Escapism(s)
There’s been a bit of chatter lately in Romancelandia about escapism. I’m thinking especially of Ruthie Knox’s Wonkomance post, On Escapism in Historical Romance, where she wonders if escapism is necessary to romance, and Cecilia Grant’s guest post on Anna Cowan’s blog, And Still, We Will Fall In Love, where she acknowledges – and then points a middle finger at – the notion that escapism is incompatible with literary merit.
I also had a Twitter conversation about why readers would want to escape into horrific scenarios of abusive relationships. Sarah Mayberry tweeted that the “rich guy will make me happy” plot troubled her – that she wants her “heroines to be in charge of their own happiness and have their own power, not find it thr[ough] the man.”
And I thought – yes, that is a kind of escapism, but it’s a different kind of escapism than Ruthie Knox was talking about, and different again from what Cecilia Grant was talking about. It occurred to me that escapism is an umbrella term, a genus with many species, and that if we want to have a productive conversation about escapism, we should probably spend some time thinking about what it is.
So I’m going to start by listing different kinds of escapism. Not a complete list, but the best I can do:
Escape into a Better World: A world where the good guy always wins. Where the romance always ends in a happily ever after. Where the mystery is always solved, the villains get their comeuppance, and order is affirmed and restored.
I think this is the kind of escapism that Ruthie Knox was talking about when she wrote, “I want some anxiety, but not too much. Some tears, but not too many. Some gritty reality in the portrayal of history, but not so much reality that I get all swept up in thinking miserable thoughts about the past.”
In this better world of fiction, we expect loss and upheaval and anguish — but not too much. (Though, of course, various writers and readers define ‘too much’ very differently).
Escape into a World that Can and Should Be: This is what Sarah Mayberry made me think of. This escapism is like a model home, or an artists rendering of a community development. “This is what we can do,” it says. “Here’s how I propose to deal with this potential problem, and that one.” In romance, I think this means subjecting a couple to potentially relationship-shattering difficulties that occur frequently in real life (incompatible career goals, juggling work and family, difficult family dynamics) and modeling a successful resolution.
This also means things like forward-thinking gender dynamics, strong mutual respect within a couple, fair division of household labor, etc. And the solutions might be good, but they’re rarely easy — compromises are key to a happy resolution.
Escape Into A Better World vs. Escape into a World that Can and Should Be
Escaping into a better world is impossible, because we’ll never live in a world where good guys always win and mysteries are always solved. We will never have a reality where we can count on a satisfactory outcome to our greatest difficulties.
Escaping into a world that can and should be is possible, because it only asks individuals (real, fictional) to call upon their best selves and make good choices in a generally screwed-up world. This escapism says, in fun and funny and heartwarming ways: Best practices lead to better outcomes. Some people are good: find them. And hold on when you do.
Escape from Burdens: I think this is the kind of escapism most often used to tar and feather romance, as a genre. This is the billionaire who sweeps an ordinary heroine off her feet. The bodyguard who steps in to battle the heroine’s demons. The cowboy who knows just how to save the heroine’s failing ranch, the playboy who discovers he wants nothing more than to be a loving, devoted father.
These are books that say: Are you terrified of financial hardship, tormented by envy, psychically drained, exhausted? Here, let yourself be carried away by a story where those burdens that you carry, that make every day painful, vanish.
These are not true stories. They are probably exactly as impossible as they are necessary to their readers.
Escape from burdens might be the most useful kind of escapism, because it has an immediate practical application. This is escapism as respite — as Cecilia Grant wrote, “a kind of turning-away, or temporary retreat, from conditions and realities that are too painful to steadily face.” Escapism as a pause, a breather, a break. Time to gear up for the next round. Or, alternatively, an acknowledgement of defeat. A hidey-hole, a walled fortress, a defense mechanism.
Some burdens cannot be escaped. Life is painful, for everyone, pretty often. I have a lot of empathy for the escape from burdens because I think it zeroes in on those grinding, debilitating worries that won’t go away, that can only be endured. Grant, typically, said this more elegantly: ”I find it more interesting, more rewarding, to think of romance as an unbowed answer to those conditions and realities. A confrontation. A tiny defiant candle held up against the dark; a middle finger brandished in the face of existential despair.”
