Romance Comics - Analysis

Analysis

Romance comics were a product of the postwar years in America and bolstered the Cold War era's ideology regarding the American way of life. Central to this ideology was the perception of the American middle class family as the symbol of affluence, consumption, and the spiritual fulfillment promised by the American way of life. Girls of the Cold War era were encouraged to grow up early and assume the roles of loving wives, concerned mothers, and happy homemakers. Female promiscuity, career ambition, and independence degraded the American ideal and were vilified.

The basic formula for the romance comic story was established in Simon and Kirby's Young Romance of 1947. Other scriptwriters, artists, and publishers tweaked the formula from time to time for a bit of variety. Stories were overwhelmingly written by men from the male perspective, and were narrated by fictional female protagonists who described the dangers of female independence and touted the virtues of domesticity.

Women were depicted as incomplete without a male, but the genre discouraged the aggressive pursuit of men or any behaviors that smacked of promiscuity. In one story, the female protagonist kisses a boy in public and is thereafter labelled a "manchaser" to be avoided by decent boys. An advice page in one issue blamed female public behavior, flirting, and flashy dress for attracting the wrong sort of boys. Female readers were advised to maintain a passive gender role, or romance, marriage, and happiness could be kissed good-bye.

In romance comics, domestic stability was made obviously preferable to passion and thrills. Women who sought exciting outlets were depicted as suffering many disappointments before settling down (finally) to quiet home lives. In "Back Door Love", the heroine learns that the man she is infatuated with is a "rat". She degrades herself to be with him, but comes to her senses and eventually marries an unexciting man who provides her with stability. In "I Ran Away with a Truck Driver", the tale's small town heroine runs off with a handsome truck driver who promises her thrills. After being robbed and abandoned in Chicago, she returns home, chastened and wiser, to share the company of a decent local boy.

Careers were discouraged. Working women were depicted as unhappy and unfulfilled because careers complicated relationships and limited chances for marriage. In one story, a female advertising executive makes it clear to her boyfriend her career comes first. After he leaves her in disgust, she realizes she does love him and drops her career to become a happy wife and mother. Romance comics made it clear that men were not attracted to working women, were bored with intelligent women, and preferred domestic homebodies.

Men, on the other hand, were depicted as naturally independent and women were expected to accommodate such men even if things appeared a bit suspicious. In one story, a wife suspects her husband of infidelity and leaves him only to discover later she was wrong (according to him). She returns to her husband and draws the conclusion that "love means faith in the face of any evidence, no matter how overwhelming".

As real world young men went off to the Korean War, romance comics emphasized the importance of women waiting patiently, unflinchingly, and chastely for their return. In one war-colored tale, a woman who loves to social dance remains faithful to her boyfriend and marries him even though he loses a leg in the war. The two will never dance together again, but it is clear that her sacrifice is as patriotic as that of her lover.

Romance comics plots were typically formulaic with Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights a seeming inspiration. Many stories of the genre featured a young heroine torn between two suitors: one, a wild Heathcliff type who promised thrills and threatened heartbreak, and the other, a stolid but dull Edgar Linton type who oozed respectability, security, and social acceptance. Adolescent girls could harmlessly indulge their bad boy fantasies in such stories but, in truth, romance comics tried to be democratic in their depiction of bad boys, giving them a softer side and not depicting them as irredeemably bad. Some plots depicted young women challenging social conventions and the patriarchal authority of fathers and boyfriends. Parental concern found expression in romance comics for what were considered dangerous youth cultural artifacts like rock and roll. In "There's No Love in Rock and Roll" (1956), a defiant teen dates a rock and roll-loving boy but drops him for one who likes traditional adult music—much to her parents' relief. Teen rebellion stories such as "I Joined a Teen-Age Sex Club!", "Thrill-Seekers' Weekend", and "My Mother was My Rival" were dismissed as "girls' stuff" at a time when crime, horror, and other violent comics were being regarded with suspicion by those concerned with juvenile delinquency and the welfare of the young.

Dating, love triangles, jealousy and other romance-related themes had been a part of teen humor comics before the romance genre swept newsstands. Comics characters such as Archie, Reggie, Jughead, Betty, and Veronica, and the kids at Riverdale High School being the principal exponents of teen romance. Young Romance, Young Love and their imitators differed from the teen humor comics in that they aspired to realism, using first person narration to create the illusion of verisimilitude, a changing cast of characters in self-contained stories, and heroines in their late teens or early twenties who were closer to the target audience in age than teen humor characters.