Both romance and anti-romance have connotations of banality and low culture, reducing women to simplistic figures to be indulged. Yet, despite all their critical analysis, it seems inconclusive which gender is more sexist. This question can be addressed with reference to authorial intent, but, as Edward Said argues, "the reader participates fully in the production of meaning, being obliged, as a moral thing, to act, to produce a certain sense", indicating that both genres operate ideologically only to the extent that the reader interpolates it. This essay will examine the theory that such interpretations of sexism depend on how novels are received, using the idea of ​​ethnographic consideration to study this aspect. I will divide the reception of these genres between passive and pleasure readers and ironic or critical readers. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Spellbound and The Stud exemplify the various potential readings of the two genres. Both are intended primarily for fast-paced consumption by a mass audience and are what Snitow describes as "easy-read pablum". Certainly, today's commodity culture has produced a certain lack of depth, reflecting Adorno and Horkheimer's theory that the culture industry churns out pseudo-individualized commodities to be passively consumed in leisure. Romance stories are obviously more likely to be condemned by feminist critics due to their female characters who rely on men for their fulfillment. Spellbound in particular may therefore be condemned due to its references to the medieval era, an almost nostalgic allusion to a patriarchal period in which women had a more severe and submissive role in romantic relationships. However, this essay will investigate the thesis that anti-romance, despite its seemingly empowering message for women, is also sexist in its depiction of how women acquire and maintain such power. Obviously, anti-romance novels (The Stud is particularly a case in point thanks to its male and female narrative perspectives) are capable of altering Laura Mulvey's idea of ​​the dominance of the male gaze and the objectification of women in art. While it appears to empower women previously subjected to the gaze (as Bryna is in Spellbound through the male narrative perspective as well as being the object of both male characters' desires), it is clear through The Stud that the gaze is seemingly appropriated by celebrity. figure, meaning that both women and men are still objectified. Indeed, both Bryna and Fontaine appreciate the male gaze, even though the former favors marital monogamy and the latter favors power. However, both carry traits of sexism, as romanticism dictates that women center their lives around finding a husband, while anti-romanticism gives the impression that identity is directly related to appearance, indicating that women they remain under superficial scrutiny in the modern world. Of course, Tony criticizes the fact that Fontaine is "a little lacking in terms of boobs and ass" despite having succumbed to his dominance, which suggests that the male gaze will remain even with women's new status. The Stud reduces the woman's action to a superficial display of material prosperity. However, women's skills related to consumption and celebrity image prove profitable in the context of the contemporary world and act as a source of economic power. This differs from the spheredomestic of female sentimentality; Compared to the sentimentality and domestic traditions of the nineteenth century, the novel about sex and shopping permeates the convention of men's writing representing public, rational social criticism, rather than relying on domestic, emotional commentary in which women were considered only interested to maternal and domestic issues. desires. Through this genre, women are now positioned within consumer culture rather than relegated exclusively to the market domestic realm. This can be seen as a new position of empowerment for women as it not only places women in the public/entrepreneurial sphere of consumerism, but also depicts the male narrative of ambition and economic mobility. Aside from the overwhelming emergence of commodity culture, the anti-romantic novel rewrites the narrative of the American dream, appropriating it from women's contemporary capacity to have a history of self-made womanhood, thus refuting traditional representations of women. However, through this, characters like Fontaine display essentially masculine characteristics of ambition, but also of hedonism, excess, narcissism and the search for immediate gratification. The Stud also depicts dependence on men, as well as immorality and exploitation regarding how women obtain their wealth. This could be read, as Felski sees, “as redressing the injustices of the past,” providing the prospect for women to dominate, in their own way. Alternatively, the criticisms leveled against men in patriarchal society can be considered hypocritical, denoting the harmful effects of such a representation of women that encourages the use of sexuality and appearance to achieve economic and social mobility. Furthermore, this portrayal maintains the idea that women lack intellectual depth, and this reliance on social manipulation and sexual exploitation is also unstable; for example, Fontaine's husband, the dependence on funding and the prestige behind her extravagant lifestyle, leaves her. In this sense, the novel portrays the idea that women still have to sacrifice a part of themselves to achieve success, just as Bryna sacrifices her life for Calen. In this celebrity circle, it remains socially unacceptable to have a husband who is not considered respectable. Furthermore, the consumption of commodities represents an opportunity for fulfillment, depicting how women are seduced by material wealth, just as romantic heroines are seduced by men. For example, Fontaine makes up with Benjamin because she simply has to have the fur coat she wants him to buy for her to impress his social circle. Thus, the novel about sex and shopping applies constraints and social pressures similar to those of patriarchal society, and arguably harsher constraints than the world of novels like Spellbound, whose female protagonist at least has the potential for a compassionate relationship. However, Kay Mussell observes that romance novels fail "to develop mature and triumphant models for female life beyond marriage, motherhood, and womanhood," just as The Stud fails to develop models for female life beyond beyond consumer culture and celebrity. Therefore, it is evident that both genders impose constraints on women. In her article, Regis writes that "canonical romance writers have used [the romance form] to free their heroines from the barrier and free them to choose the hero." There is emphasis throughout the article on women's free choice, but novels like Spellbound establish the hegemonic ideology of monogamous marriage and the vital need to find a man to complete one'slife, and therefore refuse to provide other options for female fulfillment. Douglas confirms this, arguing that courtship in romance novels