If your tweenage daughters are going to idolise a female celebrity, I guess it’s better for them to adore Emma Watson than emulate Miley Cyrus or the Jenner/Kardashian clan. My birthday treat last weekend was to take the girls to see Beauty and the Beast, the new live action version of the 1991 Disney classic. The girls were desperate to watch it (although they’ve never seen the original cartoon) purely because of the star power of Emma Watson – they wanted to see Harry Potter‘s Hermione all grown up.

I also have a soft spot for Emma Watson; partly because my eldest daughter is a mini-Hermione, partly because Watson took time out of acting to study English Literature at my old Alma Mater, Worcester College, but mainly because in a world of shallowness and frivolity, she does at least try to bring something more thoughtful to her roles. She has a genuine commitment to gender equality, literacy and eco-friendly fashion, and though undeniably beautiful, seems ‘girl next door’ rather than overtly sexualised. The film itself was preceded by media hoopla about its positive feminist message and modernity – Belle is not your usual Disney princess, ran the publicity, because she reads books!

Well, yeah, not so much. Okay, this Belle isn’t permanently trussed into a boob-enhancing corset, but she still doesn’t get to wear the trousers. According to an interview in Vanity Fair magazine, “Watson worked with the costume designer… to incorporate pockets in her costume that are kind of like a tool belt,” and insisted that for horse riding scenes, Belle was given bloomers and riding boots, rather than ballet slippers. Hmm. Then there’s the implication that Belle has career aspirations – again according to that rather breathless Vanity Fair interview: “In the original Disney movie, Belle is an assistant to her inventor father, but here she’s a creator in her own right, developing a modern washing machine that allows her to sit and read.”  They seem to have missed the subtle irony there… this Belle may be a brainy bookworm who doesn’t want to marry handsome/loathsome Gaston or be a slave to housework, but common-sense and a penchant for practical footwear do not make her an icon for women’s rights.

Emma Watson may have taken feminist writer Gloria Steinem to the film premiere, and gained her stamp of approval – but this Beauty and the Beast is not even the most ‘female-empowering’ Disney/Pixar production. Brave (2012) is all about Merida establishing a better relationship with her mother after refusing to be married off to dozy adolescent suitors who can’t shoot arrows as well as she can.  The original draft for Frozen (2013) portrayed Elsa as an evil ice queen with an army of snow monsters – much less emotionally satisfying than the final version, in which Elsa is a scared and isolated teenager saved by the redemptive love of her pesky, perky little sister Anna. And while Anna is so desperate for romance she gets hoodwinked by social-climbing Prince Hans, Elsa seems quite content to wield her freezing powers and rule her kingdom without any male assistance (although she’s still, y’know, a proper girl, because she wears the bling-iest dresses).

The origins and ‘rules’ of the Bechdel test – from ‘Dykes to Watch Out For’

Cartoons are more likely to pass the famous Bechdel test for feminism (see right) than most mainstream adult films, though I’d expand the Bechdel test to include the proviso that the conversations the female characters have shouldn’t revolve around food, sex, fashion or childcare arrangements. Belle, continually evading villainous Gaston or running off to save the Beast and/or her father, only has plot lines and conversations that revolve around the male characters and so fails the Bechdel test pretty spectacularly. Does it matter? I’m probably over-analysing, but when you have children, you become hyper-sensitive to the way the world shows them how things are and how things should be. If you’d ever heard your tiny daughter sobbing after someone told her she couldn’t be a princess because she wears glasses, then you’d know that yes, these things matter.

Tests have also been proposed for films to see if they can be similarly inclusive for other under-represented groups, by including BAME characters who talk to each other without mentioning their race and LGBTQ characters who are not solely or predominantly defined by their sexual orientation. Beauty and the Beast kind-of scores on this one, with plenty of BAME actors and a much heralded ‘first gay Disney character’. Mind you, despite the hissy-fits thrown by authorities in Russia, Malaysia and Alabama, it would be hard for even the most conservative of viewers to object to ‘mixed marriages’ when the actors spend most of the film transformed into a wardrobe and a harpsichord, a flamboyant candlestick and a coquettish feather duster, and the ‘big gay reveal’ is limited to a split second at the very end of the film.

