Comments | coffeeandink: A proposal

coffeeandink

A proposal

Feb 19, 2016 14:05

I'd like to propose a ban on thinkpieces about a genre by someone who hasn't tried at least five examples of said genre in the past year. This goes double if you're talking about a genre traditionally associated with a marginalized group; for example, romance and young adult novels, which have traditionally been associated with women, or rap music ( Read more... )

music, books: romance, books, feminism

Comments 13

daria234 February 19 2016, 19:28:57 UTC

I would support this ban!

Though I'm curious if there has been anything specific recently that provoked this.

londonkds February 19 2016, 23:23:22 UTC

Someone wrote an article blaming the romance genre for creating "alpha male bastard" heroes, when they did not appear to have read any genre romance novels ever (unless you include Jane Eyre as the genre codifier) and took all of their recent examples from works other than genre romance.

daria234 February 19 2016, 23:45:56 UTC

Ugh

Yes it was "women's fiction" who invented the idea of entitled masculinist jerks being seen as heroes. Not like... almost every hero story ever.

coffeeandink February 20 2016, 00:04:37 UTC

I think it's fair to categorize J.D. Robb's Naked in Death as a romance, although that's not as true of later books in the series.

Thread 8

wordsofastory February 19 2016, 20:19:37 UTC

Yup, I am all for this ban. If only there was some way to actually enforce it...

novin_ha February 19 2016, 20:22:03 UTC

Five recent examples that aren't the most popular / popularly discussed ones, so that reading 5 Twilight clones doesn't count!

I followed the discussion closely yesterday (and commented under the post using my Chirson alter ego) and I was really happy to see your recs there (I recognised you by the Rose Lerner rec!). Took note of the ones that are new to me, too.

I admit I was baffled by the discrepancy between the stated thesis and what the article actually went on to discuss, but even more baffled by some of the arguments accusing romance readers speaking up of not reading closely when really, the article was misinformed, ill-timed and ill-constructed. Even if it had a good goal, it went about achieving it fairly incoherently and ended up needlessly unpleasant :/

coffeeandink February 20 2016, 00:48:58 UTC

Honestly, most of the discussions I'm thinking of would be greatly improved even if the original authors read 5 different Twilight clones, because they don't seem to have read any, or even Twilight itself ( ... )

novin_ha February 20 2016, 08:27:53 UTC

I haven't been writing terribly long (not original fiction, that is). ECh is a new-ish identity for projects I'm working on together with my girlfriend :) I'm now torn between wanting to bother you as someone whose taste I really admire and feeling bad about drawing your attention to it at all, so I'm just going to say I'll tell you as soon as anything is on its way to being published (instead of going through endless revisions)...

About f/f romances - I am actually trying to find / read more now, having avoided them in the past because I was afraid if they weren't terribly good, I'd feel much worse than when an f/m romance fails me, and finding it difficult to get recommendations. I mean, I've read and loved quite a few novels featuring f/f romance (most recently - My Real Children and Hild, both having arguably bisexual protagonists), but I didn't, so far, love any f/f romances that would be closer to the genre than, say, Sarah Waters. I've only heard good things about Jacqueline Koyanagi's Ascension (which, afaik, is a sff ( ... )

noelleleithe February 20 2016, 01:23:31 UTC

Oh, how I wish. One of my favorite responses is Delphine Dryden's Romance-Bashing Madlibs.