HelenKay can rant much better than I can. I originally saw the “This is not Chick Lit” book and the mini controversy around it, but not having picked the book up, I couldn’t really do a blind rant about the topic based solely on the promotion of the thing. After all, I’m not a writer, why should I care that a collection of “literature” gets promoted by using a title to declare that it’s not something? HelenKay starts out by slashing into a review/commentary by Collette Bancroft who has her nose so far up in the air you can see the whites of her pineal gland:

Bancroft praises the new release This Is Not Chick Lit seemingly on the basis that the stories are written by women with MFAs and possess other credentials Bancroft deems acceptable. In case you’re wondering, having an MFA or attending an Ivy League or other prestigious university is not sufficient. No, not for Bancroft. She insists that writers have both the credentials she finds worthy and that these writers produce work she deems worthy. Apparently acceptance, flexibility, support and freedom of choice are not values to be held in any sort of esteem in Bancroft’s world.

All of HelenKay’s rant is worth of a read, but I’ll quote a few parts I thought most interesting. Note the last sentence here:

Both sides claim victory in this odd game of literary Mutually Assured Destruction. Female authors who view themselves as literary writers tend to be rabidly anti-chick lit. Their argument starts with this oddly paternal premise: the “brain candy” nature of chick lit demeans all female authors and women need to be educated as to the genre’s limited value and then be protected from it. This argument then passes into the absurd with its next step: if chick lit didn’t exist, female authors would be taken seriously, and there would be more spaces on the bookshelves for high-minded literature by women.

I couldn’t agree more. I mean, it’s just gotta burn when “serious” writers of “Women’s Fiction” look up and see the tables in the front of the Barnes and Noble covered with “Chick LIT” when everyone knows that “those books don’t have anything to do with LITERATURE”… Yeah, we all get it. How incensed the “true literati” must be when they realized that the moniker of “Lit” was being attached to books that are pretty obviously not “Serious Literature”!

The same can be said with popcorn movies, especially those based on rather mundane topics like a boy wizard and his education at a wizard’s school. How DARE popular movies be… you know… popular? This is why I’m no longer a fan of the Oscar’s, the Emmy’s, or any other entrainment awards show. There’s a dichotomy between that of art and pop culture. Awards presented to the more “artistic” are all well and good, as long as those artsy types understand that if the market was comprised of nothing BUT the “art” films, every theater would be shuttered tight, and there would be no place for any art film to show.

It’s the same with serious literature. Literature… Biographies, Memoirs, History and How-To books will NOT keep a bookstore open. You need popular fiction to keep the doors open. Same with movies. Same with comic books (there’s been a long running debate on “alt-comics” vs. superheroes that is quite similar to this discussion).

However, I will beg a small difference with HelenKay here. The first paragraph sets up the second:

Not that the chick lit writers are that much better in their response to the attacks. The easy response to the literary crowd goes something like: you’re just jealous because the “popular” in “popular fiction” means someone actually reads our books. If female literary authors are envious of the success of chick lit writers, then the chick lit writers are just as envious of the social acceptance literary writers enjoy. When a chick lit writer ignores the work of an entire set of authors – in this case, the literary ones – they are just as guilty of holding narrow-minded views as their literary sisters.

Frankly, only women engage in this childish argument – the “everyone else is to blame for my circumstance” philosophy. Women rightly take umbrage at the idea of having men tell them what to read and write. However, these women then turn around and inflict the same warped sense of superiority on other women writers. The theory seems to be that men can’t dictate what we read, write and enjoy but we, as women, have the moral high ground to dictate to other women and then belittle them and their choices if they don’t match our own.

The unfortunate fact here is that women marginalize women. We don’t need any help from men on this score. Imagine how strong women writers would be as a presence and force if they banded together against critics and naysayers and stood behind the premise of supporting whatever genre other women writers chose to pursue.

Agreed again, but with a caveat: It’s not just women that engage in that kind of childish argument…

While I’ll never be a woman, I can definitely state that the same argument has been held by men in other venues. Women may be targets, but I’ve heard the same whining out of other previously “suppressed” minorities. Everything from black creators to comic book creators. Listen. Strong creators create rich entertainment. That entertainment may eventually find an appreciating audience. But the sad fact is that any entertainment has to attract an audience in order for the creator to get positive feedback. No matter of the “brilliance” of the work, if that work can’t find an audience, it doesn’t make it any less brilliant, it only makes it unprofitable. Right now, it’s a bit difficult to pick up an original Vincent van Gogh, but during his lifetime, you could have one of his works for the price of a cup of coffee… Ol’ Vincent didn’t have a very successful marketing staff… In other words, brilliance in your chosen art form isn’t always popular or profitable. BITCHING ABOUT IT, however, makes you look, well, bitchy. I mean, I get it if you’re a starving artist. But if you’re looking for applause simply because you’ve written something more erudite than category romance or guys in colored spandex, you won’t get any applause from my corner.

Oh yeah…I write this from a Barnes and Noble bookstore. It’s an experiment as a response to a challenge from a writer of fiction, J.A. Konrath. I’m afraid I’ll get back home and realize that none of this makes sense.