The Politics of Pleasure: The Discursive and Ideological Potential(s) of Popular Fiction
Last semester, I wrote about John Grisham’s legal thriller A Time to Kill in Professor So’s Race, Law, and Literature course. I was curious about the ways in which racial discourses and identities were constructed and complicated within a work of fiction meant, first and foremost, to appeal to a large audience. I ultimately came to the conclusion that to read A Time to Kill is to understand a fraction of the anxieties situated at the intersections of race, violence, gender, and the law. More broadly, I learned that to read popular fiction, in some sense, is to become enmeshed in a set of contexts and concerns about identity, subjectivity, and ideology. This begs the question: how do these concerns trouble the popular novel’s pleasurable intentions? For my capstone, I’d like to build on the work that I began with the legal thriller by asking similar questions about other popular genres and attempting to uncover the transgressive logic and potential of popular genre fiction.
Grisham’s legal thrillers, and other forms of genre fiction—like the romance, the fantasy, and science fiction, for example—prioritize genre coherence by utilizing the conventions of their particular genre. What are the aesthetics and conventions of these genres? How are coherence and convention made more complex by the exploration of identity and identity politics? The troubled hero, for instance, is a beloved staple in the romance genre. But what happens when the haunted love interest is in a wheelchair? Does this allow space for transgression and rejection of hegemony, or does it confirm dominant ableist and heterosexist discourses? How does this complicate masculine ideologies and engage with discourses of disabled masculinity?
These novels are designed to provide pleasure, to act as a kind of “escape” from the drudgery of everyday life—but what can they tell us about ideas, discourse, and ideology? Is there transgressive potential in escapism, and in what ways does popular fiction articulate this potential? How is this potential subsequently decoded by the reader? How do concerns with/of pleasure complicate identity and the ways in which identity is explored across genre?
I’m inspired by feminist and Marxist methodologies in which “low culture,” a gendered and classed term meant to denigrate, is reclaimed as something of value. I follow the example of countless scholars who have expertly made the case that popular fiction can and should be read as artifacts of ideology.
At this stage, I imagine this project taking the form of a digital archive of sorts. I envision an interactive website, modeled after NPR’s Book Concierge, in which a user chooses a category of identity (gender, race, ability, sexuality, class) and a popular genre (romance, science fiction, thriller, fantasy, horror) to map the ways in which this identity and genre intersect. Say the user selects race and horror: this will take them to a specifically crafted page of the website in which I interrogate the popular horror novel and its means of responding to and constructing discourses and ideologies of race and racism.
I’m excited about the possibilities the capstone offers in terms of longevity, accessibility, and creativity. I know that the digital form will present new challenges that I find both exhilarating and a little scary. Turning scholarly research into an accessible and successful website will be difficult, but ultimately I think the accessibility of a capstone is one of the medium’s most attractive qualities. I will have to take into account an entirely different audience as I complete this project, guided largely by the question, “What am I trying to tell my audience about genre and identity?”[1] How will I incorporate all of my research, as well as all that I want to say about the novels themselves, into a readable and concise format? Because the accessibility of the website is a priority, I will have to consider the accessibility of my own language. One of my goals as a student, learner, and teacher is to be able to distill my knowledge into a product or practice that is inclusive rather than isolating. I believe this project provides an excellent opportunity to work towards this goal. Additionally, this goal speaks to the content of the project itself, though instead of the storied (and lately debunked) dichotomy between high and low culture, I aim to situate my capstone in the space between academic and “public” writing.
The large scope of the project poses a number of challenges, the most glaring of which is the question of quantity. How many novels should I read? (Or, how many novels can I read?) How can I make conscious choices about the popular texts that I choose to incorporate, choices that will drive the project forward in a constructive way? Ideally the website and project would be intersectional, by which I mean that the user would be able to click on more than one category of identity, perhaps looking at the ways in which sexuality, ability, and race intersect within the romance genre (if such a novel about a queer disabled person of color exists). Though genre novels are often quick and easy reads by design, the consideration of five axes of identity, plus five genres, makes for a daunting reading list. What are some productive means of narrowing the scope? Should I impose restrictions along any of the following categories: country of origin, publication date, or critical/audience reception?
[1] Many thanks to Professor So for asking this question!