard world out there, that she’ll run into dickheads who think they’re more entitled to certain things in life because, well, they have a dick.
This summer, she’s working in a golf shop at a tony country club - and she’s getting far less shift hours than a coworker because said coworker is a huge flirt who wears short skirts and lowcut blouses. The boss is 38, newly divorced and always on the prowl. My daughter calls daily, bitching about this guy, and how she’ll be goddamned if she’s gonna be a sexual bimbo in order to get more hours. As it stands, she has to come home in July, after her summer class is over, because she can’t afford rent for the rest of the summer. That’s because she can’t get any more hours. Is she pissed? Yes. Does she get what I’ve been telling her all these years? Sort of. The real lesson will come when she gets bypassed for a promotion, or finds out she’s earning twenty percent less than Mr. I Have a Penis in the next cubicle.
She doesn’t read chick lit. In fact, she doesn’t read much at all. And yet, her goals and aspirations are right on track with the premise of most chick lits. She wants to be successful, find true love, and be compassionate, all while having a closet filled with great clothes and a nice car in the garage. In a word, she wants it all. Who doesn’t? To my mind, the beauty of chick lit is that it’s as close to honest as fiction gets. It doesn’t ignore the shallowness, but it also doesn’t gloss over the angst. And watching my daughter make sense out of things, I know her angst is deep and real. This thing with her boss is about to eat her lunch. It’s tough to see her learn a life lesson that sucks. She’s still a silly twit in a lot of ways, but that will slowly go away as she comes across more things in life that make us jaded and cynical.
Baby Girl, on the other hand, is serious and literary and reads voraciously. She went through the chick lit thing a couple of years ago, and after reading a very large stack of them, she said, “Eh. Same story, different dress.” And that was it for her. She didn’t become a sexual, angsty, shopping-crazed woman. Nor did she change her goals in life. She GOT THE MEMO - it’s FICTION! Today, she’s reading Long Way Down, the new one from Nick Hornby. It’s about 4 people on a rooftop, all contemplating suicide. And you know what? I’d lay odds she’s not going to run to the tallest building when she’s done reading it, so she can contemplate suicide from the roof.
Fiction can be powerful. It can make us cry, laugh, horny, or even introspective. But the notion that fiction of any kind has the power to change a person’s entire make-up is just freakin’ stoopid. People are how they are, and any work of fiction they pick up will generally be looked at within their frame of reference, integrated into their own world view. It won’t define their view. If it could, we’d be seeing a lotta novels written by Osama Bin Laden and George W.
To quote the great social philosopher and sage Eminem:
“They say music can alter moods and talk to you / Well can it load a gun up for you, and cock it too? / Well if it can, then the next time you assault a dude /
Just tell the judge it was my fault and I’ll get sued.”
I’m not saying, to clarify, that Chick Lit is responsible for making us dumb as boxes. I think it sends a negative, predictable message that reminds women that we are to tear each other down in our search for external fulfillment, but is Mickey Sue VanDumpfkopfen’s credit card bill due to overuse of chick lit? Pah.
“...pornography, which is unoriginal but at least it’s hard and wet”
Did somebody really say this? Really?
Porn- the other white meat.
What the hell is wrong with people?
Scheduled Sex? Is there a dayplanner section out there I’ve yet to hear about? “Hold on, baby. We’ve balanced the checkbook, but I can’t make our mutual climax appointment next Thursday. I could squeeze you in Sunday morning. If you can’t wait, there’s always porn - which as you know is hard and wet. Just like you like it!”
We’ve become trend crazy. Period. Remember the old stories, like If You Keep Doing That, You’ll Go Blind? It turns out they were just the old fashioned hallmark of hysteria that comes along any time a person finds something enjoyable to do which passes the time in this sad, sorry world.
Bashing Chick Lit is just a new way of bashing popular literature. That Educated Lady who wrote the little literary chestnut about a girl who was born with a left nut has been grinding her axe since Bridget Jones came sauntering into popular culture, making millions. Nobody but her professors loved her One Nutted Girl, but by god you will reel her RAGE!
