Thursday, August 14, 2014

My Thoughts Thursday: Raise Your Pinky Finger

On Tuesday, you guys got to see my thing about depth in literature, and how it's there if you have the courage to pick a book that has what you're looking for. But for my more ranty Thursday post, I'm talking about why those stereotypes about YA literature pervade.

I mean, even when I was looking up the picture for this post, all the posts had similar titles in it, as shown below:


Don't even get me started as to why these people consider Harry Potter young adult fiction. Just goes to show what a lot of people know. Fun fact: Catcher in the Rye, The Great Gatsby, and other beloved classics were published for the young adult audience. I mean, Jane Austen was pretty much considered a women's fiction writer and she wrote some of the most analytical and true-to-life stories of English society in that age. So why is it that these radically successful trilogies like Divergent are still being blasted as simple stories with a love triangle and hot boys and whatever else? Well, like all stereotypes, part of them are true. There are a lot of stories with love triangles - it's a simple plot device that takes up some time in the novel while other things occur to give different readers different focal points. It also taps into the more realistic fiction market, because most realistic fiction offers very simple plot devices built up with writer finesse, and YA has a very wide range of reading abilities, intelligences, and ages. Some YA readers simply aren't ready for something more complex. I've yet to see a twelve-year-old read a Joyce novel.

But there's also the stereotypes bleeding in from other areas. Who, predominantly, reads young adult fiction? Teenagers, for one. Already considered to be a 'good-for-nothing' age group consisting of rebels and Molotov cocktails of hormones, this time in a person's life is considered to be unsubstantial by adult standards. And furthermore, who of teenagers reads more often than any other group? Girls. Teenage girls. And the societal expectation of the teenage girl is clear - a boy band-swooning, vapid, materialistic Barbie doll. Not meant to really have big ideas, strong thoughts, or be interested in 'deep' topics. Can you tell these words are dripping with disdain? It's true, I'm a tad bitter about that one, because I was held to that standard. The reason that YA fiction is written off is because the people who read it are written off. That's why written-off characters like Tris are so easy to identify with, a good proportion of YA readers have been there, or are still there.

Does this mean that we can't change the perception of various genres? Of course not. The way to do it is with purchasing power. It's no coincidence that dystopian novels and trilogies are exploding, or that female protagonists are parts of very popular series. Teenagers want to read about the world going on around them, and for a lot of people, dystopians are the closest thing to reality. Teenage guy readers aren't swayed by gender like people want to think they are, and they're looking for stories. Everyone, everywhere is looking for a good story. The only problem is that stereotypes like we have deter some readers from picking up a book. There have been studies where 'girly' covers are glossed over by guys. We have to push back and fight for the stories to define their genre instead of society doing it for them. We can do this.


Clickies:

@themoorewriter talks #YAlit and why judging a book by its cover can hurt an entire industry [Tweet it!]

Underdogs make for the best stories because stories are read by underdogs: @themoorewriter on nixing genre stereotypes  [Tweet it!]

Viva,
Brie

No comments:

Post a Comment

Put your genius here.