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Statement of the Problem • This report seeks to analyze the image of the Filipino woman through the emerging Chick Lit genre by comparing Tara FT Sering's two books: "Almost Married" and "Between Dinner and the Morning After". This report aims to analyze the Philippine Chick lit genre as a medium that represents the modern Filipina. By tracing the history of Chick Lit through its foreign roots, analyzing the books' themes, characteristics, and archetypes, discovering how it is made to cater to their audience, and determining the ideologies and conventions present, this report would like to discover if these books truly represent a progressive and independent image of a Filipino Woman or do they merely reinforce traditional and patriarchal views on what a Filipino woman should be.
Organization of Study • I. Introduction • A. Statement of the Problem • B. Organization of the Study • Issues • Scope and Limitations • Definition of Terms • II. Context • A. History and Background • Conceptual Framework • III. Comparison of Almost Married and Between Dinner and the Morning After • IV. Analysis • V. Conclusion
Issues • Patriarchal society • Man is seen as superior to woman • Woman as ‘incomplete’ • Marriage (or having a boyfriend) versus singlehood • Woman as objects • Crimes against women, women as something that completes men, jobs that make them into objects
Scope and Limitations This paper aims to analyze the image of the modern Filipino woman as deemed by the emerging Chick Lit genre by comparing Tara FT Sering’s two books: "Almost Married" and "Between Dinner and the Morning After". Analysis on the modern Filipino woman is based on the local Chick Lit genre’s target audience, who are mostly comprised of young, urban, English- speaking, lower to upper middle class female readers.
Definition of Terms • Patriarchy – The notion that the woman should be submissive to men. Men should be the breadwinners. The woman’s role is to bear children. (Vitug) • Traditional woman – Often associated with the Maria Clara where the woman is virtuous, obedient and submissive. (Opiniano) Modern Filipino woman- Young professionals in their twenties and thirties who are navigating through urban life while facing issues about relationships, career, family and love. (Tara Sering) Chick literature or “chick lit” – a term commonly used to describe a subgenre of novels about women struggling to balance their careers and their personal relationships. (Ferriss and Young, 3.)
History and Background • Three objectives according to the thesis statement • This report seeks to analyze the emerging Philippine Chick Lit genre as medium that represents the Modern Filipina • This report seeks to analyze the image of the Filipina represented in the emerging Philippine Chick Lit genre by comparing two of Tara FT Sering’s books: Almost Married and Between Dinner and the Morning After • This report would like to discover if these books truly represent a progressive and independent image of a Filipina or do they merely reinforce traditional and patriarchal views on what a Filipina should be.
History and Background 1. This report seeks to analyze the emerging Philippine Chick Lit genre as medium that represents the Modern Filipina
History and Background • What is Chick Lit? • New Literary Form in Women’s Fiction • Achieved immense popularity and commercial success
History and Background • The Debate about Chick Lit • disdain (dismissal as trivial, frothy, and antifeminist) vs. respect (fiction that represents the modern and contemporary woman) • Anti Chick Lit • Anna Weinberg: “Inside their dust jackets covered with shopping bags, martini glasses, shoes, or purses, many of these titles really are trash: Trash that imitates other, better books that could have ushered a new wave of smart post feminist writing”
History and Background • Beryl Bainbridge on Chick Lit: “Froth sort of thing that just wastes time.” • Doris Lessing: “It would be better, perhaps, if female novelists wrote books about their lives as they really saw them and not these helpless girls, drunken, and worrying about their weight.” • Pro-Chick Lit • Jenny Colgan (On Bridget Jones): “It’s a terrific book and it has sold more than two million copies. They have not all been bought by lovelorn single women in London”
History and Background • Helen Fielding: “Sometimes I have people getting their knickers in twist about Bridget Jones being a disgrace to feminism. But it’s good being able to represent women as they actually are in the age they are living. If we can’t laugh at ourselves without having a panic attack over what it says about women, we haven’t gone very far with our equality. “ • Aleisa Holliday: “What frightens me about the slew of articles trashing the new Chick Lit genre is the subtle sexist bias in all of them.”
History and Background Why is this there a debate? (A Short History of Chick Lit) • Chick Lit adapted many literary traditions. Chick Lit’s connection to these traditions will help clarify its place in literary history and the reaction in provokes.
History and Background • Prose Romance • Romance: term that has been used at different times to refer to a variety of Fictional works involving some combination of the following: high adventure, thwarted love, mysterious circumstance and improbable triumphs • First exclusively used to refer to medieval romances (or chivalric romances) written in French and composed in verse • These narratives were often concerned with knightly adventure, courtly love, and chivalric ideals
History and Background • Prose Romance spurned debate among its contemporaries over the woman writer’s moral and financial status as well as the genre’s readers • Richard Cumberland (1785, Dramatist) • John Trumbull (1773, The Progress of Dullness) • Clara Reeves (1785, Progress of Romance) refuted Trumbull.
