NO! No, no, no, no, NO!

[CyranoJ]

Well, a lot of writers are I'm sure quite envious of E.L. James, and have good reason to be. Anyone who has paid their dues in a field of endeavour and then watches someone else make a gajillion dollars in their field by essentially winning the lottery is going to be envious. It's not pretty but there's really no sense pretending otherwise.

E.L. James also pisses off the BDSM community by getting their lifestyle wrong*, pisses off feminists and former victims of abuse by essentially glorifying abuse, and pisses off lovers of good prose -- the kind who enjoy taking the piss out of terrible writing -- by sucking at prose craftsmanship. So, there's all of those. Also perfectly understandable reactions.

(* I happen to think getting the lifestyle "wrong" is precisely the source of her success, but that's matter for another day.)

Bieber- or Mileyphobia are phenomena I find a lot harder to explain. I get not being into either's music, but the extent to which people will go out of their way to profess hating it (and them) as though this were itself an identity is a bit freaky; there are none of the issues in play with James at work with most people for pop music stars, so mostly they become stand-ins for complaints about "music today" or "today's toxic culture" or whatever. I actually wouldn't be surprised to learn that Bieber went off the rails as much as he did in part because he was unprepared for the weird mass neuroses surrounding his fame.

In Miley's case the public moralizing gets extra-sickening, or maybe just extra-amusing. After she twerked with Robin Thicke at the VMA awards I saw a "friend" in my FB feed complaining about the objectification of women and our need for better examples, and I'm like: "Fuck, dude. Really? A week ago you were trying to convince me to go to the peelers with you." (Not that I'm really in a position to complain about hypocrisy; I know all about having private kinks that conflict with your public convictions. But sometimes it strikes me funny regardless.)

 

[Bramblethorn]

Fun fact: my partner has a pen-friend in prison. The prisoners are not allowed Dungeons and Dragons books, but apparently 50SoG is just fine.

E.L. James also pisses off the BDSM community by getting their lifestyle wrong*, pisses off feminists and former victims of abuse by essentially glorifying abuse, and pisses off lovers of good prose -- the kind who enjoy taking the piss out of terrible writing -- by sucking at prose craftsmanship. So, there's all of those. Also perfectly understandable reactions.

(* I happen to think getting the lifestyle "wrong" is precisely the source of her success, but that's matter for another day.)

Can't argue with that.

FWIW, I agree with all the criticisms you've stated, and dislike the books for that reason. (I don't have a problem with people writing, reading, or enjoying nonconsent fantasies, and I'd be a monstrous hypocrite if I did. My issue there is that ELJ and a lot of her fans refuse to acknowledge Christian's behaviour as abusive stalking.)

That said, I don't think all of the hostility to ELJ is coming from those places. I get the feeling that some of it - no idea what proportion - is antagonism to the idea of a middle-aged woman writing about sexual fantasies for a largely female readership.

Bieber- or Mileyphobia are phenomena I find a lot harder to explain. I get not being into either's music, but the extent to which people will go out of their way to profess hating it (and them) as though this were itself an identity is a bit freaky; there are none of the issues in play with James at work with most people for pop music stars, so mostly they become stand-ins for complaints about "music today" or "today's toxic culture" or whatever.

I've heard it explained as a strong tendency to ridicule anything that teenage girls love.

And, yeah, Bieber is a bit of a prat, but as long as people like Woody Allen, Roman Polanski, and Sean Penn are still respected artistes it's hard to think that it's all about his actions.

 

[Katiecat]

That said, I don't think all of the hostility to ELJ is coming from those places. I get the feeling that some of it - no idea what proportion - is antagonism to the idea of a middle-aged woman writing about sexual fantasies for a largely female readership.

Except these middle-aged women have had huge success doing exactly that: Judith McNaught, Nora Roberts, Julie Garwood, Jude Deveraux, Johanna Lindsey, Kathleen Woodiwiss, Debbie Macomber, LaVyrle Spencer, Danielle Steel, Barbara Delinsky, Diana Gabaldon, Charlaine Harris...

They may not all write great literature, but they haven't been widely panned like James, either. FSOG the Movie was detested by the critics; Charlaine Harris' True Blood series was hugely successful on HBO (although it definitely had its WTF moments, it ran seven seasons).

FSOG follows the same format as many bodice ripper romances -- alpha male, powerful, brooding, wealthy, gorgeous (looks like Fabio, according to the cover pic) kidnaps/imprisons/overpowers the innocent virginal heroine, takes her virginity -- usually after several close calls, and the actual act is non-con, but she ends up somehow enjoying it and orgasming, even if she doesn't know what an orgasm is. Because he is just that good a lover. She heals his brokenness, they get married, overcome obstacles along the way, and make babies and live happily ever after. But as formula as those are, most don't have lines like, "He’s said such loving things today … But how long will he want to do this without wanting to beat the crap out of me.”

