First Cup of Coffee - May 10, 2024

I'm having a rant today, talking about the fantasy genre and how I define it - with supporting details! - and what differentiates Fantasy from a fantasy. Also reviews and thoughts on The Idea of You and Challengers.

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Transcript

00:01.78
jeffekennedy
Good morning. Everyone this is Jeffe Kennedy author of epic fantasy romance I'm here with my first cup of coffee. Delicious today is say it with me people say it loud it is friday.

00:20.58
jeffekennedy
Um, may tenth so here we are here we are may tenth I still am not out in my garden. We have these cold winds. It's just miserable everywhere I go people are like. How about this wind. How much do you hate this wind reader. We hates the wind. We hates it so but I have things to talk about today. Um, ah I saw something on threads. Maybe I need to stop looking at threads hung you think yesterday that just. Really annoyed me no end and I nearly replied I had a whole reply composed and I thought maybe I shouldn't and you know my rule for the internet is anytime I think maybe I shouldn't then I shouldn't I think that's probably a good rule of them. For engagement. So forth it. But that doesn't mean I can't rant about it on my podcast and I want to give a special shout out to Zoey Ellis for telling me that she loves my rants kisses to Zoey um, because of you I am going to do this rant.

01:34.78
jeffekennedy
Ah, and not to be a tease but I do have a couple of things I want to talk about um, just some ah side notes I don't know entertainment. Ah I watched the idea of you with Anne Hathaway and so cute young guy I forget his name and it's about an age gap. It's about this 20 year old boy band lead singer who falls in love with the 40 year old mother of 1 of his fans and it is. Utterly delightful I loved it. I I had a great time watching it. It scratched the sweet spot for me and of course people people are all kinds of upset about it right? People are just losing their shit. So Anne Hathaway is 42 42 now she played a 40 year old in this movie and apparently like people are having fits saying that she didn't look forty that she I mean she looks hot and this movie is hot. There is this great erotic tension in it. It's a lot about. And Hathaway's character being a divorced mother and deciding to to take up this gorgeous young man on his offer. Ah you know to to seize what she wants I loved that about it.

03:07.73
jeffekennedy
Ah, you know and so it's funny because apparently people think that 40 year old women don't look like Anne Hathaway looks and a lot of women have been posting social media to social media which I think is funny because being the age I am now.

03:26.55
jeffekennedy
Ah, you know what people say things like post if you're over 40 and you still feel sexy and beautiful and I'm like closing in on 60 Um, which I did not post anything but you know I think you all know full disclosure I'm 57 this is what. 57 looks like ah yeah, it's weird people are weird. Um, it's a misogyny thing. It's this idea that you know like only the young women are you know should be out there having sex and I'm going to clue you in folks, you know it's. Um, people I think full stop people who want to have sex keep having it their whole lives and um, whether or not you have the perky breasts of a 20 year old ah becomes decreasingly important as time goes on.

04:23.10
jeffekennedy
Um, there are a lot of other aspects to sex I feel like this is a spoiler. There's a lot of other stuff going on and why people are attracted to each other and why they want to be with each other that has nothing to do with physical perfection.

04:41.44
jeffekennedy
Perfect physical perfection. Is you know, like maybe appears to be true real on Instagram you know with all the photoshopping and everything but um, most of us we don't have to be physically perfect to be loved and desired. Fortunately. So there's that movie. Um, last night I saw challengers went with Megan and I was really interested to see it because Dan Savage was talking on his podcast that he had not yet but that he and he was a bad sex podcaster because everybody had been out. Um. Already seeing it and talking about it and you know it's a um I don't want to spoil it but I will say so if you don't know what it is. It's um, Zendaya and 2 I never know the actors names anymore 2 very hot young men. And they meet as teenagers um on the tennis championship circuit and there is this relationship between the 2 men who have been friends since they were 12 and they both fall in love with Zendaya and you know I think it was. I know about it mostly because of Dan Savage's podcast Megan said it had been marketed all wrong I hadn't seen the marketing but she was like totally not what the movie was um, you all it is such a good movie. It is so well done. It is subtle. It's full of.

