Cultural Theory and Popular Culture

Reading romance 145
an integral part of their roles as nurturing wives and mothers’ (97). And, as Radway
suggests, ‘Although this experience is vicarious, the pleasure it induces is nonetheless
real’ (100).
I think it is logical to conclude that romance reading is valued by the Smithton
women because the experience itself is different from ordinary existence. Not only
is it a relaxing release from the tension produced by daily problems and responsibilities,
but it creates a time or a space within which a woman can be entirely on
her own, preoccupied with her personal needs, desires, and pleasure. It is also a means
of transportation or escape to the exotic or, again, to that which is different (61).
The conclusion Reading the Romance finally comes to is that it is at present very
difficult to draw absolute conclusions about the cultural significance of romance reading.
To focus on the act of reading or to focus on the narrative fantasy of the texts
produces different, contradictory answers. The first suggests that ‘romance reading is
oppositional because it allows the women to refuse momentarily their self-abnegating
social role’ (210). To focus on the second suggests that ‘the romance’s narrative structure
embodies a simple recapitulation and recommendation of patriarchy and its
constituent social practices and ideologies’ (ibid.). It is this difference, ‘between the
meaning of the act and the meaning of the text as read’ (ibid.), that must be brought
into tight focus if we are to understand the full cultural significance of romance reading.
On one thing Radway is clear: women do not read romances out of a sense of contentment
with patriarchy. Romance reading contains an element of utopian protest, a
longing for a better world. But against this, the narrative structure of the romance
appears to suggest that male violence and male indifference are really expressions of
love waiting to be decoded by the right woman. This suggests that patriarchy is only a
problem until women learn how to read it properly. It is these complexities and contradictions
that Radway refuses to ignore or pretend to resolve. Her only certainty is
that it is too soon to know if romance reading can be cited simply as an ideological
agent of the patriarchal social order.
I feel compelled to point out . . . that neither this study nor any other to date provides
enough evidence to corroborate this argument fully. We simply do not know
what practical effects the repetitive reading of romances has on the way women
behave after they have closed their books and returned to their normal, ordinary
round of daily activities (217).
Therefore we must continue to acknowledge the activity of readers – their selections,
purchases, interpretations, appropriations, uses, etc. – as an essential part of the cultural
processes and complex practices of making meaning in the lived cultures of everyday
life. By paying attention in this way we increase the possibility of ‘articulating the
differences between the repressive imposition of ideology and oppositional practices
that, though limited in their scope and effect, at least dispute or contest the control of
ideological forms’ (221–2). The ideological power of romances may be great, but where