Yes, that is an actual line from the books.

I've heard it explained as a strong tendency to ridicule anything that teenage girls love.

I can see that...what teen girls like is often scorned for not being cool enough. Trends change so fast. But teen girls also like Hunger Games, Twilight, Katy Perry, Harry Potter, Lady Gaga...and none of those have seemed to suffer for it.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Except these middle-aged women have had huge success doing exactly that: Judith McNaught, Nora Roberts, Julie Garwood, Jude Deveraux, Johanna Lindsey, Kathleen Woodiwiss, Debbie Macomber, LaVyrle Spencer, Danielle Steel, Barbara Delinsky, Diana Gabaldon, Charlaine Harris...

They may not all write great literature, but they haven't been widely panned like James, either.

Perhaps not in quite the same fashion, but I'd have said romance was heavily derided as a genre. Where it escapes mockery, it's often because Serious Literary Folk have written it off as unworthy of comment.

It does a bit better when it's combined with some other genre so people can claim they're reading it for the vampires/historical detail/detective subplot/etc, but straight out romance? No matter how well-written it might be, there's a lot of stigma there. If a movie introduces a female character as a romance reader, we can be pretty sure she's an underachieving fantasist who lives with her parents and/or cats.

I can see that...what teen girls like is often scorned for not being cool enough. Trends change so fast. But teen girls also like Hunger Games, Twilight, Katy Perry, Harry Potter, Lady Gaga...and none of those have seemed to suffer for it.

Yeah, I was imprecise there. I should have said, stuff that's seen as specifically for teenage girls gets mocked.

Harry Potter gets by because plenty of boys read it too - but keep in mind, back when the first book was published, Jo Rowling's publishers asked her to write as "J.K." specifically to avoid having it seen as a girls' story!

Twilight: as I recall, the books got a LOT of criticism at the time. Some from people who objected to the "stalking=romance" aspect that ELJ later recycled, but also a lot for other aspects of the story.

From what I can tell, Hunger Games and Katy Perry have a majority female fandom but still have a sizeable minority of male fans. (Having seen some of KP's clips, I'm unsurprised...) Gaga's is pretty close to 50/50 and mostly over 35.

 

[Katiecat]

Perhaps not in quite the same fashion, but I'd have said romance was heavily derided as a genre. Where it escapes mockery, it's often because Serious Literary Folk have written it off as unworthy of comment.

It does a bit better when it's combined with some other genre so people can claim they're reading it for the vampires/historical detail/detective subplot/etc, but straight out romance? No matter how well-written it might be, there's a lot of stigma there. If a movie introduces a female character as a romance reader, we can be pretty sure she's an underachieving fantasist who lives with her parents and/or cats.

True, and not without reason. Many romance novels are pulp, formula, the characters and plots are carbon copies of each other. The most successful writers usually do have some kind of hook -- Nora Roberts writes vivid settings, and I love her descriptions of the Irish countryside, or quaint villages in New England. But her writing is repetitive and very formula -- her books are often trilogies, and everything in them fits into that nice little magic pattern. It's predictable and boring. Charlaine Harris came up with some new and unique ideas for her Sookie Stackhouse books; I loved probably the first five in the series, but at some point it became clear that she was just writing to meet a contract obligation, and the rest of the books from that point were a chore to slog through, with forgettable characters and threadbare plots. I've just started the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon -- barely have my feet wet, but her writing is rich in historical detail, the characters have depth, and her time travel premise is original and very interesting so far.

(No, I don't live with my parents, but I do have two cats. Hmmm...)

And there are the classics, of course, like Jane Austen and the Brontës.

Some genres that have men as their target audience aren't taken seriously, either, like Western novels by Zane Grey and Louis L'Amour, or pulp detective or sci fi novels. But it does seem that Romance novels and their readers are more widely scorned. Maybe there are more of them? I work in a department of about 200 employees, almost all of them men, and very few of them seem to read as a hobby.

Harry Potter gets by because plenty of boys read it too - but keep in mind, back when the first book was published, Jo Rowling's publishers asked her to write as "J.K." specifically to avoid having it seen as a girls' story!

Twilight: as I recall, the books got a LOT of criticism at the time. Some from people who objected to the "stalking=romance" aspect that ELJ later recycled, but also a lot for other aspects of the story.

The HP series is just amazing -- Rowling had a brilliant, original idea, and her writing and plot matured right along with her characters. I know she has male fans, but looking at HP forums and fan sites, it appears that female fans outnumber males. It may just be that more women than men are reading popular fiction these days.

