Hey, Did You Know Women Don’t Like the Fantasy Genre?

It’s true!  Back in 2003, Caryn James wrote a stunning, eye-opening piece for The New York Times  called, “Are Women Just Bored of the Rings?”  This provocative piece of journalism with a painstakingly crafted pun in the title revealed that women only tagged along with their boyfriends to The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King for superficial reasons.

I had spent a great deal of time in 2003 reading The Lord of the Rings, and deluded myself into thinking I liked the story because I was fascinated by Gollum’s internal struggle, interested in the different languages of Middle Earth, moved to tears by the beautiful friendship between Frodo and Sam (and by Howard Shore’s incredible soundtrack for the films).  Caryn James, however, opened my eyes to the truth: I only liked the movie because of Viggo Mortensen’s sexy sexiness.

What a blessed relief!  I no longer had to spend all this time thinking about the world of Middle Earth and wondering if I could someday build my own hobbit hole.  I promptly set fire to my book trilogy, my copies of the movies, and the handmade T-shirt with Elvish writing on the front and a Samwise Gamgee quote on the back that I wore while waiting in line for The Return of the King tickets, stripped my clothes off, rubbed paint all over my body, and danced a pagan dance of joy and freedom.

Eight years later, I am ready to pay the same tribute to Gina Bellefante, also of The New York Times, for giving me the same necessary perspective about A Game of Thrones.  Being a devotee of the works of George R.R. Martin, I was waiting on pins and needles for the HBO adaptation of his A Song of Ice and Fire series, until Bellefante wrote this eye-opening review.This was the telling quote that made me change my perspective:

The true perversion, though, is the sense you get that all of this illicitness has been tossed in as a little something for the ladies, out of a justifiable fear, perhaps, that no woman alive would watch otherwise. While I do not doubt that there are women in the world who read books like Mr. Martin’s, I can honestly say that I have never met a single woman who has stood up in indignation at her book club and refused to read the latest from Lorrie Moore unless everyone agreed to “The Hobbit” first. “Game of Thrones” is boy fiction patronizingly turned out to reach the population’s other half.

Upon first glance, this analysis confused me.  I read A Game of Thrones.  Eight different characters take turns telling the story as the narrative shifts back and forth, and four of those characters are female.  The “illicitness” that Bellefante refers to is also present in the book, depicting graphic sex scenes from the perspectives of both Tyrion Lannister and Daenerys Targaryen.  Sex is shown and felt from the points of view of both a male and a female character.

That’s why I briefly came to the conclusion that Bellefante didn’t know what the hell she was talking about, that she could have learned this much if she had flipped through a few pages of A Game of Thrones, and this was lazy journalism at its finest.

But then I wondered, what if Martin is the one “tossing in a little something for the ladies?”  What if he is the one patronizing us, and the showrunners are simply adapting what’s on the page?

Of course.  OF COURSE.  It all makes sense now!  This explains why, despite her description of the series as “boy fiction,” I started reading the series after five different women recommended it to me, and why I have only been able to convince other women to read it.  It can’t be that women like the fantasy genre or enjoy Martin’s writing.  We were simply TRICKED by Martin dangling well-written women in front of our noses and saying, “Here, ladies!  Fetch!”

Or maybe, the problem is that women aren’t supposed to like fantasy, or this series in particular.  Ew, swords and war and political intrigue?  That’s boy stuff.

What a relief.  Now I can add my copies of the books to my Lord of the Rings bonfire, and I no longer have to obsessively speculate over the true release date of A Dance with Dragons.  I’m free!  FREEEEEEE!