A Feminist Looks at Chick Lit
Nov. 1st, 2005 08:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
neadodsThis 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.
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no subject
Date: 2005-11-01 03:03 pm (UTC)And when did it become a crime for a character to have some redeeming - or even slightly human quality that makes them relatable to the reader? The cast in the chick lit (brought to two dimensional "glory" in The Devil Wears Prada could only barely be called people. They were character sketches with clothing labels. Where as that MIGHT have been a choice for the nature of the book - it's continued to be the practice in most of these books. You don't need to flesh out characters, locations, situations if you cna just say what designer they are wearibng, who ate there last or a movie/TV special that covers it.
Wretched.
no subject
Date: 2005-11-01 03:15 pm (UTC)No kidding. A little of it - as in, for instance, a character who obsesses on labels, or as a throwaway joke (I'm thinking of the "George looks good in Armani" scene from George of the Jungle) - might work, but in so many, yes, it's in place of any other character development.
Worse, there's nothing that's going to date a book faster than specifically naming designers. There will come a time when the readers are going "Prada? They wore that shit? BWAhahahahaha!"
And what really gets me is - look at the classic literature and see how LITTLE of that stuff there is in it. I haven't read Rebecca cover to cover yet, but I'm not seeing designer names. Sense and Sensibility? The occasional dress description, but never a fashion house. Because you can say as much by saying "She wore an expensive gown from the most fashionable dressmaker" without dropping names that will expire faster than fishbones left in the sun.
no subject
Date: 2005-11-01 06:59 pm (UTC)This is a different facet of the "water cooler conversation" problem, wherein all your cow-orkers automatically assume that you have nothing to do with your life but watch and talk about stupid sitcoms. These authors are either making the same assumption (that the reader will have seen every cultural reference they have), or are specifically writing only to an audience that fits those specs, and don't care about anyone else.
My 8th-grade English teacher, after reading my early attempt at creative writing, sat me down and explained why using specific cultural references (particularly current pop-culture ones) as shorthand is generally a bad idea -- essentially, that you CANNOT assume that everyone who reads your writing will be familiar with them. Sounds like some of these authors should have been in her class too!
no subject
Date: 2005-11-01 07:03 pm (UTC)To use a cultural reference, that's one of the things that turned me off about Gilmore Girls. Lorelai and Rory were such a snotty little clique in themselves, positively broadcasting the attitude that if you didn't catch every single one of their references, you simply weren't cool like them.
no subject
Date: 2005-11-01 05:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-01 05:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-02 04:38 am (UTC)I personally think each medium is different and that the audience can take that. But, hey. I'm not a gatekeeper.
The funny thing to me is they never seem to learn from the "exceptions." A series like Harry Potter has people devouring extra long books and standing in line to get them. Yet there they are shortening the books you're talking about.
And the movies....they keep redoing literary classics. Speaking of Jane Austen....it seems they've got yet another version of Pride and Prejudice coming out soon.
no subject
Date: 2005-11-02 01:40 pm (UTC)I was just thinking of Harry Potter vs the book I finished last night. The book I finished read like a chapter, and a middle chapter at that - little was resolved, and several threads were opened but never followed. The best way to read this series in the long run will be in an omnibus edition.
And yet at the same time, HP is shamelessly presented as chapters within a larger whole. But what chapters! Character growth & development, multiple plot threads advanced but also resolved (with hints for future growth), and a fully realized plot per book.
If only. To be brutal, the author seems to be going for quantity over quality; she's cranking these out at the rate of two a year.
no subject
Date: 2005-11-02 02:59 pm (UTC)The book you finished last night with all its unresolved, unfollowed threads is a lot like some TV programs nowadays. I've read complaints in the fandom world about shows doing the same thing. And it's usually around the time that the show takes a nosedive in the ratings.
I think there's an attitude in the TV world that if you resolve a storyline the story is over and the audience will move on. So some start writing stories that make a point of not resolving anything, thinking that will keep the audience in their seats. But the audience gets tired of all "sizzle and no steak" and they move on anyway. Meanwhile the writers get caught up in writing stories that never resolve anything. It's great for fanfiction writers if the story is popular enough, but that's about it.
Your book author from last night may think s/he is leaving things up in the air so it can be a hook to sell another book. S/he may not have a mind that can come up with the rich details that Rowling can. Or....it may be that her/his publisher doesn't want to publish a large book with the additional cost unless they can be absolutely sure it will sell like HP. They're hoping these unresolved plotlines will bring readers back, ignoring the fact that it might also leave them too unsatisfied to consider this author again.
The creative world is caught up in formulas lately. They're looking for guarantees and no risks.
no subject
Date: 2005-11-02 03:25 pm (UTC)I'm not sure I entirely agree with this. Lost, for example, doles out the occasional answer with the constant questions - certainly enough for me to feel that the plot is moving somewhere, if glacially. It's a step out of the ordinary. And CSI, back when it started, was very unique. That there are so many imitators now only prove how unique back then!
The book - well, it ties back in with the rant because it really isn't "about" a mystery or anything else that was launched and resolved, it was "about" how the heroine felt about if and if she got laid. What was hilarious for the first few dishings is falling rapidly into formula, and wearing thin. I wasn't going to write a review for it at first because of that, but maybe I shall just to vent my frustration; of all the paper-thin books in the series, this one was particularly useless, moving nothing forward and resolving next to nothing.
no subject
Date: 2005-11-02 04:08 pm (UTC)For me, Lost is a bit slow. I like it, but I feel like I can miss an episode or two and catch up. From the looks of the ratings, though, most people are tuning in every week. I think their close viewing into the characters helps. The past stories looking at the lives of the characters are usually complete within each episode, even if we've only looked at one aspect of the character. These past stories occur within the main story of the island intrigue and they allow some resolution. I'm not sure that many of the Lost clones are doing that.
Surface doesn't have anything like it. Supernatural at least finishes with one baddie a week and another lady in distress. Their numbers are OK for WB, but not outstanding. I haven't seen much of Invasion or Threshold. I wasn't able to get into them. I like Surface, but it looks kind of borderline. Invasion has respectable numbers higher than Surface. Threshold's numbers are significantly lower than Surface's, but they're still in the range of Alias, so maybe they're safe. The shows on either side of Threshold are doing better (Numbers and Ghost Whisperer).
I hear fans are starting to grumble about Desperate Housewives because of some change in storytelling dynamics, but their numbers are still exemplary.
I noticed that Smallville made a point of telling its viewers in commercials at the beginning of the season that they were going to do some of the storylines the fans have been waiting for. But they also seem poised to move on. Their numbers look good for WB. Those are all good signs.