Gender, Language and Myth: Essays on Popular Narrative

Andrea Levan is Co-ordinator of Women’s Studies at Laurentian
University.

This collection of 14 essays explores the mythic meanings of five genres
of popular fiction and film: romances, westerns, detective and espionage
fiction, science fiction, and horror. Taken as a group, the essays give
a vivid sense of the power of popular fictions, in creating and drawing
on archetypal images, to act as both products and expressions of our
culture and to reflect its anxieties and struggles.

For example, Leslie Fiedler’s essay on Gone With the Wind examines
the racist elements of the novel in the context of other fictions of its
time and ponders the novel’s enduring popularity. John Cawelti argues
that the elements of violence, racism, and sexism in western fiction and
film have reflected values of American culture with which we have grown
increasingly uncomfortable, accounting in large part for the decline of
the genre. A fine essay by Bruce Franklin documents the impact of the
Vietnam war on science-fiction writers. These and other thoughtful
essays discuss the power of popular culture to reflect and transcend
contemporary struggles through myth.

The issue of gender is also an important one in the collection, though
not as important as the title might suggest. Some essays focus
specifically on gender issues: these include Jean Radford’s and Tania
Modleski’s essays on the meaning of romantic fiction for women
readers; Jane Tompkins’s exploration of the masculine obsession with
death in westerns; interesting examinations of gender issues in
contemporary horror by Carol Clover and Robin Wood; and the essay by
editor Glenwood Irons on the emergence of feminist detective fiction.
However, more than half of the contributions either do not address
gender at all or do so glancingly. The absence of an essay on gender
issues in science fiction is a major disappointment, given the large and
growing body of literature in the field.

There are other disappointments in the collection. Only three
contributors are Canadian, and none of the essays discusses any
distinctly Canadian issues, authors, or perspectives on popular culture.
With the exception of Umberto Eco’s essay on the James Bond novels,
and possibly the essays on romance fiction, the entire focus of the book
is on American culture (perhaps understandable, given its pervasiveness,
but nevertheless disappointing in a Canadian publication). Another
possible concern is that almost all of the essays have been printed
elsewhere, and a number are well known. On the other hand, for those
with little background in the critical examination of popular culture,
the book might serve as an interesting introduction.