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.