Twilight...I read the trilogy, at the urging of a dear friend who has tastes similar to mine. She kept assuring me the series would get better, if I just stuck with it, but I never could get into the characters, and the writing style seemed very immature. But that wasn't really unexpected, as it was YA fiction. And at least Meyer came up with some interesting ideas -- an altruistic vampire who "rescued" young people who were dying by making them vampires, and formed a family with them; and the whole concept of a location that was so overcast and rainy all the time that vampires could safely go out in public during the day without fearing the sunlight. Not great literature, but I could read it and at least see the appeal.

FSOG was embarrassing to read. I wasn't embarrassed by the genre or that the sex was explicit; I wanted so badly to like the books, but they just made me cringe. The dialogue sounded like...good grief, the best description I can think of is a really awful S/M porno, acted out with marionettes.

 

[Bramblethorn]

True, and not without reason. Many romance novels are pulp, formula, the characters and plots are carbon copies of each other. The most successful writers usually do have some kind of hook -- Nora Roberts writes vivid settings, and I love her descriptions of the Irish countryside, or quaint villages in New England. But her writing is repetitive and very formula -- her books are often trilogies, and everything in them fits into that nice little magic pattern. It's predictable and boring.

That it can be, and it's part of the reason I'm not much of a romance reader (even though my most successful story here is romance!)

But I suspect that for a lot of readers, formula is part of the appeal. My partner's a very intelligent woman, she reads a lot of stuff that stretches her mind, but both of us have times when we need to decompress with something familiar and predictable. Me, I'll listen to the same music over and over, or play with mathematical programming where I already know exactly how it's going to turn out; for her, it's Johanna Lindsey.

Not that formula precludes creativity...

The HP series is just amazing -- Rowling had a brilliant, original idea, and her writing and plot matured right along with her characters.

IMHO - and I don't say this as a criticism - the originality of Harry Potter is more in the execution than the concept. Orphan raised by his mundane aunt and uncle in a backwater, develops mystical powers and overcomes the Dark Lord who killed(ish) his parents - Star Wars. Twelve-year-old English boy with glasses discovers that magic's real and he has the makings of a great wizard (including a pet owl) - Gaiman's "Books of Magic". (Not to say that she took the idea from BoM - Gaiman's response was "I thought we were both just stealing from T.H. White.") Evildoer becomes immortal by hiding his soul outside his body - Koschei the Deathless. And so on and on.

But she did good things with those ingredients. She gave it her own voice, she put those pieces together in interesting ways, created a memorable setting, and managed to keep a mostly-coherent plot together across seven books, which is quite an achievement.

FSOG was embarrassing to read. I wasn't embarrassed by the genre or that the sex was explicit; I wanted so badly to like the books, but they just made me cringe. The dialogue sounded like...good grief, the best description I can think of is a really awful S/M porno, acted out with marionettes.

If you haven't already seen it, you may enjoy Pervocracy's sporking of 50SoG.

 

[Katiecat]

Harry Potter is as original as any story is; when it comes right down to it, all writers borrow from epic myths, themes, motifs, and symbols, and use and re-use archetypes, don't we? There's a reason schools still teach Beowulf, King Lear, and The Odyssey.

And as for that Pervocracy site? Thank you, thank you, thank you from the bottom of my heart, that is the funniest thing I've read in a long time. My only sadness is the last post was 2014.

 

[AZMotherLover]

I suppose. I just notice that there are always a few pop culture phenomena that the general public are curiously eager to complain about, even to the point of changing the subject for the express purpose of providing a soapbox for it. Recently: "Twilight," Bieber, EL James. (Always something marketed at women, I notice.) The criticisms aren't wrong; I just detect something like insecurity or defensiveness in how zealously eager folks are to leave no potential for ambiguity (perhaps in this case we should say, "No shades of gray?" Yeah? Yeah? Yeah? ...yeah?) when distancing themselves from the subject of their ire. It's to the point of making a statement of identity politics, like wearing a team jersey or putting up your country's flag.

I wish there was a "like" button around here.

I agree 100% with you, TamLin.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Harry Potter is as original as any story is; when it comes right down to it, all writers borrow from epic myths, themes, motifs, and symbols, and use and re-use archetypes, don't we? There's a reason schools still teach Beowulf, King Lear, and The Odyssey.

And as for that Pervocracy site? Thank you, thank you, thank you from the bottom of my heart, that is the funniest thing I've read in a long time. My only sadness is the last post was 2014.

Yeah, I'm sorry they didn't at least finish Book 1, although I can't require anybody else to put themselves through that for my sake