Redefining the Romance: Classification and Community in a Popular Fiction Genre

Michelson, Anna

doi:https://doi.org/10.21985/n2-4tj1-6567

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Redefining the Romance: Classification and Community in a Popular Fiction Genre

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Today’s romance fiction landscape is drastically different than the early 1980s when its community of readers and writers formalized in the Romance Writers of America and Romantic Times fan magazine. Then, romance fiction was understood to focus on “the interaction between male and female.” Today, romance depicts a variety of relationships and is primarily defined by its “happily-ever-after.” I draw on archival materials, interviews, ethnography, and content analysis to show how the boundaries of romance genre fiction – and the social meaning of romance itself – have evolved. I focus on three contested classifications (erotic romance, LGBTQ+ romance, and multicultural romance) that prompted community debates over the definition, meaning, and purpose of romance. Erotic romance pushed the boundaries of acceptable female desire by introducing explicit prose and foregrounding sexual pleasure. LGBTQ+ romance expanded the romantic paradigm beyond traditional heteronormative relationships. Multicultural romance forced the community to discuss the politics of inclusion. Advances in publishing technology and organizational change facilitated genre diversification. However, I argue that the redefinition of romance was ultimately driven by a meaning-making shift within the community. Once a private act of leisure, romance reading has taken on political significance as readers and writers see subversive political potential in “happily-ever-afters” for historically marginalized groups. Documenting forty years of romance community discourse from formalization in 1981 to possible fracture in 2021, this project shows that a genre is more than the sum of its texts – it is a social process of community negotiation and redefinition

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