Romance in Cultural Studies
Nov. 29th, 2004 09:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethI'm reading last year's Cultural Studies reader, and it is a heck of a lot more useful than the one from this year. Which is good, because now I know more stuff, but bad, because no one else in the class has it and next unit I'll have to rely on this unit only also.
Harlequin romance and the stereotyped ideas of masculine and feminine in it are just *really* annoying. Slash follows a lot of the typical romance patterns without the typical romantic protagonists. You can't stereotype slash characters into 'the nice girl' and 'the arrogant yet attractive man'. In the fandoms I read they tend to be more 'the kick ass hero who also likes to, er, other things to do with ass'. Which is why I think of 'romance' as vastly annoying, yet consume all the slash I can get hold of.
On the other hand it is fun comparing the romance standards to Ethan and Giles, primarily because who is the 'hero' and who the 'heroine' keeps on swapping around. Probably even more so in other pairings.
Also, apparently in Harlequin romance the oldest hero is forty. Since the oldest guy I've adored in fandom is about 5000, or physically oldest is older than 50 now, I find that rather odd. Older means more breadth of experience, more layers and opportunities, more variety of stories to tell. Of course if the only story you are interested in telling is how boy meets girl and the rest is fate, age is an active hindrance, because the younger they are the more likely they are to fall for that crap. There's no fate but what you make.
Actually the reader makes the point that fate is most often believed in by disempowered social groups, those more often acted on than active. Which historically has included women. But that whole 'fate' aspect is not the only paradigm in romances any more, presumably because more active people read them.
Is all interesting and filled my head up for a while.
Harlequin romance and the stereotyped ideas of masculine and feminine in it are just *really* annoying. Slash follows a lot of the typical romance patterns without the typical romantic protagonists. You can't stereotype slash characters into 'the nice girl' and 'the arrogant yet attractive man'. In the fandoms I read they tend to be more 'the kick ass hero who also likes to, er, other things to do with ass'. Which is why I think of 'romance' as vastly annoying, yet consume all the slash I can get hold of.
On the other hand it is fun comparing the romance standards to Ethan and Giles, primarily because who is the 'hero' and who the 'heroine' keeps on swapping around. Probably even more so in other pairings.
Also, apparently in Harlequin romance the oldest hero is forty. Since the oldest guy I've adored in fandom is about 5000, or physically oldest is older than 50 now, I find that rather odd. Older means more breadth of experience, more layers and opportunities, more variety of stories to tell. Of course if the only story you are interested in telling is how boy meets girl and the rest is fate, age is an active hindrance, because the younger they are the more likely they are to fall for that crap. There's no fate but what you make.
Actually the reader makes the point that fate is most often believed in by disempowered social groups, those more often acted on than active. Which historically has included women. But that whole 'fate' aspect is not the only paradigm in romances any more, presumably because more active people read them.
Is all interesting and filled my head up for a while.