Escape from Consequences: If escape from burdens is an escape from conditions that often feel beyond one’s control, escape from consequences is an escape from personal responsibility. Escape from punishment, escape from rejection, escape from ostracism.
The protagonists of these stories knowingly make unethical decisions but avoid the backlash that they often desperately fear. They cheat and still get a happily ever after. They steal and get to keep the loot. They betray those that they love and are forgiven, without having to do any meaningful penance. These characters may behave irresponsibly and still come out on top, without having to modify their bad habits, or expose themselves to terrible risk but emerge unscathed.
Escape from Consequences vs. Escape from Burdens
If the escape from burdens makes people roll their eyes, the escape from consequences tends to make people angry. I probably don’t need to explain why. If these stories were intended as lessons, or parables of self-help, they would fail spectacularly.
I can’t say that the escape from consequences is my favorite flavor of escapism, and I think it’s problematic from a purely technical standpoint – how do you write good novel without consequences? There’s a reason why one of the first pieces of jargon any romance writer adds to her lexicon is ‘black moment’ – but as a fantasy, I have a great deal of sympathy for it. Most people make a couple really bad choices in a lifetime. And there are few realities more painful or humiliating than facing up to those mistakes and moving on.
Escape Into Pure Fantasy: Sometimes we escape just for fun. To delight the imagination. It’s the Marauder’s Map in Harry Potter, the rivers of chocolate in Willy Wonka, the migrating bicycles in Catherynne Valente’s The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making.
In romance, it’s the magical night out. Dancing at the ball in the perfect dress. Sex that always feels great and orgasms that are never a struggle or a duty.
Oh – and abs. Lots and lots of abs.
Escape into a Heightened Reality: This one ought to be broken down into parts, but there are too many parts. I associate this sort of escape, first and foremost, with science fiction and fantasy. And that means that plenty of real and virtual ink has been spilled on the subject, plumbing depths and offering expertise that I don’t have.
A heightened reality can be very much like our own, or it can play by its own rules — dragons, spaceships, etc. — allowing characters to do things like interact directly with metaphor (magic as power, for example), or ideas (political beliefs modeled into fantasy empires and pitted against one another). It can be complex (think George R.R. Martin) or very simple (good vs. evil, with clear markers of each and no gray areas).
But for the purposes of romance, I think the relevant sub-category is: escape into a world of extremes. I think it’s very easy to mistake extreme emotions for more important emotions, truer emotions, somehow superior emotions. More is better. Drama is interesting. Spectacle is value.
We see novels whose protagonists embody romantic virtues in extreme, unhealthy ways, virtues that metastasize into a disease. Devotion that is obsessive, baseless, stalkerish. Unconditional love that is proven and proven again when protagonists forgive the unforgivable.
Obviously I’m ambivalent about the escape into a world of extremes. Likely I just haven’t figured out how to process it.
& Romance?
I think the more that we parse escapism, the better we will understand romance as a genre.
The only escapism that romance must offer us is the escape into a better world — the guarantee of a satisfactory resolution to the primary romantic plotline. Subsidiary plotlines are exempt from this requirement & I think one of the possibilities of the genre is that it can offer readers a happily ever after while confounding other expectations. Love can disrupt order rather than restore it, for example.
Escapisms can be mixed and matched. They can appear singly or in concert. We already know this. Our protagonists can be flawed. They might make poor choices. They might face awful consequences for those choices. Happiness doesn’t have to mean relief from burdensome circumstances.
Precision is power.
I like thinking about why, too. Why write an escape, why indulge in an escape. Is there a difference between an escape from burdens that’s unreflective – The handsome duke is marrying me! I will live in a palace and wear fancy dresses and have fantastic sex all the time and never work again! – and an escape from burdens that’s crafted explicitly as “a middle finger brandished in the face of existential despair”? I suspect the answer is yes.
Every escapism can be raised to that level of worthiness. They shouldn’t have to be – but the possibility is exciting.
