Romance is revolutionary.

Happy ever afters aren't unrealistic. They're necessary. 

Join me in diving into what makes the most popular genre also the most important genre to us as we emotionally navigate the dark and chaotic times we live in. 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Five, six, seven, eight.

SPEAKER_01 0:11

I get the artists Nick Cave and Tom Waits confused a lot for somebody who likes music, especially music of those eras, as much as I do. Um, maybe it's the single-syllable names. Um, perhaps it's the fact that they both look like they could have walked out of a southern gothic uh like paranormal romance where Nick Cave is definitely the vampire and Tom Waits is the werewolf. I'm not sure why. I can't remember one of them is definitely Australian and one of them is definitely American, but now I'm digressing from my intro. The point of all of this is that I recently came across a clip of Nick Cave. I kept saying it was Tom Waits, but it's Nick Cave, um, on Colbert, in which he discusses his project, The Red Hand Files, which started as a sort of ask me anything style site for him to connect with his fans, but um, according to the website, has burst the boundaries of its original concept to become a strange exercise in communal vulnerability and transparency. I highly recommend checking out the website. It is really such so many thoughtful meditations on life. It's been going on for a few years. He answers anything from what is the meaning of life to do you like Spongebob? And they all seem to have the same amount of gravitas. But anyway, back to this Twilight episode of Colbert. Um, Cave read aloud an answer to a question he received in 2022, one asking whether, given our unprecedented times, it is still worth believing in humanity and not give in to cynicism. Cave's response to this letter is beautiful. Um, he refers to the devastations of his life and how devastation creates a dichotomy that makes you realize just how important hope is, giving way to the triumphant final paragraph of the letter. Which I will read here. Unlike cynicism, hopefulness is hard-earned, makes demands upon us, and can often feel like the most indefensible and lonely place on earth. Hopefulness is not a neutral position either. It is adversarial. It is the warrior emotion that can lay waste to cynicism. Each redemptive or loving act, as small as you like, Valerio, such as reading to your little boy or showing him a thing you love, or singing him a song, or putting on his shoes, keeps the devil down in the hole. It says the world and its inhabitants have value and are worth defending. It says the world is worth believing in. In time, we come to find that it is so.

SPEAKER_00 2:59

Uh, musicians are philosophers. That is something I have learned over my many years pouring over 60s, 70s, 80s music.

SPEAKER_01 3:08

But naturally, as this is a podcast centered around the romance genre, my mind went directly to romance when I heard this quote. Romance is defined by hope. Romances end optimistically and are embodied by the happily ever after, a requirement of the genre that you can dive into deeper in the episode of the romance room entitled Not All Love Stories Are Romances. The happy ever after is a promise to the reader that this romance, that this story will end happily, and people really don't like that. A lot of people find that happy ever afters are not serious because they aren't realistic. And just the other day, in the first meeting of the latest uh iteration of the romance incubator that I run, we were airing out our frustrations over why romance isn't taken seriously. We we were discussing why, why don't people understand how serious the gravity of romance is? How can they think that just because something ends happily, it means it isn't serious. And listen, I've reached the point of actualization in my romance career that this lack of seriousness pisses me off, not because I feel the need to defend it, not because it speaks to something in me that feels like it's on a shaky foundation and I need to shore it up by being defensive. Um I just fundamentally find this assessment wrong. Happy endings are deeply serious business. And in fact, I would go as far as to call them revolutionary. It is easy to be a cynic, and I don't mean this with like a swoop of my arm toward the state of the world today. I mean this wholeheartedly as a metric of how challenging something is. On a scale of complicated emotions, cynicism is an objectively easy one. And anecdotally, from personal experience over the past few years, cynicism has taken hold of me more often than I would like to admit, has prevented me from living my life in ways that I would like to live my life. Cynicism, as I see it, is an emotion of anticipation. If we can add up all the elements in our immediate context, we can anticipate the outcomes of these elements. We can then decide what actions we will take in order to have the best outcome. But the best outcome when it comes to cynicism is usually the safest or most comfortable or least visible. Through our lives, we are taught that being hopeful is dangerous. Um, there is that ardent rush of hope in childhood. Um, there are disappointments that mark various parts of our lives. We are taught that we will not always get what we want and that hoping is not just hurtful to our ego, but embarrassing if we are seen wanting and then we fall short. For all of this, it is easy to be cynical. Furthermore, cynicism is a close relative of apathy, which is what our structures of government want us to feel. They want us to be as apathetic as possible to the state of the world, to see it as something we cannot fix, so that we roll over and quite literally die without a fight. On the other hand, hope is an advanced emotion. One as a child that is easy to have, but the more you learn about the world, the harder it is to hold on to. It is much more difficult to be hopeful than cynical. And yet, romance readers and writers are in the business of hope. This four-letter word, far more complicated than its letter count would have you guess, is why I maintain that romance is a very serious, very sincere genre. Readers and writers return to romance again and again because in a world such as ours, constantly chaotic and unjust, romance speaks to something tender and beautiful at the core of survival. That despite all the horrors, the hope of finding your person or persons, listen, I'm not gonna yucca yum, the hope of finding your people in a sea of billions, someone to weather the storm with, to fight the fight with, to make a life with, that hope stands supreme. The notion that we are stronger together is the theme at the crux of every romance, regardless of subgenre, regardless of trope. And through the hope of romance, we live in, as Nick Cave says, the warrior emotion that can lay waste to cynicism. We live in that hope. We live in the looking forward with bright eyes and clarity, knowing that even when there is chaos around us, even when life and the world and people give us so many reasons to throw our hands up and give way to cynicism, we live in the warrior emotion of hope to fight back against that. When we invest our time and attention in romance, we inevitably learn about the perhaps reckless belief in the happy endings that define romance. The more we see them, the more we remember that despite the horrors we persist. At the very least, to find those we can love, see us for our whole selves, and create a world we love living in together. Romance, in unison with hope, says the world is worth believing in. And we need to believe more now than ever. All of these things add up to extreme gravity around the romance genre. And I would be hard-pressed to be convinced by anyone who wants to fight against the the claim that romance is serious. I I cannot imagine an argument you could make that would demote how important I see romance as a genre. Having said all this, let me be abundantly clear, lest I be misunderstood, because the internet loves misunderstanding. I don't think being a romance writer or reader is a replacement for revolutionary action, for getting involved in your community, for deconstructing, for voting, for staying abreast of what is happening in our communities or in the world, any number of things integral to um combating fascism and creating more equity. It is something that lives in tandem with the revolutionary actions we take. Because to persevere through the dark times, we need to fight. And to balance that out, we also need art. We need hope. And romance does just that. And in closing, to supplement this idea that hope and art and romance is revolutionary, I'd like to read a short poem by Bertolt Brecht, the German playwright, um, that I continue to return to ever since the 2024 election. And it's as follows Motto In the Dark Times, will there also be singing? Yes, there will be singing about the dark times. If you want more of the romance room, you can find us at margerymuller.substack.com. We are currently going through a rebranding, and for the duration of the summer, paid subscriptions are discounted. And if you want to work with me, you can find information there as well. Also, is there a conversation about romance, the genre, the industry, the culture that you are craving? Let me know at the Romance Room Substack. There is a page dedicated to proposing conversations. Can't wait to hear what you're interested in hearing about. I would love to craft the content to suit what the um listeners are really looking for. So can't wait to hear from you. Seriously, this is the last time it goes.