Random comments about the M/M genre
Jan. 3rd, 2017 04:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rainwatersparkSo, now that I'm free of the previous semester but haven't yet gotten sucked into the upcoming semester, I'm trying to ease my way back into blogging again.
One thing I've been thinking about lately is race in fiction, and I've been thinking about it particularly because I've been binge-reading M/M romance due to the lack of quality YA fiction recently.
There are posts out there about race in fantasy/sci-fi and how most SFF books are white even though magic/futuristic worlds should beg for diversity. I agree, but...oddly, for me personally, a lack of characters of color doesn't instinctively bother me when reading SFF. It's certainly something that I'll note when I write a review, but it doesn't usually affect me while I'm reading except to give me a mild sense of disappointment. (To be honest, I'm not sure why this is; maybe it's just because I grew up used to Euro-centric fantasy and taking it for granted that all the characters would be white.)
However, I've noticed that a lack of protagonists of color REALLY bothers me when reading contemporary romance (M/M romance in this case, since I've never sought out M/F genre romance).
I don't know whether it's because the template formula for genre romance bores me faster and it's easier for me to notice "hey, these white cis dudes sound like the white cis dudes I've read in 547892 other M/M romances zzzzzzzzzz," or whether—for whatever reason—diversity is something I tend to notice much more keenly in a contemporary book, knowing that racial diversity in contemporary American society is a fact of life and representation of said diversity is incredibly important. But racial diversity in genre romance is a major sore spot for me and one reason I find myself feeling increasingly critical of the M/M romance "niche."
(In case I come off as singling out M/M romance—I'm sure M/F romance is equally unbalanced when it comes to race, I just don't read enough of it to talk about it specifically.)
.
If I were to speculate as to why 90% of M/M fiction is so white, I would guess it's due to a lot of white writers in that genre who either don't think too much about racial diversity or are afraid to do racial diversity—the old "I would screw up if I did it, so I'm not going to do it" idea.
If the latter is true, the thing is, not every story featuring a protagonist of color has to go in-depth about their particular cultural background. Really, I would be 100% happy with an Asian protagonist who is written like a white American, save for the last name and appearance. And in at least some, if not all cases, one could say that going in-depth about a character of color's cultural background isn't the type of story that is not the place of an author who is not of that cultural background/race to tell. But that doesn't mean the only solution is to completely avoid writing about characters of color.
.
Controversial opinion: If it's acceptable for an allosexual person to say "I wouldn't read an asexual romance," then it should be acceptable for a straight person to say "I wouldn't read a gay/lesbian romance."
(Yes, I'm being sardonic here.)
First of all, the attitude of "I won't read asexual romances" makes me wonder...does that person categorically refuse to read MG/YA fiction and genre fiction in which there's no explicit sex? Is the only thing they read erotic romance? Secondly, coming from female reviewers (because I've mostly seen this sentiment spoken in the context of M/M asexual relationships in fiction), it smacks to me of fetishization. And I'm not a super-critical person when it comes to fetishization of M/M relationships (largely because I don't like the emphasis on solely straight women as fetishizing M/M relationships; it seems to me that any cis woman could be guilty of fetishizing M/M relationships), but this case does strike me as an example of that.
And besides, saying "I won't read an asexual romance" is refusing to read a kind of romance because of the sexual orientation involved, which would seem to make it logically identical to a straight person saying "I won't read a gay/lesbian romance."
.
Personal preference thing: I really don't like alpha male type characters in M/M fiction. (I also don't like them in M/F relationships...*cough*Sarah J. Maas*coughcough*) Just...having a controlling, violent, aggressive douchebag be the love interest is not appealing to me, at all. Give me the sarcastic nerds and sensitive, thoughtful guys instead, please.
One thing I've been thinking about lately is race in fiction, and I've been thinking about it particularly because I've been binge-reading M/M romance due to the lack of quality YA fiction recently.
There are posts out there about race in fantasy/sci-fi and how most SFF books are white even though magic/futuristic worlds should beg for diversity. I agree, but...oddly, for me personally, a lack of characters of color doesn't instinctively bother me when reading SFF. It's certainly something that I'll note when I write a review, but it doesn't usually affect me while I'm reading except to give me a mild sense of disappointment. (To be honest, I'm not sure why this is; maybe it's just because I grew up used to Euro-centric fantasy and taking it for granted that all the characters would be white.)
However, I've noticed that a lack of protagonists of color REALLY bothers me when reading contemporary romance (M/M romance in this case, since I've never sought out M/F genre romance).
I don't know whether it's because the template formula for genre romance bores me faster and it's easier for me to notice "hey, these white cis dudes sound like the white cis dudes I've read in 547892 other M/M romances zzzzzzzzzz," or whether—for whatever reason—diversity is something I tend to notice much more keenly in a contemporary book, knowing that racial diversity in contemporary American society is a fact of life and representation of said diversity is incredibly important. But racial diversity in genre romance is a major sore spot for me and one reason I find myself feeling increasingly critical of the M/M romance "niche."
(In case I come off as singling out M/M romance—I'm sure M/F romance is equally unbalanced when it comes to race, I just don't read enough of it to talk about it specifically.)
.
If I were to speculate as to why 90% of M/M fiction is so white, I would guess it's due to a lot of white writers in that genre who either don't think too much about racial diversity or are afraid to do racial diversity—the old "I would screw up if I did it, so I'm not going to do it" idea.
If the latter is true, the thing is, not every story featuring a protagonist of color has to go in-depth about their particular cultural background. Really, I would be 100% happy with an Asian protagonist who is written like a white American, save for the last name and appearance. And in at least some, if not all cases, one could say that going in-depth about a character of color's cultural background isn't the type of story that is not the place of an author who is not of that cultural background/race to tell. But that doesn't mean the only solution is to completely avoid writing about characters of color.
.
Controversial opinion: If it's acceptable for an allosexual person to say "I wouldn't read an asexual romance," then it should be acceptable for a straight person to say "I wouldn't read a gay/lesbian romance."
(Yes, I'm being sardonic here.)
First of all, the attitude of "I won't read asexual romances" makes me wonder...does that person categorically refuse to read MG/YA fiction and genre fiction in which there's no explicit sex? Is the only thing they read erotic romance? Secondly, coming from female reviewers (because I've mostly seen this sentiment spoken in the context of M/M asexual relationships in fiction), it smacks to me of fetishization. And I'm not a super-critical person when it comes to fetishization of M/M relationships (largely because I don't like the emphasis on solely straight women as fetishizing M/M relationships; it seems to me that any cis woman could be guilty of fetishizing M/M relationships), but this case does strike me as an example of that.
And besides, saying "I won't read an asexual romance" is refusing to read a kind of romance because of the sexual orientation involved, which would seem to make it logically identical to a straight person saying "I won't read a gay/lesbian romance."
.
Personal preference thing: I really don't like alpha male type characters in M/M fiction. (I also don't like them in M/F relationships...*cough*Sarah J. Maas*coughcough*) Just...having a controlling, violent, aggressive douchebag be the love interest is not appealing to me, at all. Give me the sarcastic nerds and sensitive, thoughtful guys instead, please.