Lovely and thoughtful post – I adore the unpacking you have done. I am now thinking about ‘escape from consequences’ in the light of a discussion I have been part of on DA re Mary Balogh’s ‘Precious Jewell’ and ‘A Christmas Bride’ as being close to my reactions to these stories. I am also thinking about aprons. There was a tradition here in Australia and in New Zealand in the 30′s and 40′s of wearing full front calico aprons for doing the housework. This cheap material that was meant to be worn out was often embroidered with great skill and elaborateness with images of movie starlets taken from magazines. I think people try to bring beauty into their own lives from where ever they can however they define it. I own a classic ’40s version with a pic of Veronica Lake. I am thinking about how these images represented respite and escape from burdens at the same time as those burdens (the never ending housework, caring for family, etc.) are being actively borne by the seamstress/housewife. They are not one thing or another but exist together in the same space and time and Self of the wearer. Just as I think, the experience of reading a romance genre story does for the reader in her own life. I wonder if readers are not trying to escape from reality but perhaps introjecting something into their reality?
I think this response is perfect – though I can’t articulate why any better than you have in your response.
Maybe the idea is that escapism can be creative? Or that the escape is integrated into constant process of regeneration, which is ultimately expressed in work, and sometimes creative work?
I really love the idea that escapism can be creative because it makes escape an action that we have agency over. Escapism, then, is something that we *choose* and choose the terms of, versus an experience we “can’t help” but let take us over. I think your amazing categorization of the kinds of escape supports it as a creative action because what occurred to me, reading this, is that this is a complex explication for what we choose to read in any given session. It explains how we might decide to pull the trigger on one book we’d like to read over another.
I kind of mashed-up two ideas, there–one the idea of escapism as a creative expression, and the other applying your categories as a complex rubric that we use to choose our books and experience with our books. Which suggests, maybe, that reading, itself, may be a kind of creative expression. Certainly, sites like Goodreads may support this idea–we build public libraries of both our books and our experiences with them.
I mostly can’t get over how much you so reasonably took apart, here. It’s useful for readers, for reviewers, for critics, for writers. It’s a tool and a method of analysis both–I can see myself referring to it in order to write or talk about something I read, or as a starting point to brainstorm a book of my own. I was arrested by your exemplars in each category, how much they said, so succinctly, about my own reading choices. This post is is easily the best one I’ve read all year. Thank you, Erin.
Yes – that’s it. Finding agency in an activity that might otherwise be passive is the transformative element. Thank you.
And thanks for the compliment, too.
I’ve never been able to wrap my head around the idea that a heroine who finds protection/salvation through a man is wrong, that the author is wrong for writing it and the reader wrong for enjoying it. There is an implication I’ve seen out there that a book like this is advocating that as a life choice, saying a woman can’t or shouldn’t save herself, but that’s not how I see it at all.
In real life, every woman I know controls her own life. She earns her own money and decides what she’ll do and finds her own protection. Even when she does those things with the help of a man, she is choosing and contributing and overall as empowered as she wants to be. There’s nothing fictional about a woman who overcomes adversity or who creates her own future. She lives and breathes around me in a thousand different women.
There’s certainly nothing wrong with also having fictional characters who do this, but to say that they all should….? I don’t get it. I do read for escapism. That’s not the term I usually think about, but that’s part of it. I think of it more like exploring what could be. What would happen if… ? And then happy feelings. Which is escapism.
I have been known to seek out the middle class, blue collar hero, although that probably stems from their rarity rather than any actual preference on bank account size. Instead, what a rich hero provides for me is that the financial aspect of life is taken care of. Don’t worry about overtime or layoffs or all these other very real life problems. Instead, focus on the relationship or whatever else. It’s a wall of the black box around this story. It’s not about yay, now I can buy unlimited shoes and find happiness.
Yeah. I agree, obviously – I think that the need for fantasy and escape is pretty complicated. Certainly too complicated to assume that people write, and read, books that are point for point literal representations of the lives they most wish to lead. (My dearest wish: time travel! … no. That’s silly.)
But I also generally think that, say, people who have strong views about how women ought to act in romance are motivated by a legitimate fear that all the progress women have made toward equal rights, etc., will erode or disappear if people don’t fight for it, all the time, everywhere. It’s wrong to police fantasies – I think our fantasies reverse our realities so often for a reason – but it’s an understandable fear.
I’m with Sarah Mayberry on the rich-guy/dominating hero fantasy. Maybe because I’m a control freak, I hate the idea of letting a man make all of the decisions for me. I do think that our significant others make us happy, or contribute to our happiness in very significant ways. For me it’s more about the partnership and creating a good life together.