And that’s another thing. People always hide behind such and such’s effect on “the children”. Where are these idiot children and could we please take these impressionable beings and put them on a special island where nothing will hurt them ever ever again?
My children were brought into a world where the sacred and profane are running neck and neck daily. And like the rest of us, they’re taking what they learn and deciding for themselves what’s real and what’s utter shit. It’s that old process called… Growing Up. Learning to separate the wheat from the chaff. I haven’t met a woman yet who’s said “Because of my copious reading of popular romantic literature during the early 1980’s, I married a man named Brick Stone. He spanks me daily with a hairbrush, and I do dishes by hand because he likes it that way.”
Until I meet that woman, I am going to continue to assume that fiction can’t hurt me or mine.
My mother forbade me to read romance, which is probably the main reason I read it. My comic books were allowed, but there was nothing like the thrill of sneaking to read a Harlequin or Barbara Cartland under the covers with a flashlight.
And look how liberated I turned out. Heh.
We have scheduled sex. Otherwise, we’d never have sex. It’s gotten to be a running joke between us. I call his office:
‘Okay, she’s gonna go to dinner, then over to so-and-so’s house to watch a movie.’
‘Seven o’clock?’
‘Better make it six-thirty, in case she comes home between dinner and the movie.’
‘Done. See you in three hours.’
When kids are small, they go to bed early. When they’re grown, they don’t. And we’ve never been able to go in our room and close the door if it’s not time for bed - we’re both nightowls - it’s just so OBVIOUS. Kills my mood entirely if I imagine my daughter in the other room, going. “Ooo, yuck! Mom and dad....eeeuw!”
She’s leaving for college on August 19. Then we’ll be home alone and I can toss the DayPlanner.
One last thing before I get back to work - Candy, wherever did you come up with the term ASSMUNCH? Is it yours? If so, trademark it.
Word. Would Carver rather have her daughter read Nicholas Sparks where everything is nice and shiny and mawkish like a Wal-Green’s commercial? “In the town of Perfect...”
Huh.
Sorry, Stef, I’m pretty sure assmunch has been used before. Was a favorite of a friend of mine in high school too.
Ah...chick lit. Oi.
Oh yeah, assmunch has been around the block a few times. I get most of my creative cussing from two sources: South Park and Something Awful. I don’t think I’ve actually made up any cusswords of my own, except maybe clitharpy, and that was for a contest.
I love these articles. They actually make me want to rush out and buy every chick lit I see. Okay, that’s an overstatement. I don’t want to buy all of anything, except maybe Linda Howard books (that was for you, Candy). But, while I don’t spend every hour reading chick lit, blaming the genre for all of society’s ills is, shall we say, histrionic and absurd.
My favorite part was in the one article where the author was appalled at having her work called chick lit because, in her view, it was the same as having her work called slut lit. Now, I need some guidance here. If there is something out there called slut lit, someone needs to point me to it ‘cause that just sounds interesting.
Well, you know, one woman’s slut lit is another woman’s perfectly-respectable lit…
I just want to see a Slut Lit shelf at my local B&N.
Geez. The article makes it sound like the author needs to have a cosmopolitan and chill. Chick-lit is not the end of the world, any more than Betty Friedan is one of the most harmful books of the 19th and 20th century.
It is the latest version of “Ohmigod, it’s popular, therefore it must be rotting young women’s brains. They need to
Been there, heard that. When I was seven (back in the dark ages), I cause quite a stir on a local children’s show. I was on the Birthday Carousel and was being interviewed by the nice lady host (who wore a black leotard, fishnet stockings, pumps, ears, tail and a cat nose) who asked me if I wanted to be a nurse or a mommy when I grew up (the most common things girls said they wanted to be). I said I didn’t want to be a nurse or mommy; I wanted to be an archeologist and dig up mummies.
We had ten seconds of dead air while she stared at me before the carousel turned to the next child. Naturally, everyone in my class had seen this and I was in for much teasing. My mother also heard two mothers talking about how I was “unusual” (read: weird) and it was “those books” my mother let me read.
There’s always someone and they’ll always find something.
Frankly, I’m disappointed that the male counterpart to chick lit ended up being called lad lit, not dick lit.
That would’ve been so cool.