06:16.28
jeffekennedy
Interesting relationship dynamics. There's these great focuses on the scars like and 1 of the opening shots and many of you will know that I am um, excuse me a little froggy here and in one of the establishing shots. My friend Melinda Snodgrass corrected me on the term there in the establishing shot. It shows ah zendaya in character sitting there and you can see the big aclscar down her knee as she's sitting on the sidelines of a tennis match and you know right away. That she is not playing tennis because she blew out her any There's some great glimpses of the various scars and I love the metaphors of it. There's this great metaphor of this storm that happens at the climax of the movie with these winds that are blowing garbage around blowing all of this trash around and it is. So emblematic of their lives and what's gone on in their relationships. Highly recommend this movie I recommend both for entirely different reasons. We can love both for different reasons right? which leads me to today's rant ah

07:32.50
jeffekennedy
And some of this is I don't know you know like people get confused I guess. Okay, so so let might tell you what happened is I saw a very well-known well-established author. Um, on threads probably someone I think who has only traditionally published it I don't know if they've ever self- publishlished but they have done very well and um, influential um influential voice. Um.

08:10.49
jeffekennedy
You know someone that I don't know it is a loud voice in the community and and I've read their books and I like their books and so this person says I won't tease you any longer this person gets on threads and says um. If. You're a fantasy reader I promise I promise historicals are just hanging out around the corner waiting to be discovered. We've got the dresses the danger the characters fighting against restrictive society the badass heroines and the brooding heroes all were missing is the wings. And this is what I decided not to reply to you all get to hear my reply instead. Um, there's a lot of levels to this that really annoys me 1 is historical. Romance has been around forever. It is the gateway drug romance for most of us it certainly was for me when I was a twelve year old my very first romance was an historical romance a blushing english rose who gets kidnapped into a sultan's harem and I gobbled it up. I loved historical romances I loved for the pirates and yes, the gowns and the brooding heroes and all of these things and for a very very very long time I would not read anything besides historical romance and I can.

09:42.23
jeffekennedy
Absolutely vouched that it was Nora Roberts who popped my cherry on contemporary romance I don't remember why I read 1 of her books or which one it was I may have been like desperate for something to read anything and I was a convert to contemporary romance. And I have very good friends that sounds terrible doesn't it Minerva Spencer writes historical romance I beta read for her love her books love what she's doing them in them. Historical romance is not fantasy. Okay, it's just not and I will get into that rant in a bit um because I I have a multilayered rant on this but before that I want to say what the hell what? Why are you? someone who has been. Doing very very well in their genre exceedingly well right? things have been great. You're looking at readers reading romanticy reading fantasy romance which is enjoying a short boom and you what have to shit on it. You have to. Go out there and say um, all of you people reading that stuff. You should be reading my stuff but I'm I'm so I'm so bothered by that. Um, you know why? Why can't we all just enjoy the fact that people are reading.

11:16.56
jeffekennedy
Instead of standing there with your sign saying don't read that stuff come read my stuff Maybe that is not how this author intended it but it totally came off as sour grapes to me and I understand I understand because. This is a difficult business. It's hard. It's hard for all of us. We watch these trends come and go and right now traditional publishing only wants to buy romanticy. They're all filling up their coffers with romanticy and it's hard to sell. Ah, historical romance to Try. Um both historical romance and contemporary romance have really been taken over by Self-publishing and it's harder and harder to get deals in those genres right? but that doesn't mean that you go on social media and say. Um, branch out from reading that read my thing. Um, it's just really so I'm gonna let that go I Promise I'll try I will try and and it is that aspect which is part of why I didn't feel. Like I could rationally go and comment on this thread and and do a well actually but the part that I wanted to rationally ah address that I wanted to do my my really but no is when this author says we have.

