Who's Afraid of Bridget Jones?

OK so this blog is probably more about assuaging some of the gauche guilt I feel regarding my dirty little Mills & Boon habit, but under the guise of academic critique, let’s consider for a minute a world where Maximillion Sterling and Dawn Hope are free to roam across the moors, without fear of attracting scorn from Aunt Steinem or Professor Times Literary Supplement.

This comes from an article written by Melanie La’Brooy, a self confessed Australian author of ‘Chic-lit’. Reading Mrs. Dalloway at the moment so a little pre-occupied with the gilded cage, biological realities & my life as a post neo feminista party gal...
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Critical contempt for the newly emerged Chic-lit genre seems to have less to do with its quality of writing than with the perceived politics and nature of the genre. In 1998, Time magazine asked "Is Feminism Dead?" before concluding it was, with specific reference to the popularity of Bridget Jones's Diary. In Britain, renowned writers such as Beryl Bainbridge have condemned the writing and reading of chick lit as a waste of time. Doris Lessing has referred to "instantly forgettable books" and regretted that "it's a pity that so many young women are writing like that".

In Australia, chick lit has sparked not so much public controversy as a strong sense of disdain among the literary community. It's true that in the rush to satisfy market demand, many inferior books that are insufficiently drafted, edited and scrutinised are published. But this criticism could be levelled at all genres; numerous literary novels fail to achieve their lofty ambitions, which in no way calls condemnation down upon their entire genre. So why is chick lit singled out for such hostility?

Chick lit crime No.1: Nice work if you can get it

I wonder if they are just writing like this because they think they are going to get published. – Doris Lessing

To assert that female writers are jumping on a bandwagon, in a desperate attempt to attain the Holy Grail of publication, is sexist in the extreme, implying women must write for a specific market to be published. Australian writing is rich with the voices of female writers across a diverse range of genres; Chick lit authors are but few among many. Produced by and for women, the gendered nature of chick lit should not be overlooked as one reason behind its dismissive treatment.

In her essay Romance in the Stacks, which appeared in the collection Scorned Literature, American librarian Alison M. Scott notes: "The scorn that romances garner relates substantively to the fact that romances are women's reading." She also quotes another source as saying: "Sociologists have long recognised a phenomenon called feminisation, which means that anything that becomes associated solely with women falls in general esteem." This may explain why science fiction, crime novels and thrillers (of which women are also prolific creators and voracious consumers) have not been subjected to similar scathing commentary. Romantic fiction is also the only genre to consistently place a woman at the centre of the narrative, to invariably make the hero subject to female desire and to unceasingly advocate a feminine ideal of masculine perfection that is the only widespread counterpoint to the paradigms of feminine perfection with which we are inundated every day. It's ironic that these novels, decried as anti-feminist, also bring to life Virginia Woolf's wistful musing: "Suppose, for instance, that men were only represented in literature as the lovers of women."

Chick lit crime No.2: You're so vain

Few women alive haven't dwelled on relationships or their appearance, but most manage to concern themselves with other things too. – Time magazine on Bridget Jones's Diary

Pointing out the glaringly obvious may be helpful in some contexts, but it is difficult to see the relevance of this comment as a useful critical tool. Chick lit is the sassy younger sibling of the romance novel and the dictionary defines romance as "that class of literature which consists of love stories; extravagant fiction, invention or story, wild or wanton exaggeration, a picturesque falsehood". It ought to be apparent, then, that on picking up a chick lit novel, one should reasonably expect to read a variation of an improbable narrative on the theme of romantic love. Complaining that the heroine of a chick lit novel is overly concerned with her love life is as pointless as becoming annoyed that Miss Marple pursued murderers with single-minded determination.

It is obviously not legitimate criticism that these novels are failing to meet the standards of their genre that is fuelling such comments but anger that this type of fiction is being produced at all. Yet is the articulation of a desire for a loving relationship, within the pages of a novel, necessarily antithetical to the aims of feminism? Does romantic idealism immediately polarise a desire for political, professional and social equality?

Chick lit is dismissed as anti-feminist because common to all of its protagonists is a belief in, and prioritisation of, the importance of romantic love. Few of us would dispute that this rates among life's more worthwhile endeavours, yet a feeling of unease ensues when this ideal is central to a novel. The suspicion arises that what is being promoted is the idea that no matter how professionally successful or happy in her platonic and familial relationships, a woman is unfulfilled without a man.

But if we accept that the elevation of the romantic ideal is the point of the genre and that a loving partnership is a widely valued aspiration in our society, what then is the answer? Will we be able to guiltlessly enjoy our fictional dreams of romance only when lesbian and gay romance novels are staples of the bestseller lists or when lad lit enjoys the same cultural resonance and market share as chick lit? Or should we place the escapist sensibility that underpins the demand for romance novels within a critical context that is wider than contemporary feminism? As journalist Paul Gray has noted in Time magazine: "The rift between those who dote on and those who disdain romance novels really centres on the question of fantasy and its proper place in adult imagination."

Chick lit crime No.3: T'aint what you do (it's the way that cha do it)

Scorn, ridicule, derision, after all, keep the scorned object in its place, thereby implying that the object has some ability to threaten the power structure that scorns it. – Sarah S.G. Frantz

Why are contemporary fictional women, placed firmly within the context of a romantic novel, considered a fair target while Emma Bovary, Anna Karenina and Isabelle Archer (to cite just three women who allowed passion and a desire to follow romantic destiny overcome reason) are considered heroines? Why is it that the only acceptable form of a literary heroine focused on love is in tragic guise? Arguably the greatest point of difference between chick lit novels and their literary antecedents is the ability of the modern protagonist to laugh at herself.

But while the goals of feminism and literature are serious, the aims of entertainment and chick lit do not preclude women's issues being treated with wit and insight. Perhaps chick lit's greatest achievement is restoring humour to the contemporary love story. Those who bemoan the popularity of chick lit novels as the harbinger of feminist doom could do worse than to rethink their prejudices. Now that the bodice constraining notions of femininity and feminism has been ripped open and we can breathe freely again, wouldn't it be better if we saved our breath for intelligent debate and criticism?

It's not that as authors and readers we want our light entertainment to be taken seriously but a lessening of the vitriol and a measure of professional respect is long overdue. Because otherwise I'll be forced to take you out the back and beat you around the head with my pink handbag. And, really, that won't get us anywhere at all.