And HelenKay: you may taunt me about Linda Howard, but that’s OK, I’ll just think about those books sitting next to all the biscuit-lovin’ Texas Rangers and giggle.
Mmmm, biscuits. I know what’s for dinner tonight.
Hmm. Clearly I haven’t watched enough South Park. Not since the Christmas Poo - “Hidy Ho Kyle!”
Do they still kill Kenny at the end of every episode?
Stef, WAY off topic
I agree with Sarah that *some* chick lit seems to embody the external fulfillment idea for women; in fact, I have the same complaint against some Romance (one of the reasons I want to throw every Susan Elizabeth Phillips book I’ve tried to read against the wall).
But then again, everything produced by individuals in society contains messages, since these things emerge from individual minds that harbor distinct values, beliefs, ideals, prejudices, likes, and dislikes. And rarely will these things be completely coherent as a set, so whatever messages a text embodies may be mixed at best. And every reader who approaches a text does so with a whole slew of beliefs, etc. that resonate with certain texts in a positive way and with other in a negative way. Ultimately, messages a text supposedly conveys are a collaborative endeavor between reader and writer, which underlines the point everyone has been making here about not oversimplifying and overestimating the influence that books and other cultural objects have over the developing psyches of young girls.
What frustrates me more than the assertion that certain books have an overwhelmingly “negative influence” over individuals, though, is the way that argument distracts people from the much more intersting question of what the fiction we produce and glom says about what we, as a society, value and believe, are frustrated, confused, and conflicted by, seem to be yearning for, questioning, embracing, and marginalizing. Fiction is both a mirror and a beacon in society, IMO, and I’m not so sure that we really want to look at the mirror part; instead, we want to shift focus away from the decentralization of parenting and accuse certain books of warping young minds.
Unfortunately, it’s also these mind-warping arguments that make those who write and read certain genres even more defensive and more afraid of self-reflection within those genres.
Last night, PBS re-ran its most recent P.O.V. program, “The Education of Shelby Knox,” a documentary about a teenager in Lubbock, Texas who fought for comprehensive sex education classes in her school district. It was exhilarating watching her grapple through complex ethical and moral issues (as a fundamentalist Christian she was also supporting a gay-straight alliance in her school district while her pastor and parents were pressuring her to stay away from the issue) with much more intellectual sophistication than some of the adults trying to influence her. One community leader started to accuse her of compromising her own morals to fight for comprehensive sex ed (this is a girl who had never even seen a condom or a penis), and it was a joy to watch her stop him dead in his tracks and refuse to be told she was compromising anything. Her pastor told her that Christianity was the “most intolerant religion in the world” and told her—disapprovingly—that he saw “tolerance” in her.
Of course not every teen is like Shelby Knox, but if we treated these kids like sentient intellects, using books to engage them in conversations about what they do and don’t believe, what their families and communities want them to beleive, and then allow them to discover and try out their own voices in the act of reading and reacting to what they read, what would happen? I truly believe that there are more people afraid of *that* then are there of the influence of chick lit.
*Her pastor told her that Christianity was the “most intolerant religion in the world” and told her—disapprovingly—that he saw “tolerance” in her.*
Now THAT would make grown-up Jesus cry.
Great post Robin. Thanks.
Stef, who lives 2 hours south of Lubbock, in the hometown of George W. I think they invented intolerance here.
On one hand, yikes. What is this woman’s problem?
On the other hand ... well, I think back to a conversation I had with a couple of my friends last year, and to a person, we all had carried around some misconceptions about what high school would be like, drawn from reading Sweet Valley High books. Jungle Proms, fabulous boyfriends, Fiat Spiders, parties where everyone dressed formal. And I have to admit, I was a little disappointed when I got to high school and found out that HS parties consisted of standing around someone’s living room with the same three people I hung out with at school, making fun of their bad shag carpet.
But it’s not like I bear any huge scars from that (you know what? Formal parties are hellishly boring), and the Chick-Lit books aren’t marketed at the twelve-year-old I was when I read SVH (as far as I know). Even if I got a few illogical ideas, by that age I certainly knew enough that if my mom asked me to walk though a pile of flaming books, I’d run next door to the neighbor’s and call my grandma, not end up with an injury requiring a trip to the hospital.