12:53.17
jeffekennedy
Dresses the danger the characters fighting against restrictive society the badass heroines and brooding heroes all we're missing is the wings and that is such an insultingly reductive way to talk about fantasy. That flames flames on the sides of my face that is not what fantasy is about and and this idea that it is somehow well it's it was a deliberate poke at a particular author and genre. Which everybody can see you know like we we all know what? what? Author they're talking about which also makes this a low blow but the presence of wings does not a fantasy make and I get that this was a flip. And cutesy thing to say um and with most cute and cutesy and flip things it landed with a thud on a number of us. Um, and I want to address the idea of. Fantasy. Um, you know as opposed to science fiction and you know like with SFWA we are the science fiction and fantasy writers association when we are talking about fantasy romance. We're talking about fantasy with romance in it.

14:25.46
jeffekennedy
And there's a lot of disagreement on how much fantasy there should be how much world building there should be and you know world building is super important to me because I consider myself to be right down the middle Of. Fantasy Plus romance. Um, and yeah I don't personally as a reader I don't like window dressing Fantasy Um, what assistant Carien dubbed to my amusement Renaissance Fair fantasy but a lot of people like that you know and there's nothing wrong with it. But.

15:01.60
jeffekennedy
It is more than dresses and restrictive societies that make a society or sorry that make a fantasy um and I'm going to read you a definition from Merriam Webster that the. We used the word fantasy in a lot of different senses and I think that confuses people because I did see some people arguing about well all fiction is fantasy right? You know it's all a fantasy and yeah, maybe I actually don't agree with that but I can see why people think it. Ah, the first definition of fantasy which comes from um ventesmagoria and it is the power or process of creating especially unrealistic or improbable mental images in response to psychological need. Um. Second definition a creation of the imaginative faculty whether expressed or merely conceived. Um and then as far as the the sort of sub-definition of that it says imaginative fiction. Featuring especially strange settings and grotesque characters and that's why it's more than wings right? and just to continue exploring etymology of fantasy that it comes from Greek. Ah, fantasy. Ah.

16:30.62
jeffekennedy
Which then became phantasia originally from to make visible right to make visible. So the thing is is fantasy as a genre has a very long history right? You know what. I complain about tolen you know being the be all in and all but fantasy as a genre has been around for a very long time blending romance into it giving us the romance that Tolkien didn't give us is is a new way or new ish way of doing it which is why I call mine. Epic Fantasy romance but it doesn't mean you just pop wings in there and you're done or you don't just pop turkey legs in there and call it fantasy to me and and this is absolutely I will maya culpa out the wazoo here. This is my. Very strong feeling on the topic that fantasy involves creating a secondary fantasy world. Ah, and there are people who will lump in alternate history and time travel witness outlander into fantasy and I give those the side eye I really think that. An alternate history is not actually a fantasy I think that there should be I think it should go according to this definition imaginative fiction featuring especially strange settings and grotesque characters and I think we could probably you know.

18:06.28
jeffekennedy
What are we going to do with the grotesque but I just I was so personally offended by this flip remark that oh all, all, we're doing in writing these Epic Fantasy novels. Is writing historical romance with wings. Um, and I feel like that's like somebody saying you know hey romance readers you should read women's fiction were exactly like romance but without the H e.

18:46.40
jeffekennedy
Ah, it's you know it's ah a smack in the face. It really is and I understand that it comes from a place of of envy right? You know everybody wants to be writing the hot genre and we don't all get to be writing the hot genre and it sucks. And it would be nice if we had more career stability than we have but we don't go slamming on other authors right to elevate ourselves and that's what this felt like um so I felt like that was badly. Done I can't recall if I had other layers to this I think I've covered them all. Um, yeah, do I have a finishing point here I know that a lot of. I Saw some people saying that they felt like just that historical romance scratched the same itch that fantasy romance does that they take.. There's a lot of crossover and that's great. Um, you know for me romance is is romance I Love reading all kinds of romance. I Love reading all kinds of fantasy that isn't romance too. Um, but telling I'm I'm really tired of readers being told oh hey stop reading this thing you're reading you should be reading this other thing over here because it's exactly the same.

20:18.56
jeffekennedy
Ah, and those of you who are readers out there. You know what you want? Um, yeah yeah, just read what you want write? what we want. Ah let's try not to take jabs at what other people are writing. Okay, on that note I'm gonna go I will talk to you all on Monday you all take care bye bye.