I'm so fucking sick of women smearing Chick Lit. I'm so done with it. At Bitch PhD, one of the guest bloggers wrote a post about Chick Lit--love it or hate it, embrace it or shun it. Her post was okay. Not the best start for a post on Chick Lit (as if it is something to be ashamed of reading), and some blurring between Romance and Chick Lit, but okay. No, the problem with that post was the venom that the comments inspired. I left one of my own, because I'm just appalled by what I read.
When did it become okay to so harshly judge what people are reading? Kelly recently posted a great entry about librarians not judging what people are reading, and I think she's right. But I don't think you need to be a librarian to know that you shouldn't judge so harshly the reading habits of anyone. Furthermore, I don't think it benefits women if other women attack their choices so harshly. Assuming that every women who happened to read The Devil Wears Prada is an unintelligent, unethical, apolitical, shopping bimbo is fucked up. I'm sure that some women are like that. I know that some women are like that. But contrary to what that commenter believes, your reading choices definitely don't always define you.
I still think that most women who criticize Chick Lit so harshly are afraid of what they'll look like to men if they don't. I mean, I don't care if you don't like Chick Lit, or Romance. That's fine. But I do care when you cross the line from "I don't like Chick Lit." to "Chick Lit has no value, nor do the women who read it." Because the second sounds suspiciously like an attempt to make yourself appear better to the people who don't read Chick Lit in great quantities, and who are apt to dismiss it out of hand. Men.
In some ways, reading Chick Lit and enjoying it feels subversive to me. Because I refuse to accept that men are the arbiters of what is good writing, and so I refuse to accept that all Chick Lit has no literary merit. Again, not all chick lit is good writing. Neither is all literary fiction, or all sci-fi, or all mystery. But I think that we can find value in some books in every genre that is currently being read. Including romance. A good writer is a good writer is a good writer, no matter what genre they're currently writing in, no matter what the boys' club wants you to think.
I think it's fucked up that we let people tell us what to think about literature simply by the label it's given. I think that it's sad that we'll so willingly trash women on the basis of what they're reading, regardless of the fact that we might not know anything about them. I think that we, as women, lose when we attack reading choices. We lose when we attack two of the only genres that exist for women, by women. And you're really missing the point if you buy into the paradigm that literary fiction=value and chick lit=trash. Missing. The. Point.
People read these books for a reason. People buy these books for a reason. There's a reason literary fiction is begging Oprah to rescue it. What is popular is not necessarily bad, and it doesn't make you better or smarter if you only read "literary fiction". In fact, I'd say that you're pretty damn boring if that's all you read. There's a big, bad world of books out there. Try a mystery, try some sci-fi. Try a romance or some chick lit, for god's sake. Read some non-fiction--a travel narrative or a collection of food essays. Aim for well-roundedness, and variety. There are good books in every genre. Hunt them down. Explore. It's gonna make you smarter, and hopefully, it will make you nicer.
Because frankly, I'm sick of being trashed by other women, for no good reason.
Update: And can I please reiterate that NOT ALL CHICK LIT features "fluff-head" shopping idiots? Please, stop fucking characterizing the genre this way when you haven't read enough of the genre to understand it. Because if you had, you'd know that your insulting condescension is wrong. Would I read books about women who were so uninteresting? Would I? Assuming that every book is like the one you read is just such a fucking mistake. GRRRRRRRR. That comment thread is getting longer, and longer, and more and more people are characterizing the genre in a way that if you don't hate it, you're a traitor to women, because you like reading about bimbos who love shoes. It's so much more than that, people!
While I'm not quite brave enough to chime in at the comments that brought me here, I quite enjoyed your offering as well as this post. This argument about the validity of chick-lit seems to (at least partially) be an extension of the mindset I'm constantly fighting while studying film: pop culture=trash and the canon=good. So, I appreciate your opinions.
Posted by: sarahnoel | August 23, 2005 at 09:25 AM