Modern women, historical settings

[neadods]

I've bitched about the state of the modern romance before, more than once, but this post of tamnonlinear's has given me more to say. Namely, that I think this whole idea of how we women must want to read about modern women in any setting is bogus. Not to mention patronizing.

Tammon's post is about how the latest version of Pride and Prejudice is calling the heroine a modern woman, and she isn't. True. But it's equally true and highly annoying to me that in all too many historically-based romances, a modern woman is somehow airlifted out of the 21st century and dropped into whatever time period the book is set. Oh, she may use their words and wear their clothes, but she has modern sensibilities which she often spends much of the book getting everyone around her to admire.

Because everyone knows that there were no interesting, much less strong or powerful, women in the world before Ms Magazine got published.

The movie Titanic was a classic example of this - Kate Winslet is perfectly capable of playing a character who is unconventional while being historically accurate; Sense and Sensibility proved it. But although the rest of Titanic was as accurate as possible to the period, "Rose" was a jarring note throughout - too forward thinking, too politically correct, too brash, and way too fast. (Mr "King of the World"? If you wanted people to study the movie as history - and you said you did - ya think maybe the love scene and the nude scenes were gratuitious? What, the story of the Titanic itself isn't interesting until you add tits?)

The Dodd romances I bashed earlier add an even more offensive wrinkle. The heroine is a "modern" woman in that she is convinced of sexual equality and that her efforts and brains are more important than her beauty... but eventually, inevitably, she's going to throw it all away for primal passionate lust for the one guy who finally proves to be "man enough" to overpower her. She may continue to snip and snap and he'll love her for it (to presumably prove that he's not a misogynist neanderthal) but we all know the real score. The happy ending means she has to acknowledge his manly ability to override her.

It's not just Dodd, either. I stopped giving a damn about Scarlett well before Rhett did, for example.

What's even more annoying is that now all the ballsy, brainy, bitchy broads have been shoved through a time warp, what are we left as the modern heroine, the girl we supposedly want to vicariously live through? The neurotic Bridget Joneses and Jaine Austens. Liza and her author - neither one a candidate for Doormat Of The Year or decades of therapy - have been replaced with cute collections of compulsive quirks, characters whose theme song is "I'm just a gal who can't say no." Can't say no to the people who impose, can't say no to the overspending and the bad food, can't say no whatever impulse next crosses their empty brains. If the heroines aren't neurotic, they're certifiable nutcases - just look at the Meg Ryan school of "see, want, stalk, have" romantic movies a la "Sleepless in Seattle" and "Kate and Leopold."

How ironic that Liza is being called a modern heroine when most modern heroines are modeled on Lydia!

Fortunately, there are some shining examples of getting it right. Pride and Prejudice itself for one; it wouldn't have lasted this long if women didn't continue to find something in the characters that they liked even as the times change. Ditto Jane Eyre. Rhys Bowen's "Molly Murphy" is a fantastic historical character - a strong, smart woman who is very much a product of her time. I just reviewed a book for Once Written that has a really nice and overdue twist on the neurotic modern heroine - the heroine has just come off a bad divorce and her confidence in herself and her abilities is shaken. (It's a very "Working Girl" kind of a plot.) That makes so much more sense to me than the twitchy "gotta getta man" mindset. And Mary Janice Davidson's wonderful Betsy Taylor admits she's vacuous - but she also has no trouble taking on and taking out anyone who crosses her moral code.

Now if only there were more women like them in romances!

Comments

[ncvids.livejournal.com]

It's patronizing because (among other things) it suggests that any woman throughout history could think and act like a "modern, independent" woman if she just had enough spunk. Considering that we're still in the shadow of a long, intense historical propaganda to belittle and obfuscate the "nature of women", I find the idea that women could always easily transcend their culture to be counterproductive.

[havocthecat]

See, and this is why if I read a romance novel, these days I'm tending toward fantasy or sci-fi with romance aspects.

There was this spate of Regencies about ten or fifteen years ago that had the husband signing control of his wife's fortune over to her upon their marriage. Again: Unrealistic. Not that I don't heartily applaud the sentiment, and all, but it's not going to happen.

[ncvids.livejournal.com]

Yeah, pretending the past was different than it was isn't useful to anyone(...well, I guess it might be useful to some people, but not for society as a whole.)