Honestly. Isn’t that child abuse?
Great post, Robin. And hooray for young women like Shelby Knox. Apparently her pastor never read John 3:17- Jesus came into the world not to condemn it, but to save it. Yeesh.
I got ahold of a total bodice ripper romance in my high school library- complete with scantily dressed lovers in a back breaking clinch on the cover. The only thing it did to my poor adolescent brain was give me slightly unrealistic ideas about sex. Fortunately, my mother clued me in that most women will never become one with the cosmos.
Hello, I can write in English—SOMETIMES!
My last sentence should obviously read: “I truly believe that there are more people afraid of *that* than there are of the influence of chick lit.”
“Now THAT would make grown-up Jesus cry.”
I consider myself pretty jaded, Stef, but even my jaw dropped at that pastor’s comment. Not because I don’t think it’s not true sometimes (whenever you have the concept of heaven combined with certain entry pass requirements, intolerance is intrinsic at some point), but because of the disgust with which he views tolerance. I have to say, though, I am impressed with Shelby’s parents; they are much more conservative than she is, but for the most part they really support her, even when they disagree with her.
I know some fabulous people from Texas, and most of my own acquaintance with the state is through airport tranfers. I do find it ironic that the origins of the territory and ultimately the state seem to run counter to the current incarnation of Texas, especially the early embrace of a “red-white” alliance. Right now, though, I’m thinking about Texas in relation to the fact that Congress is trying—once again—to pass a constitutional amendement overturning the Supreme Court decision in Texas v. Johnson declaring a ban on flag burning unconstitutional. Chick lit may have some undesirable qualities, but man, oh man, so do the increasing limits on our civil rights we seem to be accepting. I’d hate to think that someday I’m going to be reduced to expressing myself freely only through my shoes.
Hey, my mom forbade me from reading both romance novels AND comic books. The result: my reading Xavier Hollander under a faux Straub cover in the 8th grade.
Fiction, no matter if it is sci-fi, romance, erotica, literary, inspirational or anything else, is all a form of fantasy. Anyone who thinks that it causes normal people to behave in certain ways needs medical intervention.
My first adult books were Stephen King, starting with Firestarter in fourth grade. As of today, I haven’t morphed into anything weird, set anything on fire with my mind, killed anyone in a horrible fashion, or raised the dead. (Tomorrow may be a different story, but I digress.)
I spent most of my virginal high school years reading the thick Zebra Historicals. Note the virginal bit...I read about it RATHER than do it. And after I had my first experience, I realized the books were better. It improved, though.
Straight up, people just need to quit their fucking whining, admit they’re repsonsible for their own actions, admit their CHILDREN are responsible for their own actions, have a beer-and-Midol cocktail, and stop trying to tell everyone else what to do.
My mother imposed few limits on me. The two bigs were tell me where you’ll be, and if you get in trouble, it’s your ass.
Hence my lack of patience with people who blame everyone and everything else for their problems but THEMSELVES.
A website that reviews romance novels from a couple of smart bitches who will always give it to you straight. No bullshit. No gushing--unless the author really deserves it. To find out more, read all about us or check out our minty-fresh and funkadelic FAQ section.
I would wave my hand, and all the cars on the roads or freeways would drive perfectly. No idiots cutting me or anyone else off, people would actually know how to use their turn signals, there wouldn’t be any accidents……
Everyone has such great ideas and I am having a really hard time settling on just one! The free book is good, instant shower and hair is even better, clean house would be awesome, weight is right there at the…
I want a spell that gets me a free ARC of Dark Magic. I’m meta like that.
password: nearly49—Uh, not for another 14 years, thanks!
I’m torn between the “clean house” (this includes the litter box) spell, the good hair spell and a healthy weight spell.
I think I’ll go with the clean house spell - definitely the clean spell.
Truthfully, I’d love to have the ability to contact those who’ve passed away—whether one believes in that sort of thing or not (and I’m not saying I necessarily do, just that I really, really hope there’s more, just like one…
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06.23.05 at 10:58 AM |