UNIVERSITY OF THE PHILIPPINES BAGUIO

KUNG IIBIGIN KANG MULI AND THE POPULAR CASE OF THE UNPOPULAR ROMANCE NOVELS MLL 230 CULTURAL CRITICISM

MARCH 1, 2014

BY ROMULO A. BAGACINA JR

KUNG IIBIGIN KANG MULI AND THE POPULAR CASE OF THE UNPOPULAR ROMANCE NOVELS Despite its massive popularity, the romance novel is often prejudiced as silly, cheesy, trivial, and even anti-feminist at times. Devalued more, it is deemed to be irrelevant and merely an avenue for childish formations of a fantasy that confuses readers (especially women readers) about their real lives. It is within these contentions that the romance novel is notoriously unpopular and viewed unfavorably and with great disdain especially by the elitist point of view of the High Culture. In spite of these persistent critical disapprovals and being a marginalized area of scholarship, the romance novel however has stubbornly remained so overwhelmingly popular that its existence is undeniable and whose presence strongly demands not to be dismissed and condescended upon. In her keynote address at the Second Annual Conference of the International Association for the Study of Romance, Pamela Regis, Professor of English at McDaniel College in Westminster, asked this: what, if anything, do we owe the romance? It is this same pertinent question that I would like to answer in the context of the Filipino novel Kung Iibigin Kang Muli. We owe the romance novel the recognition that it has become a mirror of changing sexual norms for women (Roach 2010), where sexual encounters may no longer be initiated only by the hero. In Kung Iibigin Kang Muli, Yehni or even Zeni is characterized as someone who is somehow provocative and who embraces her sexuality. While it may be seen pejoratively, it can be appreciated as opening up restrictive sexual taboos in ways that have true potential to

lessen social injustices (Roach 2010). While others may choose to see it as purely carnal and licentious, it can be seen as a means to unchain women from the belief that to be in control is absurd for a woman, that to be truly happy is to wait for the men to make their advances, that to be a woman is to be submissive and passive, and that to be virtuous and obedient of what the society dictates women to be is to not recognize ones sexuality. This phenomenon of potentially liberating new attitudes towards womens sexuality is what commentators and scholars characterize in various forms as sex-positive culture or feminism (Roach 2010). It is about teaching them to refuse to accept the limits and threats (posed to them by the society) as normative and, in the long run, empowering them to expect or demand better for themselves. We owe the romance novel the credit for featuring empowered heroines in storylines that reverses convention mandating male leadership and being the vanguard of order. Kung Iibigin Kang Muli provides a critique of patriarchal culture, a mockery of machismo if you may, by highlighting the men in the novel as the ones who are belligerent, cunning, unforgiving, and vindictive. The women, on the other hand, are hardworking and family-oriented as exemplified both by Yehni and Zeni, as well as selfless as shown by the heros mother sacrificing her own life in desperate move to save her son. As such, in return, the women in Kung Iibigin Kang Muli are regarded with reverence, Yehnis sisters to her and Mundos mother to him. Consciously or not, patriarchy is already overturned here, in that the women are given the upper hand by juxtaposing the men at their weakest and women at their best. It is with romance novel that, at least for once, the woman is no longer always the wicked witch stepmother of Snow White nor the harridan or shrew of Chaucers Wife of Bath. In Kung Iibigin Kang Muli, we see how the heroine (including Zeni) is the embodiment of contrast. We then owe the romance novel recognition of the effort to show womens pain and

healing, fear and courage, vulnerability and strength, shame and pleasure, risk and reward, and bondage and freedom. There is no better avenue than romance novel to show this dichotomy, or paradox, that is a woman. It is a genre that revolves around a womans inner battle and her ability to resolve it, giving her not only pleasurable fantasy, but also the chance to reflect and reflect on their lives. It is a genre where being vulnerable can be acceptable because it is in her vulnerability that she rises up and turns around her condemned life of weakness and submission to a life where her decisionoften hard and selflessis that which saves the hero from falling from grace. Just like Franceska in The Bridges of Madison County by Robert James Waller, Zeni, despite her vulnerability, made a decision to sacrifice her lifeher happiness for the hero. It is in this context where we should see now the characterization of women in romance novels as not regressive, but celebratory of womens strength and capacity to change even the heroesthe menslives both in fiction and in real life. Lastly, we owe the romance novel the recognition that it is a womans story and her pursuit of self-discovery and self-affirmation. It can be credited with strengthening and molding a womans aspirations to matter, to make something special of herself (Moore and Selinger 2012). Kung Iibigin Kang Muli may be loop-holed in its having a loosely structured plot, muddled flashbacks, too many twists, and, yes, grammatical inaccuracies, but just like other romance novels, it is triumphant in the portrayal of the new woman. It is victorious in demanding that the romance novel be considered without condescension , but with what is its true worth, a cultural narrative of the quest of the woman to matter.

References Regis, Pamela. 2011. What Do Critics Owe the Romance? Keynote Address at the Second Annual Conference of the International Association for the Study of Popular Romance. Journal of Popular Romance Studies, 2.1 (October). http://jprstudies.org/2011/10/%E2%80%9Cwhat-do-critics-owe-the-romance-keynoteaddress-at-the-second-annual-conference-of-the-international-association-for-the-studyof-popular-romance%E2%80%9D-by-pamela-regis/. (accessed February 24, 2014). Roach, Catherine. 2010. Getting a Good Man to Love; Popular Romance Fiction and the Problem of Patriarchy. Journal of Popular Romance Studies, 1.1 (August 4) http://jprstudies.org/2010/08/getting-a-good-man-to-love-popular-romance-fiction-andthe-problem-of-patriarchy-by-catherine-roach/ (accessed February 24, 2014). Moore, Kate and Eric Murphy Selinger. 2012. The Heroine as Reader, the Reader as Heroine: Jennifer Crusies Welcome to Temptation. Journal of Popular Romance Studies, 2.2 (April). http://jprstudies.org/2012/04/the-heroine-as-reader-the-reader-as-heroinejennifer-crusies-welcome-to-temptation-by-kate-moore-and-eric-murphy-selinger/ (accessed February 24, 2014).