The area where this fails most spectacularly as a ‘girl power’ film though, is the dark central heart of the story. Some critics have accused Belle of suffering from Stockholm Syndrome, a psychological condition where kidnappers fall in love with their captors. Apparently the original tale was written (around 1740) to prepare young French girls for the idea of arranged marriage, being ‘sold’ by their fathers to life with a man they had never met. And although Watson’s Belle willingly offers herself as a hostage to protect her poorly father, that essential sense of powerlessness remains.

Separated from her home and her father, locked in a tower, shouted and growled at, Emma Watson’s Belle only starts to soften towards the demonic Beast who holds her hostage when she learns about his sad childhood and he shows her his gigantically well-endowed… library.  Aww, he’s a just damaged little boy who has lots of books and can quote Shakespeare, which makes his appalling behaviour… somehow okay? Watching in the dark cinema, surrounded by excited small children, I gave a little shudder – it was suddenly, scarily reminiscent of that other supposedly ‘liberating’ modern fable, Fifty Shades of Grey. Like Christian Grey, the Beast is damaged by his parents, unable to express normal emotions, is controlling and self-centred, never apologises, but is, conveniently, filthy rich… As the internet meme goes, if Christian Grey lived on a trailer park, he’d just be a pervert. If this beast didn’t live in an enchanted castle, he’d just be a monster.

Still, I’m not sure how Beauty and the Beast could ever be an inspiringly feminist tale, unless they make a version where Belle punches the Beast on the snout in the very first scene, shows her hapless father how to make his own damn washing-machine, and then runs off to head-up a Fortune 500 company for the rest of the film.  Maybe we need to accept the baby-steps Disney is taking towards inclusion; a multi-ethnic fairytale world where the heroine is not a princess, but a practical middle-class girl who wears sensible shoes, reads books and repeatedly saves the male characters from the consequences of their own foolishness.

And yes, taking it purely as an entertainment, I enjoyed the show, and the girls loved it. We were swept up by the beauty of the settings (it is a visually ravishing spectacle), were enthralled by the cleverness of the CGI and even shed a tear or two. The girls were robustly and reassuringly unimpressed by the Beast’s final transformation into the handsome Prince, however. ‘We preferred him when he was the beast,’ said my daughters sadly. ‘Yes,’ I admitted, ‘so did I.’ At least while he still looks scary, we know to be on our guard.

My introduction to Romantic fiction was through my Grandmother, who adored Georgette Heyer – and lent me books from her ‘library’ from an early age. Sweet, funny and wise, the heroes and heroines in these Regency stories don’t kiss ’til the last page (and certainly never do anything more risqué). The romance is focused on the dance of courtship; elaborate and formal as a quadrille, or giddy and light-hearted as a waltz.  The characters dance from the page, the writing bubbles with joy and the tangled stories resolve neatly – for me, they’re still the ultimate comfort reading. My Grandmother also read what she called her ‘Mogodon’ books; Mills and Boon romances by Betty Neels, in which chaste young heroines were wooed by paternalistic and curiously un-sexy Doctors (who were invariably, inexplicably, Dutch). Gran said they were utterly predictable and unexciting, and therefore more effective, and safer, than taking sleeping pills. But that’s the problem with romance for romance’s sake – who reads Betty Neels now? For writers to endure, they must offer re-readable stories as well as romantic fulfilment.

Great romance books transcend the perceived genre boundaries. Outlander (yes, I know I go on about it) is a romance in the broadest sense, but is enjoyed by readers (I’m thinking here of my Mum and my husband) who would rather hack off their toes with a teaspoon than read romantic fiction. The core of the story is Claire’s relationship with Jamie Fraser, consummated to great effect surprisingly early in the first book – she’s then happily married to him (though not without plenty of emotional entanglements, including with her past/future husband Frank) for the rest of the umpteen book series. The romance may steal your heart, but the books endure and are loved, even by Romance refuseniks, because they also feature masses of action, a huge cast of believable, complicated characters and fascinating historical details (and you’ll absorb all that American and Scottish history without even noticing).

