Genres as Rohrschach blots

[nancylebov]

Here's an article arguing that survival horror is a reaction to Reaganomics--the vast majority of survival horror is about being tough enough to dispose of people who can't help.

Aside from that I'm not familiar with the genre and I'd like a timeline to see if it really fits that well with Reagan, there's something dramatic which has been happening more recently: the rise of the paranormal romance.

As far as I can tell Laurel Hamilton kicked off the genre, even though Anne Rice was a clear predecessor.

Survival fiction about the threat that must be fought. Paranormal romance isn't just about falling in love with vampires, werewolves, or whatever--it's generally about integrating human and alien/occult/monstrous societies.

I'm not sure where to do with this except to say that it's suddenly become quite a popular genre and if you can read the tea leaves about survival fiction, then there's another thing going on, too. 9/11 didn't slow paranormal romance down, and now that I think about it, it may have mostly been post 9/11.

On the other hand, I have no idea why pirates, zombies, and ninjas have suddenly become so popular. Are pirates and ninjas mostly a fannish thing? Is faerie waiting in the wings?

Diskworld and Mieville's (1998) are interesting non-romance examples of integration between human and fantasy creature societies. You may not have heard of King Rat--it's a combination of gross-out horror and carefully worked out life with monsters and as a semi-human monster who remains connected to both societies.

Comments

[autopope.livejournal.com]

Paranormal romance isn't just about falling in love with vampires, werewolves, or whatever--it's generally about integrating human and alien/occult/monstrous societies.

Um, no. (That's a necessary background discourse but it's not the topic at hand.) Paranormal romance tends to be about BDSM issues -- the Other is heavily implicated in rape -- with a side-order of coming to terms with AIDS.

[tashadandelion.livejournal.com]

I agree that paranormal romance -- where the hero is possessed of non-human super-qualities of some sort or another -- is a currently-acceptable format within which a significant portion of the romance-reading population can indulge their sexually submissive fantasies. The very nature of the super-man (because that's generally what these heros represent -- something greater than a human man) pre-excuses him from the current fashionable sensibility of asking politely before pouncing on the woman of his preference. If there's animal in him, or more generally "predator", then what luscious heroine could blame the virile force of the hero?

[heron61.livejournal.com]

I don't think issues regarding BDSM are essential to this genre. Instead, I see it as largely being a response to the fact that gender roles (especially in romantic relationships) are in such flux. Both women and men have contradictory ideas of what they should be like. For example, men are supposed to be strong & rugged, while also being sensitive and willing to talk and listen and there are similarly confusing and contradictory images for women... In addition, we have a mass media that more than ever before is presenting images of romance that are impressively dysfunctional and unrealistic. This is especially true in the US, where decades long-efforts to promote feminism exist alongside a concerted decades-long backlash against feminism.

As a result, we have a genre where people fall in love with individuals who initially seem to be one way (ie human) and turn out to be very different indeed, and the dynamics of relationships turn out to be far more confusing and complicated that expected.

[dsgood.livejournal.com]

For a bit of history, see this:
Jacquie Rogers, Author: Paranormal Romance, by Marilynn Byerly
Here's my version of a brief history of the PNR [paranormal romance genre]. ... The paranormal romance's roots come from the Gothic romance and science ...
jacquierogers.blogspot.com/2007/02/paranormal-romance-by-marilynn-byerly.html - 75k - Cached - Similar pages

[avram]

Let's see... Reagan was elected in 1980, took office in '81. The first example of survival horror he mentions is Alien, which was released in 1979, and probably written a year or two before that. Stephen King's The Stand came out in 1978. But the ideas behind Reaganomics may have been circulating for a few years before he was elected. Still the original Night of the Living Dead, which gave us the zombie-as-plague idea, was made in 1968, way too early to be about Reaganomics or a reaction to late '70s economic malaise.

I wonder what he thinks about Survivors, a British TV series from 1975, about the aftermath of a plague that kills off 95% of the world's population. A presentiment of Thatcherism?

[dr-zrfq.livejournal.com]

If one wants to run with the whole idea, then Night of the Living Dead could be construed as a reaction to Johnsonism, Vietnam, and the riots of '67 (which continued into '68). In the same vein, Survivors would then be about the economic pit of despair that was Great Britain in the early 1970's... though I'm not certain how one would explain Psychomania (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067630/), if it's relevant...

Rosemary Edgill

[(Anonymous)]

She wrote at least one paranormal romance that I have read. It had nothing to do with BDSM, but with the witch trials of the 1640's. I cannot remember the title.

David Bellamy

[(Anonymous)]

A quick look at IMDB shows The Omega Man (which comes to mind because it's up for, yes, a remake) to date from 1971. If that helps in some way.

[avram]

I haven't seen The Omega Man, but I have read I Am Legend, the original 1954 novel by Richard Mattheson on which it's based, and it's not survivor fiction in the sense being talked about here, since there's only one human survivor, rather than a lifeboat-style group of people trying to decide who to push off the back of the sled.

I'm also not sure how much the upcoming Will Smith movie I Am Legend takes from The Omega Man, as opposed to the original story, or the 1964 Vincent Price version, The Last Man on Earth. There's also I Am Omega, a straight-to-DVD adaptation that came out earlier this year.

[tashadandelion.livejournal.com]

I would place Mieville's first published novel (King Rat) in the 'gritty urban fantasy' sub-genre. There are predecessors, like the wonderful Borribles series by Michael de Larrabeiti, in which semi-immortal elven-esque 'children' do battle under the streets of London with giant intelligent rats. Have you read Perdido Street Station, the next novel Mieville published after King Rat? Wonderful stuff. (Also a bit gross-out, but a gorgeously-imagined fantasy/sf world.) I'd put his third novel, the Scar, lower on my interest scale, and I couldn't get into The Iron Council.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

I liked Perdido Street Station quite a bit, read a chunk of The Scar but got bogged down, and like you, couldn't get into The Iron Council. I'm extremely fond of his recent _Un Lun Dun_.

I've read and liked _The Borribles_, but I haven't read the sequels.

I'd file _King Rat_ under urban gross-out horror with non-standard fantasy elements.

[avram]

I described King Rat as "A Charles DeLint book gone horribly right." Though I don't think of it as horror.