The nice thing about sci-fi and fantasy is you can do whatever the f you want. If you want to write historical fantasy, write historical fantasy. Just acknowledge it for what it is. But stop thinking that the real Medieval era was happy fun time.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

it suggests that any woman throughout history could think and act like a "modern, independent" woman if she just had enough spunk

Good point. I think the authors are trying to scrub off the more icky parts of history, but that that takes so much depth out of a story. Why have, for example, character A blithely announcing slavery is wrong in a slave state instead of wrestling with the social and moral aspects?

Come to think of it, it's also patronizing because it suggests that there are correct answers to some issues and that we the enlightened moderns are defacto better than the savages that lived at that time. There are grey areas to social morals, and issues we cannot resolve.

[ncvids.livejournal.com]

Totally. There's an interesting struggle between what you can see is wrong, but society tells you is okay or necessary (or unavoidable). There are lots of good stories to be told from that struggle. People are always influenced and molded by their social norms, and it's so arrogant to think that our assumptions are any less flawed or historically bound than theirs were.

[pinkribbonwench.livejournal.com]

When Diana Gabaldon first started writing "Outlander," she set it in mid-18th century Scotland, but her heroine just kept 'writing herself' as a modern, 20th century woman. So Diana made it a time-travel novel. I think that's hysterical, but you have to admit it's a solution!

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Now that's clever! Gotta ask - how well does she do in the past? Does she get herself in trouble for her heretical views?

[pinkribbonwench.livejournal.com]

She's almost burned at the stake as a witch.

[havocthecat]

The post you're referring to is friendslocked, it seems. :(

And I have also been feeling the need to rant about romance novels recently. Read a book in this series (I vaguely remember the first one) about some stupid Regency-era fam trad witches who all have psychic powers, give birth to only daughters, and insist that their marriage vows be "I take this woman in love and equality." Which I might be cool with, but come on, people, it's the frelling Regency era. Like you're going to get a Duke to wear a cape and crown of flowers to a wedding in front of his peers and swear to that? He'd be the laughingstock of the ton!

I couldn't even finish the book, not with Little Miss "I See Dead People" as the heroine. Oh, and she could also read auras--which actually led her to be able to read minds too, not just emotions. Or something like that.

Okay. *deep breath* Must work now. But hope to have time to bitch soon.

[tamnonlinear.livejournal.com]

Sorry, my default is friends-locked. It's unlocked now.

[havocthecat]

NP. Thanks, BTW, I'm looking forward to reading it!

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Like you're going to get a Duke to wear a cape and crown of flowers to a wedding in front of his peers and swear to that? He'd be the laughingstock of the ton!

Have you read Bewitched by Barnett? Great read, not to be taken too seriously. I think of it because the heroine has been spirited away by someone who thinks that the Regency Duke has put too much thought into the expectations of the Ton and too little on what the heroine likes. There's a scene where he utterly breaks down and does a series of rash stupid things in public - specifically to prove his desperation and devotion. And the ton *does* laugh at him.

So it has that scene, but in context the scene works.

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

What do you think about Heyer's heroines? I've always thought that she did an excellent job of walking the line between "realistic Regency woman" and "heroine that a modern reader can identify with". Not to mention having characters -- male AND female -- who are more than just walking collections of quirks, which is what bugs me about a lot of other Regency writers.

OTOH, I will never forget my disgust at picking up something billed as a Regency and discovering that it was actually a bodice-ripper with numerous explicit sex scenes between the (unmarried, aristocrat-class) main characters. My preferred Regencies may not be entirely realistic, but at least they don't have the characters doing things that people in that period ABSOLUTELY WOULD NOT DO!

And I am SO with you about Titanic. The early reviews included enough descriptions of Rose's improbable behavior that I decided seeing the movie would do nothing but raise my blood pressure. So I didn't.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Heyer's pretty good about it; she's one of the ones that I like to read. Balogh is also fairly good about keeping her characters rooted in their reality.

I do note that the bodice-ripping Regency is gaining ground; several of the ones that I've recently read - the Dodds come to mind - have been of that ilk. It's almost sex by numbers. Sure, there was premarital sex in the Regency, there's always been premarital sex. But to lose your virginity standing up on the porch while a party goes on in the main house a few yards away? I don't think so!

[beckyzoole.livejournal.com]

Although not romances, I like Diana Gabaldon's Outlander books precisely because the heroine -- who truly is lifted out of the 20th century and dropped into the 18th -- does not impress everyone with her Modernity and magically raise everybody's consciousness.

I quibble with other things in the books, but that is one bullet Gabaldon dodged.

Now I need to go add Rhys Bowen to the ever-growing reading list...