I’ve always considered “escape” to be a positive thing. I think it means the reader is immersed in the story world, even if that world is scary or unpleasant. The happy ending is important though. Without that, the lingering effect can be more thought-provoking or upsetting, not escapist. The happy ending means that we shut the book and go back to our lives, maybe still thinking about the story and characters, but feeling a little better instead of a little worse. I consider it part of my job to make the reader feel satisfied and uplifted. When I fail at that, I’m disappointed.
Amber, I don’t agree that the women around me are as empowered as they want to be. I’m not.
> people who have strong views about how women ought to act in romance are motivated by a legitimate fear that all the progress women have made toward equal rights, etc., will erode or disappear if people don’t fight for it, all the time, everywhere. It’s wrong to police fantasies – I think our fantasies reverse our realities so often for a reason – but it’s an understandable fear.
This is an understandable fear, but it’s a Catch-22 because if someone is policing fantasies, then I truly they encourage the erosion of our rights. This comes up a lot in relation to rape fantasy, and it applies in both places. As soon as someone starts saying women can’t think this, or couched in nicer terms, if you really CARED about women, you would never read this or find it hot, then it’s a step backward.
But going back to the fantasy at hand, even if I said I wanted my husband to be a rich and powerful man, why does that necessarily mean I am giving up my autonomy as a woman? I contribute to my husband’s success and his success raises me up. Of course we’re not billionaires and he’s not domineering and, etc, etc, but I don’t necessarily think one implies the other.
> Amber, I don’t agree that the women around me are as empowered as they want to be. I’m not.
That’s a good point. I mean, I have been as horrified at anyone at some of the political statements that were made in the past year, and that’s in the US where things are pretty good comparatively. So it’s not that I think that women’s rights are just fine the way they are or that the average woman doesn’t struggle with empowerment.
What I’m thinking is… real women do fix their own problems. Or the problems don’t get fixed, which I think is what you’re talking about and is a totally valid concern. But there are no rich handsome alpha billionaires to fix them for us. In my reality, he’s a mythological creature as much as a vampire or a demon or a fairy godmother.
And maybe some people think that fairy godmothers are wrong too. They come in with their wands and just fix things! Why can’t Cinderella settle down with a nice welder with a thatch-roof cottage, hmm? But in every genre, not just romance, there are seemingly impossible tasks and mentors and things that help them in the end. The fortitude of the protagonist is important, but they usually get help and this is an important part of the story (as I write this, I’m thinking of Frodo Baggins, so that may provide necessary context if what I’m saying doesn’t make sense). So I guess I’m thinking that in the broader construct of mythology and archetypes, the hero’s wealth may serve multiple purposes that have nothing to do with me, as a woman, wanting my husband to support me financially.
“So I guess I’m thinking that in the broader construct of mythology and archetypes, the hero’s wealth may serve multiple purposes that have nothing to do with me, as a woman, wanting my husband to support me financially.”
Right. Many readers who enjoy the rich hero/control fantasy don’t want to experience that in real life. And there’s nothing wrong with the fantasy–or the reality. I’ve always depended on my husband for financial support. I was thinking about me as an individual (I would choose to do dishes less) and women in society (I would choose equal rights). There are problems I can’t fix on the small and large scale.
Jill – I’ve sort of taken it for granted that the reality of an empowered, independent woman is a desirable thing; my point is more that it’s possible that a book about a strong empowered woman who doesn’t need help from her man & a book about a woman who’s saved and pampered and bossed around could both be a response to that desired reality.
In the one case, it’s a direct response – “This what I like; this is what i think is good; therefore, it’s what I want to read about.”
But in the other, it’s a negative response – “I value independence and control, but it’s a constant struggle; therefore, I’d rather escape into a story about something totally different.”
I think the last thing you mentioned, wanting to close a book in a way that lets people put it down and move on with a good feeling, is the restoration of order. I think it’s one of the most fundamental promises of genre novels.
I’m not sure I follow the direct response example. If the reader enjoys the fantasy of being rescued and bossed around because she thinks that’s the way her real life should be, how is it a response to the desired reality of an empowered, independent woman? Because she chooses not to be in control? Okay, I guess.