Infographic – www.pbs.org/pov/guiltypleasures

Romance has certainly changed since Georgette Heyer. Historical heroines can now have a ball in more ways than one, and it’s an unusual modern woman, in any romance sub-genre, who hangs onto her virginity until marriage. I wonder what Gran have made of recent genre-blurring developments in romantic fiction, such as the blending of romance with paranormal elements (though arguably Emily Bronte got there many years before Twilight). I was entranced by Wuthering Heights when I first read it aged 14, (though with hindsight, Heathcliff’s violent moodswings and inarticulate brooding are a massive turnoff). I’m glad I didn’t encounter Twilight or Trueblood as a similarly impressionable teenager – I’d have been a slave to sweetly tortured Edward Cullen and his vampire ilk forever.

On the other hand, Twilight’s big sister, Fifty Shades of Grey, left me cold. It gained plus points for the sexual experimentation, but totally failed the longevity test because I simply didn’t care whether the dreary heroine and self-centred, manipulative hero found love; the only bondage I craved after reading it was to tie the tedious couple together and fling them off the nearest pier. But it did more than any other book to bring the concept of erotic romance (as opposed to erotica) out of the boudoir and into supermarkets, bookstores and the realms of popular discussion.

Romance has definitely got down and dirty – possibly since the rise of e-books (no-one can see what you’re reading) and self-publishing (no editor to tone-down your sex-scenes), or maybe because this ‘realism’ is what we now prefer. We’re no longer content to leave the hero and heroine at the bedroom door, with all subsequent action represented by a row of asterisks. Erotic romance  aims to spice up the traditional boy-meets-girl story arc with sizzling sexual chemistry. You can generally tell which books are going to be saucy; the cover will feature a man with a muscular, naked chest and precariously low-slung trousers, whether battered denim or unbuttoned Regency Buckskins.  Interestingly, the cover pictures are often cut off at the chin, so the chest and rippling 6-pack are the erogenous focus, rather than a handsome face. The heroes are what is known in the trade as Alphas – billionaires (millionaires just don’t cut it anymore), professional athletes, rock stars, aristocrats, firefighters or ‘hot Navy SEALS’. (I had to look that one up. They don’t have tails and flippers.) These men bear about as much resemblance to the boy next door as do the fairies, unicorns and talking animals in my kids’ favourite books, but hey, this is fiction.

Alpha heroes take their inspiration from various brands of battery; their top-of-the-range power tools are Ever Ready, they possess Duracell Bunny endurance to keep going all night and they always have plenty of juice. Frankly, in real life they’d be pretty exhausting, and that’s before we get to dealing with their conflicts, inner turmoil and vulnerabilities (the more interesting ones are always ‘damaged’ and in need of emotional healing that only the heroine can provide). We’ve travelled a long way since a description of nice-but-dim Lysander’s enthusiastic “swuzzonte-nerve” made me giggle as a schoolgirl (in Jilly Cooper’s The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous, another of my Grandmother’s favourites). Still, you can learn a lot by reading erotic romances; I now know all about ice-hockey, though I was disappointed to discover after a little internet research that (duh!) real hockey players aren’t chiselled blond Nordic gods, but actually rather schlumpy-looking.

Art imitates life, and so our romances reflect the mores, concerns and interests of our society, however obliquely. Cultural historians in the future will note the ‘bake-off’ factor in the current abundance of cupcake-themed romances and draw the conclusion that opening a cute cafe was the dream career for 21st century women, just as a perusal of 1960s titles would lead you to believe every girl yearned to be a nurse or an air hostess. In these times of increased gender fluidity, same-sex relationships are starting to get a toe-hold in mainstream romance as well as erotica, though equality has a way to go. It’s still unusual for multi-ethnic relationships to thrive in British fiction, though dating a different species (werewolf, vampire, shapeshifter) is entirely acceptable.