History and Background • Novel • Displacement of the Prose Romance (30, Harzweksi) • Origins are in anxiety over the nexus of female sexuality, authorship and audience (30, Harzweksi) • Gender Stereotypes in novels • English Novel (Masculine) vs. Prose Romance with French affiliations (Feminine) • Realistic/serious (Male craftsmanship ) vs. Amorous intrigue, sentimental, dreamy, artificial (Female craftsmanship) chick lit continues this gendered debate on the novel’s value. As a result it calls attention to the tensions between high and popular culture (33, Harzweksi)
History and Background • Popular Romance • Chick Lit is also linked to the popular romance because of Chick Lit's roots in commodity • Paul Grescoe (217, Merchants of Venus) examined Harlequin publishing and implied that “does not so much creates novels but to sell them” • Popular romance is usually characterized by • Love story as the central focus • End= emotionally satisfying climax that resolves the loves story • Traditional romance narrative:
History and Background QUESTION OF CHICK LIT Traditional or Ideal vs. Modern or Subversive
History and Background • Chick Lit’s value is under debate. • given Chick Lit’s connections with the Prose Romance, the Novel (feminine one), and the Popular Romance, it is gendered as well and subjected to traditional views. • Associated with Women: frivolous, sentimental, frothy, commercial, artificial ,silly Chick Lit vs. Traditional Romance: • “responds to the upheavals in dating and mating order through a mix strategy of dramatization, farce, and satire” (37,Harzweski) • degree of sexual autonomy and professional choices (brought about by the women liberation movement)
History and Background • unlike earlier generations, women protagonists have the right to choose. Now the problem is too many choices (ex. Carrie Bradshaw’s dilemma in one episode of Sex and the City) • Mr. Right (romance) vs. Mr. Right, Mr. Wrong or Mr. Maybe • Priority: self definition, balancing of work and social interaction is given PRIORITY or equal attention with the relationship conflict • Even if usually the books culminate in marriage, Singularity is given a more positive context (before: incompleteness/barrenness after: readiness, openness, and self sufficiency) • More realistic portrayal of single life, dating, exploring, dissolution of romantic ideals
History and Background • 2. This report seeks to analyze the image of the Filipina represented in the emerging Philippine Chick Lit genre by comparing two of Tara FT Sering’s books: Almost Married and Between Dinner and the Morning After
History and Background • Bringing the Chick Lit genre in a local context • Who is Tara Sering? • Using the conventions of Chick Lit, she adapted the genre for the Philippine audience • The book supposedly set the tone for the kind of writing that would come to be known as Philippine Chick Lit (Santiago)
History and Background • Different Market/ Audience • Different market from the Philippine popular romance such as Valentine Romance or Precious Petal Romance • Targeted for the middle class Filipina • Sering set the standard for a realist reckoning of how middle class Pinays live and are merry, how they may become miserable and inconsolable, how they struggle with society and learn to deal with it, and how they go through a process of finding themselves given those limitations (Santiago)
History and Background • Philippine Chick Lit is characterized as • Pinay who, for the first time, is owning the chick label and living it out on her own terms, with her own money, within her own spaces. It almost seems as if the man is secondary (Santiago)
History and Background • 3. This report would like to discover if these books truly represent a progressive and independent image of a Filipina or do they merely reinforce traditional and patriarchal views on what a Filipina should be.
Theoretical Framework • Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex • The Woman is always the Other in opposition to Man’s Self. • Man = essential, complete, supreme Woman= inessential, incomplete, subordinate • Myth of the “Eternal Feminine” • Woman’s essence = her ability to give birth • Deny woman’s individuality
Archetypes of Women • In order to reduce the value of the Woman, she is given roles to fulfill. • Ideal Woman • Sweetheart, Wife, Mother, Housewife • Passive, obedient, resourceful • Subversive Woman • Mistress, Prostitute, Other Woman, Femme Fatale • Rebellious, excessive, Destroyer
Archetypes of Women in Chick Lit • In chick lit, the Woman SEEMS to subvert the image of the Ideal Woman • Independent, assertive, sexually liberated, has a successful career • But is this true? • Her success is still judged by what Man dictates • MALE GAZE
Archetypes of Women – Chick Lit • Her contentment still lies in the Man • She still ends up married in the end • Even if she is more liberated, she is still a product of a male dominated society • Woman is still the Other
Analysis Why Chick lit appeals to Filipino women
Almost Married (Synopsis) • After having experienced a failed engagement, Karen, a 28 year old copywriter, has once again found bliss in the arms of her new boyfriend, Bert Reyno. He is the perfect guy for her - sweet, funny and does everything to please her. Their year old relationship was going great until Bert finally proposed to Karen. She felt that it was “too good to be true”. However, she had doubts that this relationship might end up the way it did before with her previous engagement. • With Bert’s proposal, memories of Karen’s past relationship with Miko (her old boyfriend) all come back to her, which made her decide to go on a soul-searching trip to Boracay. However, this didn’t do any good. Many questions came into Karen’s mind: Was Bert really sincere with his proposal? Is Bert really the love of her life? This soul-searching trip is her path into trying to look for answers to her questions.