boils down to "coupling with the cautious primitive modes of animal mating," thus providing limiting horizons for women. According to Modleski, the novels encourage the reader "to participate in and actively desire the female self." -betrayal', as in effect Bryna waits and relies on Calen for a thousand years without any questions about this commitment begged by the reader. On the other hand, a significant aspect of novels about sex and shopping such as The Stud centers on the idea that women can enjoy sex freely and without shame, but in doing so denies any emotional connection and reduces it to hedonistic insignificance. Therefore, both representations are limiting in representing female fulfillment. Furthermore, the lack of depth and complexity in the writing style of both texts further indicates a lack of intelligence as a vehicle for women, both in terms of the characters presented and the metatextual concept of lowbrow popular fiction associations. In The Stud, the emphasis on glamor and materiality serves to highlight the maintenance of women's femininity in a masculine role of dominance and economic autonomy. However, for a critical reader rather than a pleasure reader, this may represent the postmodern view of the social construction of gender, drawing on Judith Butler's theories on gender performativity as a social construction. In this sense, the overtly camp aesthetic of the novel's lifestyle and characters serves as a form of ironic resistance to hegemonic gender roles. Andrew Ross argues that in the presentation of the field the exaggeration of characterization helps to undermine and challenge the accepted normality of essentialist gender roles, linking to Robertson's ideas on gender parody as a means of criticism. Considering this, one might look to the Brechtian technique of verfrumdungseffekt, as the exaggerated characterization of camp aesthetics alienates the audience to give them a detached judgment on dominant gender roles. However, with an ethnographic consideration, it is clear that the majority of the anti-romance audience are passive, pleasure readers, meaning that it must be assumed that most would not read it in depth. As Robertson points out, “camp is a reading/viewing practice that, by definition, is not available to all readers; for there to be a truly camp spectator, there must be another hyperbolic spectator who sees the object "normally". This once again affirms the idea of ​​an audience divided between Adorno's idea of ​​"passive deceivers" and critical readers. Furthermore, as a piece of popular culture, one should not necessarily read such a text from a socio-political perspective. Indeed, Susan Sontag points out that the constructed and stylized mode of camp aesthetics, by its very nature, is apolitical, the point being its absolute frivolity and not its capacity for criticism. It is certainly difficult to read such a text as serious social criticism, especially considering the authors. Celebrity and authorial homology, exemplified by Jackie Collins and Nora Roberts, provide evidence that their novels are a celebration rather than a critique of this lifestyle and life position. women. Certainly, novels about sex and shopping almost educate the reader about social mobility within the lifestyles of the rich and famous, and the intertextual evidence of the authors' celebrity is an encouragement for the values ​​displayed in the novels. For example, Collins socializes within real-life celebrity circles and makes a living from revealingsecrets to the population in chat shows and online forums. This denotes a voyeuristic fascination rather than a distanced critique; seems to aim to make readers live out their fantasies through the characters. This celebratory portrayal appears to condone a new definition of femininity, although that definition still includes engendered roles, as men are needed to fund women and provide them with status. To determine the effects of such representations, it is necessary to ethnographically evaluate how such texts are received. Both The Stud and Spellbound represent mythic genres that depict exceptional and extraordinary heroines. The pleasure here derives from the vision of this extraordinary femininity, and therefore does not denote a commentary on social reality. Indeed, this follows Robertson's logic of 'masquerade pleasure', i.e. distancing from reality. As Adorno and Horkheimer would see it, readers of romance and anti-romanticism "seek novelty, but the tension and boredom associated with actual work leads to an avoidance of effort in that free time which offers the only possibility of experiences truly new." Instead, they want a stimulant' . In this way, readers are not necessarily expected or expect a direct reference to reality when reading these texts. As Douglas sees it, romance is "porn softened for the needs of female emotion," and The Stud, while not passionately or explicitly sexual, acts as a form of female pornography in its glorification of female power and dominance. . In both cases, the categorization of "pornography" indicates a lack of realism and more of an indulgence for the sake of pleasure, rather than reflections on reality. However, the potential for a real-life association would be more plausible in The Stud, which could be read as a vision of a desired reality because the descriptions of commodity culture are very existent and thriving, as are the authors indulging in that same lifestyle and almost encourage it. Meanwhile, the fantasy world of Spellbound exemplifies the reader's escape into a mythical world and is not expected to reflect reality. It seems, then, that anti-romanticism's close correlation with real life makes it more humbling in its reflection of reality, as opposed to the utopian sensibility of an escapist that does not necessarily reflect real-life desires. Nonetheless, romances can be seen, as Regis states, as “women's slavery,” implying that romances have hegemonic repercussions in the real world by limiting female aspirations to the heterosexual, monogamous wife. This subjective inconclusiveness points us to Roland Barthes, whose “Death of the Author” expresses the concept that it is up to the reader to find meaning, relegating authorial intent and majority reception to irrelevance. In this sense, the reader is free to produce any reading of the texts; despite the lack of intention, the potential still exists for implicit meaning to be found, thus negating any possibility of definitively determining which gender imparts the most harmful portrayal of women. Overall, considering both the authorial intent and mass reception of these novels, the bourgeois idea of ​​cognitive connection with culture seems ill-suited to the study of popular fiction; the focus is instead on pleasure, not critical analysis. Just as Andrew Britton explores the concept of the Hollywood blockbuster, popular music must also be “consumed” rather than “read” with the postmodern logic of spectacle over content. Undoubtedly, such forms of “art” are created primarily for the market and therefore do not operate deliberately in: 1979).