Sometimes a genre's worst enemies are its fans.
A friend's recent post got me thinking about my hatred of modern literature and I had something of an epiphany. Now, I don't generally hate genres, even ones I don't personally care for, but I have a lot of trouble not being snarky to nasty about modern literature even though I consider it a genre. Then I realized why - the fans.
Well, not all of them, of course. It's the very vocal fans (including too many teachers) who get on my nerves, not because they like modern literature but because they believe that it is superior and that all people with intelligence or discernment will (should?) like it and that anyone who doesn't is stupid or immature or somehow a failure. There may be small groups of fans in other genres who act that way about their favorite sub-genre (I've certainly seen it from hard sci-fi fans or gritty fantasy fans...and sometimes Joss Whedon fans.) but I can't think of any other genre in which a large, vocal group of the over-all genre's fans act that way. And it's a good thing, too, since that's no way to win converts to your point of view or your favorite genre.
Of course, the fans of modern literature don't consider their genre a genre, which might be part of the problem. The thing is, it has conventions and standard plots, just like any other genre and is, therefore, a genre. This is not a disparagement, mind. (Though it's something of dethroning or depedestaling.) There's nothing wrong with a genre that aims for something like a bitter-sweet or depressing (or possibly uplifting) semi-simulation of reality* and I really need to stop sneering at it.
After all, my dislike of it comes from its fans sneering at me and what I like. I really shouldn't go and be just as bad an ambassador for light fiction. And I don't, in fact, think that light fiction is more valuable than modern literature. I just don't think it's less valuable. Or that people who read for escapism/fun are somehow inferior (or superior) to people who read for drama and tragedy. I need to aim my snarking at the attitude that one genre is better than another, not participate in that very silly debate.
And, for the sake of the genre of modern literature, it'd be a great idea if its sensible fans took its less sensible fans aside for a little chat about courtesy and respecting other people's tastes. (Ditto for the fans of the serious/gritty ends of other genres.)
*I am not convinced that modern literature or the serious/gritty ends of other genres are significantly more realsitic than their fluffy counterparts, but that'd be a whole blog on its own.