Satire - On Paranormal Romance
Jan. 24th, 2011 10:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rainwatersparkMy schedule is so weird...I have class, then a break, then more class, then more break...bleh.
I had forgotten how much fun it is to write satire. So, a kind of short, casual satire on paranormal romance.
A recent upsurge in the popularity of paranormal romance books, particularly among young adults, has become common after the face-crunchingly successful Twilight series. But if you haven’t read Twilight, you may be confused—what is this paranormal romance genre, and why is it so popular, anyway?
After careful study, I believe I have identified the common links among paranormal romance novels, and I think I may have found out some answers to the question of why they are currently all the rage.
First, it is common for paranormal romance novels to have a faceless heroine who, more often than not, narrates in the first person. Because this heroine is so mundane, it is easy for teenage girls to identify with her and feel as though they, themselves, are the heroine of the novel.
More importantly comes the next part: The Supernatural Boyfriend. He’s the Designated Love Interest, of course, and he is, in fact, the biggest jerk on the planet who will attempt to control the heroine’s life and prevent her from seeing anyone else. But that’s all right, because it’s all part of his charm: the bad-boy attitude only serves to highlight The Supernatural Boyfriend’s already smoking hot looks. It is a crime for The Heroine not to fall in love with The Supernatural Boyfriend and not to devote her entire existence to him. The Supernatural Boyfriend will initially treat The Heroine with little respect because of his supernatural background—be he a vampire, a werewolf, a fallen angel, or a faerie—and may treat her badly as part of his efforts to protect her from his Mysterious and Dangerous Background. Either that, or he angsts about his terrible background. But there’s nothing wrong with that, of course. Angst only serves to deepen The Supernatural Boyfriend’s character and get the sympathy of the reader. The Heroine cannot be capable of looking after herself on her own, because that would destroy all possible scenes in which The Supernatural Boyfriend comes to her rescue, and we all know that Damsel in Distress scenes are a necessary staple of romance. Respect and equality between partners in a relationship are so last century.
In terms of the writing, much of paranormal romance novels consist of The Heroine and The Supernatural Boyfriend staring at each other for hundreds of pages, because these stares clearly set up the chemistry for the relationship. Additionally, The Supernatural Boyfriend should be described as extravagantly as possible. No one can picture his drop-dead sexiness without mentions of his incandescent chest and luminous aquamarine eyes and his gorgeous locks of golden hair.
In short, the explanation for the popularity of paranormal romance can be boiled down to young girls’ ability to identify with the cardboard Heroine and, presumably, a desire to be alternately menaced and rescued by Hot Supernatural Boyfriends. For better or for worse, the kind of romance depicted by Austen is obsolete; our era is now the era of girls who subordinate their entire lives to their boyfriends.
...It got slightly less satirical and more bitter towards the end. O_o But yeah, my anger at this genre drove most of my efforts to write An Artist of the Heart, in which I'm trying very hard to subvert all these awful tropes. Or maybe I'm just doomed to be outdated--I like Austen better than any modern romance novel.
I had forgotten how much fun it is to write satire. So, a kind of short, casual satire on paranormal romance.
A recent upsurge in the popularity of paranormal romance books, particularly among young adults, has become common after the face-crunchingly successful Twilight series. But if you haven’t read Twilight, you may be confused—what is this paranormal romance genre, and why is it so popular, anyway?
After careful study, I believe I have identified the common links among paranormal romance novels, and I think I may have found out some answers to the question of why they are currently all the rage.
First, it is common for paranormal romance novels to have a faceless heroine who, more often than not, narrates in the first person. Because this heroine is so mundane, it is easy for teenage girls to identify with her and feel as though they, themselves, are the heroine of the novel.
More importantly comes the next part: The Supernatural Boyfriend. He’s the Designated Love Interest, of course, and he is, in fact, the biggest jerk on the planet who will attempt to control the heroine’s life and prevent her from seeing anyone else. But that’s all right, because it’s all part of his charm: the bad-boy attitude only serves to highlight The Supernatural Boyfriend’s already smoking hot looks. It is a crime for The Heroine not to fall in love with The Supernatural Boyfriend and not to devote her entire existence to him. The Supernatural Boyfriend will initially treat The Heroine with little respect because of his supernatural background—be he a vampire, a werewolf, a fallen angel, or a faerie—and may treat her badly as part of his efforts to protect her from his Mysterious and Dangerous Background. Either that, or he angsts about his terrible background. But there’s nothing wrong with that, of course. Angst only serves to deepen The Supernatural Boyfriend’s character and get the sympathy of the reader. The Heroine cannot be capable of looking after herself on her own, because that would destroy all possible scenes in which The Supernatural Boyfriend comes to her rescue, and we all know that Damsel in Distress scenes are a necessary staple of romance. Respect and equality between partners in a relationship are so last century.
In terms of the writing, much of paranormal romance novels consist of The Heroine and The Supernatural Boyfriend staring at each other for hundreds of pages, because these stares clearly set up the chemistry for the relationship. Additionally, The Supernatural Boyfriend should be described as extravagantly as possible. No one can picture his drop-dead sexiness without mentions of his incandescent chest and luminous aquamarine eyes and his gorgeous locks of golden hair.
In short, the explanation for the popularity of paranormal romance can be boiled down to young girls’ ability to identify with the cardboard Heroine and, presumably, a desire to be alternately menaced and rescued by Hot Supernatural Boyfriends. For better or for worse, the kind of romance depicted by Austen is obsolete; our era is now the era of girls who subordinate their entire lives to their boyfriends.
...It got slightly less satirical and more bitter towards the end. O_o But yeah, my anger at this genre drove most of my efforts to write An Artist of the Heart, in which I'm trying very hard to subvert all these awful tropes. Or maybe I'm just doomed to be outdated--I like Austen better than any modern romance novel.
