romance novel rant
I'll preface this by saying that I enjoy romance novels. They're like candy - you know they're no good but you pick one up anyway. I like paranormal romances and I like Regency & Medieval. I'm not much for contemporary or western.
Anyway, I've read enough of them that I've definitely noticed a pattern with the heroes. With Regencies, for example, it is perfectly okay for the heroine to be a working class girl, say a governess or a housekeeper, but the hero is never from such a lowly background. If he is in a role like this, he's posing in that role on orders from the crown. The hero is always gentry, generally upper gentry or if he's lower then his family has money. If he's poor and romancing a girl with a good dowry, then he has a good title or a brother with a good title. The only exception is pirate romances, in which the pirate is always the hero. (The only exception to that is A Lady at Last, where the heroine is the pirate - or pirate's daughter - and a large portion of the book is devoted to making her a lady, rather than a pirate.)
With paranormal romances, the hero is always the big baddie, the big bad vampire or werewolf or something. If the heroine is one as well, the hero is always the bigger, badder monster (witness Danger and Alexion from Sins of the Night). I mean, here we had a chance to have the heroine be the supernatural creature, the big bad Dark Hunter vampire slayer, and what do we get with the hero? A Dark Hunter slayer. Yup. (insert peeved face here)
Why is it we never see the woman get put in the position of power? Why can't we have a Regency where the lady falls for the butler or the gardner or something? Or a paranormal where the guy is the muggle (for lack of a better term here) and the girl is the vampire? And why do women - cause all of the names on these books are women - contine to write in such stereotypes? And why do we continue to buy them, to read them, to internalize them? Are we so stuck on the Cinderella myth, waiting for our prince to come and take us away from all of this dreary mundane world that we're never going to be the prince and rescue ourselves?
I'm thinking of laying off the romance novels, just on general principle. Except Dark Hunters, since I really want to finish the series out and see what happens with Nick and all.
Anyway, I've read enough of them that I've definitely noticed a pattern with the heroes. With Regencies, for example, it is perfectly okay for the heroine to be a working class girl, say a governess or a housekeeper, but the hero is never from such a lowly background. If he is in a role like this, he's posing in that role on orders from the crown. The hero is always gentry, generally upper gentry or if he's lower then his family has money. If he's poor and romancing a girl with a good dowry, then he has a good title or a brother with a good title. The only exception is pirate romances, in which the pirate is always the hero. (The only exception to that is A Lady at Last, where the heroine is the pirate - or pirate's daughter - and a large portion of the book is devoted to making her a lady, rather than a pirate.)
With paranormal romances, the hero is always the big baddie, the big bad vampire or werewolf or something. If the heroine is one as well, the hero is always the bigger, badder monster (witness Danger and Alexion from Sins of the Night). I mean, here we had a chance to have the heroine be the supernatural creature, the big bad Dark Hunter vampire slayer, and what do we get with the hero? A Dark Hunter slayer. Yup. (insert peeved face here)
Why is it we never see the woman get put in the position of power? Why can't we have a Regency where the lady falls for the butler or the gardner or something? Or a paranormal where the guy is the muggle (for lack of a better term here) and the girl is the vampire? And why do women - cause all of the names on these books are women - contine to write in such stereotypes? And why do we continue to buy them, to read them, to internalize them? Are we so stuck on the Cinderella myth, waiting for our prince to come and take us away from all of this dreary mundane world that we're never going to be the prince and rescue ourselves?
I'm thinking of laying off the romance novels, just on general principle. Except Dark Hunters, since I really want to finish the series out and see what happens with Nick and all.