Days after Karen’s trip, she finds herself back in Manila and in the company of Bert. Based on what she has experienced, she then realizes how much love she has for Bert and that he really is the perfect guy for her. After the long wait, Karen and Bert eventually decide to get married.
Between Dinner and the Morning After (Synopsis) • Abigail Cortes (Abi) was about to leave for San Francisco when five random strangers convince her to travel with them to the same destination the next day instead of traveling that night. She then spends the rest of the night sharing personal stories with each other while gimmicking in Malate. • Prior to the aforementioned events, Abi was in a relationship with Cris, her banker boyfriend of two years whom she no longer feels in love with. One day, she receives an email from Juno, an architect based in San Francisco whom Abi met (and fell in love with) in Dumaguete eight years before. His succeeding e-mails rekindle feelings she once had for him--which lead her to break up with Cris (despite her family's and friends' expectations), resign from her job, and take a chance to meet (and possibly get together) with him in San Francisco.
When Abi arrives in San Francisco, she and Juno catch up on what had happened in the eight years they had not met. Within the conversation, Juno mentions that a girl he had been seeing casually got pregnant (and that he will be a father.) • In the end, Abi and Juno never get together, but Abi takes it with stride, thinking that “All those strangers she met took risks much bigger than abandoning a job...and flying halfway around the world just to know if she was meant to be with someone.”
Themes and Analyses • Love and relationships
Dualities • Love and Relationships • Karen, although she is in a monogamous relationship with Bert, still thinks of other men. • Abi, though she later on chooses to leave Cris, attempted to save her relationship by going on a vacation with Cris in Dumaguete.
Career • Karen, though her being fired from her job makes her return to the traditional roles of the woman, she still shows her independence by saying to her boss that she will become an entrepreneur. • Abi passes up the opportunity to pursue her dream in order to pursue someone she wants to be with. Had she attained what she wanted, she would’ve reinforced the ideal role of woman as sweetheart.
Sex Life • Though Karen and Bert practice monogamy when it comes to sex, there were times wherein sex wasn’t so traditional—’super PDA’, thinking of other men, Bert varying his ‘style’ to match Karen’s mood. • Although the sex in Rosa’s and Abi’s relationship is casual, they only engages in it with one person; When she was with Cris, she never had sex with anyone else. Back when Abi was with Juno, she never had sex with him—she made out with him instead.
Development of the person • The protagonists and the process they go through in finding themselves both have ideal and subversive manifestations. It is through them that they would embody one side.
Friendship • The protagonists’ friends—presumably of their age range—uphold the views of the patriarchy. • In “Between Dinner”, it is the five strangers (four are of a different generation than her) she meets who encourage her to pursue what she wants.
Archetypes • Almost Married • ‘Other Becoming the Ideal’ (Karen) • Wife (Tonette) • Mother (Tita Myrna) • Femme Fatale (Angelina Jolly)
Between Dinner • ‘The Ideal Becoming The Other’ (Abi) • Sweetheart (Tuesday) • Prostitute (Rosa)
I. Chick lit is presented to women in certain ways • Cover art: Women in designer fashion, high heels, cosmetics, women carrying shopping bags, women shopping (Ferris & Young 152). b. Market: middle-class women working women in their 20’s to 30’s (Ferris & Young 25) (Santiago). c. Use of English and Filipino expressions (Santiago)
I. Chick lit is presented to women in certain ways d. Not “complex and heavy handed” (Ferris & Young 145) i. Features elements from women’s daily lives (Ferris & Young 142) 1. Perceptions of the genre (Ferris & Young 48) 2. Man in relation to the outside world. Women in relation to Man. ii. Formulaic elements (Ferris & Young 49) 1. Formulaic characteristics (Ferris & Young 49) 2. Static & predictable. (Ferris & Young 145) 3. Criticisms e. Leisure: Women do not have to think too much while reading Chick lit (Ferris & Young 68 & 142)