One of the trends I’ve really enjoyed recently is romance (erotic or otherwise) from the male point of view – often with alternating chapters of she says / he says. Female novelists from Jane Austen onwards have been sparing in their attempts to write romantic scenes from the male POV, and modern romance authors essay it with varying degrees of success. Jeez – who knows what men think about love? Most men would be hard-pressed to tell you themselves. From the books I’ve read recently, I’ve realised it works best if the hero is a bit rough around the edges and swears a lot – I mean, can you imagine the excruciating embarrassment of Mr Darcy musing about the way Elizabeth Bennet makes his breeches tighten? Actually there’s no need to imagine it – there are dozens of dodgy Darcys, horny Heathcliffs, randy Rochesters and Mr thrice-Knightlys throbbing and pulsating (and available on your e-reader).

I’ve had several stories published with a male character POV, using both first and third person narration. They’re great fun to write, but their thoughts have seldom been romantic, so I think an authentic (and raunchy) romantic hero might be my next writing challenge. As for the future of romance and all it’s burgeoning sub-genres, who can tell? As long as the stories are gripping, the heroines combine strength with humour (and so do the heroes), we’ll keep falling in love with romances that reflect the world we really live in, as well as the world to which we’d like to escape.

I’m moving house soon, and one of the things that’s occupying my mind (apart from getting the utilities reconnected, the piles of boxes to be filled and then emptied and the trauma of uprooting the children and cats) is wondering where I’ll find in the new house to work. Every house I’ve lived in has had a corner that I’ve chosen as ‘my space’ – somewhere I can park myself with my laptop and write.

It’s nearly 100 years since Virginia Woolf declared “a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.” She even put a price on that fictional space – £500 a year or about £25,000 in today’s money. A lot has changed since she wrote her essay; women have made great strides towards equality in many areas (in the developed world, at least), though women know their work still battles to be recognised and regarded in the same way as that of male writers (and that’s going to be a discussion for another day).

A few years ago, with my children growing and space at a premium, my family clubbed together to buy me a room of my own – a small shed in the garden, my precious writing shack. For four years, I’ve somehow managed to keep it for myself; it’s not been colonised by the lawnmower or the garden hose and no-one else is allowed in – there are simply books and a comfy chair and a tiny desk. When I started my own business, I moved in a shelf for filing and reference books, but without electricity for the laptop and heater, it’s never been suitable for long-haul work, but more of an escape, somewhere quiet to escape for a little while, to think and recharge. Even so, my ever-helpful husband plans to dismantle my shed, to try and move it to the new garden and preserve my haven.

I would argue that financial independence (or at least being above the poverty line) is more important for any creative artist than the space in which to create. Most of my writing actually takes place curled into a corner of the living-room sofa while life rages on around me. It’s half-term right now and Senior Daughter is attempting to watch her entire Harry Potter film collection back-to-back as I type this, giving me a running commentary on the action. I can hear Junior Daughter boinging around upstairs, which means she’ll appear in a minute wanting me to play a game of ‘Pigs in Pants’ or to find her some paper for drawing. And it’s nearly lunchtime, which means the troops will need feeding.

Sometimes I dream about being able to spend 8 hours a day in a quiet room, with no interruptions, no distractions, no responsibilities. Maybe I would write better (I’d certainly write more) if I had the luxury of more time, and enough money that I didn’t need to work at anything else. But I can’t help feeling that this way, the very fabric of life gets woven into my writing.  The experiences of family, work, of the people I meet and interact with everyday are far more important to creating a rich and readable story than sitting on my own in some sterile quiet place.

So there’s a nook in the new house that I’ve got first dibs on – just big enough for a comfy chair and close to a window so I can sit and watch the world go by…