I would like to clarify that I don’t think there’s anything wrong with women who prefer a controlling man, in fantasy or reality. I was just saying that financial rescue isn’t *my* fantasy. I actually love the protective, physical rescue type of thing, along with many other traditional gender roles.
I have been thinking about what ‘billionaire’ might really mean as I read this post and comments. I wonder if the ‘billionaire’ figure stands for things so the direct response is about escape fantasies that draw on the ‘billionaire’ as a symbol standing for things not on the fact that he is a rich man alone. In this reading, the billionaire or Duke figure is never just a man. He is a gateway to things. Money isn’t just about what things we can buy it is the buffer in illness and the resilience creator when life delivers blows, with money comes not only security but choice in how we react to and power to act.
In a real life world where we are very aware of how little may lie between us and falling out of our lives and where we work hard but know that may not be enough – when we are in touch with our powerlessness, this can be the escape fantasy.
One of the fantasies I think some middle class people tend to have about poor people is that if they only budgeted better they wouldn’t be so poor or requiring of charity. The reality is that if you have don’t have the money to start with you can’t ever cover all the expenses and living requirements of even a modest life. All the individual effort and will brought to bear on this situation doesn’t change that reality it is collective will and action on the part of society that changes circumstances that then mean the individual person can make the good choices for themselves and their families.
I think the billionaires and Dukes are the default recognition of this social reality. By existing and performing the roles they do in the genre, they acknowledge without speaking it directly that we live in an inherently unequal world that is growing more so. Being a millionaire or an Earl or Gentleman or small businessman is no longer enough. They also acknowledge that women have a long way to go to achieving this sort of power in our real world.
In a funny sort of way maybe we can read the Dukes and billionaires as not-escapist fantasy. May be they are the naked Emperors marching down the streets in their pretend clothes that show us what is really going on in our societies? Maybe they are resistance in the cracks, as readers read them knowing their own worlds for what they are and naming their relatively powerlessness through these rich guys?
Ack, sorry – my response was unclear.
So the “direct response” is someone who endeavors to live in a way that empowers her and guarantees her a certain amount of independence. And her fantasies are also about women who work for empowerment and independence. So, ditto, the books that she would write and the books that she would read.
That “direct response” does not involve reading books about women who want to be saved/bossed/etc.
(Plenty of people think it’s better to be subservient in a couple, who are happy to negotiate limits to their independence, etc., and the “direct response” for those people would be to have fantasies about being saved and controlled and bossed around, and read books about being saved and bossed.)
Does that make sense?
Merrian,
I think you’re right about the billionaire/Duke representing power and security. I also agree that it’s comforting to view the poor as responsible for their lack of success. Then we don’t feel as guilty, as a society, for not helping. When I see poor characters in romance, I’m often struck by their stubbornness to accept “charity.” It doesn’t read as realistic to me.
Erin,
Yes, I think I understand. I consider myself a direct response reader, then. I want to read about how my world is or how I wish it was.
And now I’m thinking about a continuum of escapism, with more realistic books on one end (my usual preference) and sweeping fantasies on the other. Maybe my main issue with a billionaire hero’s world is that I can’t imagine it easily enough to escape into it. It’s so far outside of my reality.
I feel like I’ve gone off many tangents, but it’s been a great discussion.
Thanks.
Linkspam, 12/28/12 Edition — Radish Reviews
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What an amazing post! Makes me want to go through your archives!
Just wanted to share two things:
1) I find the negative connotations associated with ‘escapism’ a little bewildering because becoming completely oblivious to the world around me and being completely steeped in the story I am reading has been the hallmark of all my reading experiences across all sorts of genres… the feeling of escapism is not restricted to just the romance genre.
2) If anything I find this escapism fortifying. The break from reality like any other ‘escapist’ activity such as listening to relaxing music or an uplifting conversation refreshes and leaves me feeling better prepared.
Crystal-clear analysis of a phenomenon that’s nagged at me for a while. Thank you very much. Thanks to you, I have at last found a solid basis for discussion and debates about escapism in fiction.
As it happens, I’m French, and I’d very much like to share your post in my language. Would you authorize me to translate it and put it up at my listed site? (technically, it’s not mine, but that’s where it would find its French-speaking audience) With full credit, of course. And much gratitude.
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