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A Feminist Looks at Chick Lit
This started out as a generic "why are so many 'novels' these days really novellas?" and then it suddenly mutated. (It also lost a little coherence, so this isn't as polished as many of my rants.) Because as I framed the argument, I realized that the shrinkage of reading material wasn't happening to all sorts of books, it was happening to one genre.
Chick Lit. And by extension, cozy mysteries, which are predominantly written and read by women.
Furthermore, chick lit (and to a lesser extent, cozies) are marketing themselves with distinctly cartoon cover art. Art that's less involved than the average graphic novel or anime sequence (unless we're talking Pokemon).
What, we need to make things simple and stupid for the little women out there?
I'm going to start with a cover rant, because there's such a wonderful example of what I'm talking about. Deborah Donelly writes a cozy series about a wedding planner who ends up solving bridal-related crimes. Her first book, Veiled Threats, has full-cover watercover art of a woman in a wedding gown, with a gun on a table pointed towards her. Her second book, Died to Match,, is also full-color art, of a woman in a bridal gown holding up a skeleton mask, standing next to a body outline. Subtle, but pretty, and the themes of murder and mystery are present.
Book #3 (May the Best Man Die) though, shows a cartoon bridesmaid in a shortie santa skirt looking stupidly bewildered at a prone cartoon man. (This time, Amazon won't let me link directly to the cover art.) The book after that shows a wide-eyed cartoon woman in a bridal gown in a very Marilyn pose, trying to hold her skirts down as she jumps, using her veil as a parachute.
We've gone from dignified women with a touch of creep about them to caricatures showing a lot of leg and looking dimly befuddled by the predicaments they're in. Why, precisely, is that supposed to attract me into picking up the book?
Carrie Karasyov & Jill Kargman (more on them in a moment) had a photograph of a cotured woman holding a handbag on the cover of The Right Address, the title obscuring her face. Their second book, Wolves in Chic Clothing also devolved to cartoon characters, but you never see their faces either. It was bad enough that Phillipa Gregory's covers show their subjects from chin to knee, as if anything that made them look like individual beings was verboten, but at least they're pictured as people. The Devil Wears Prada, Everyone Worth Knowing, Wolves, and dozens of other chick lit books reduce their cover girls to faceless cartoon characters. (Oh, just typing that line gave me the wiggins!)
It wouldn't be so bad, if the contents weren't becoming equally dumbed down. Much as I like the Undead and... series, the "novels" are really novellas. Even printed in 12-point type with 1.5 line spacing, there are barely 250 pages to each one. Karasyov and Kargman, who are building a career out of rewriting classic women's literature as Park Avenue social climbing, can barely milk 300 pages out of their inspirations. The Right Address is Rebecca - only 80 pages and several subplots shorter. Wolves in Chic Clothing is so heavily drawn off a plotline from Sense and Sensibility that they've even named a character Willoughby - but again, it clocks in at precisely 80 pages (and a lot of charm) less than its progenitor. (Someday Karasyov and Kargman are getting a rant all to themselves because of this.)
I'm not actually saying that every book for women has to rival Harry Potter and the Doorstop of Doom in weight and page count. But c'mon - if you're going to rip off classic literature, try not to embarass yourselves by underestimating us, eh? It's not like y'all are the only two who've read the works of Du Marier and Austen.
But most of all, I want to know why we're being subjected to cover art that denigrates both content and reader. Those covers on such skinny books make it look as if we're going to be moving up to Dick and Jane any minute now.
Chick Lit. And by extension, cozy mysteries, which are predominantly written and read by women.
Furthermore, chick lit (and to a lesser extent, cozies) are marketing themselves with distinctly cartoon cover art. Art that's less involved than the average graphic novel or anime sequence (unless we're talking Pokemon).
What, we need to make things simple and stupid for the little women out there?
I'm going to start with a cover rant, because there's such a wonderful example of what I'm talking about. Deborah Donelly writes a cozy series about a wedding planner who ends up solving bridal-related crimes. Her first book, Veiled Threats, has full-cover watercover art of a woman in a wedding gown, with a gun on a table pointed towards her. Her second book, Died to Match,, is also full-color art, of a woman in a bridal gown holding up a skeleton mask, standing next to a body outline. Subtle, but pretty, and the themes of murder and mystery are present.
Book #3 (May the Best Man Die) though, shows a cartoon bridesmaid in a shortie santa skirt looking stupidly bewildered at a prone cartoon man. (This time, Amazon won't let me link directly to the cover art.) The book after that shows a wide-eyed cartoon woman in a bridal gown in a very Marilyn pose, trying to hold her skirts down as she jumps, using her veil as a parachute.
We've gone from dignified women with a touch of creep about them to caricatures showing a lot of leg and looking dimly befuddled by the predicaments they're in. Why, precisely, is that supposed to attract me into picking up the book?
Carrie Karasyov & Jill Kargman (more on them in a moment) had a photograph of a cotured woman holding a handbag on the cover of The Right Address, the title obscuring her face. Their second book, Wolves in Chic Clothing also devolved to cartoon characters, but you never see their faces either. It was bad enough that Phillipa Gregory's covers show their subjects from chin to knee, as if anything that made them look like individual beings was verboten, but at least they're pictured as people. The Devil Wears Prada, Everyone Worth Knowing, Wolves, and dozens of other chick lit books reduce their cover girls to faceless cartoon characters. (Oh, just typing that line gave me the wiggins!)
It wouldn't be so bad, if the contents weren't becoming equally dumbed down. Much as I like the Undead and... series, the "novels" are really novellas. Even printed in 12-point type with 1.5 line spacing, there are barely 250 pages to each one. Karasyov and Kargman, who are building a career out of rewriting classic women's literature as Park Avenue social climbing, can barely milk 300 pages out of their inspirations. The Right Address is Rebecca - only 80 pages and several subplots shorter. Wolves in Chic Clothing is so heavily drawn off a plotline from Sense and Sensibility that they've even named a character Willoughby - but again, it clocks in at precisely 80 pages (and a lot of charm) less than its progenitor. (Someday Karasyov and Kargman are getting a rant all to themselves because of this.)
I'm not actually saying that every book for women has to rival Harry Potter and the Doorstop of Doom in weight and page count. But c'mon - if you're going to rip off classic literature, try not to embarass yourselves by underestimating us, eh? It's not like y'all are the only two who've read the works of Du Marier and Austen.
But most of all, I want to know why we're being subjected to cover art that denigrates both content and reader. Those covers on such skinny books make it look as if we're going to be moving up to Dick and Jane any minute now.