Sugar and Spice, and Everything Nice: What Rough Heroines Tell Us about Imaginative Resistance

Abstract

This article examines the asymmetry between our engagement with male characters in fictional narratives who transgress moral norms and female characters who do the same. I claim that rough heroines present a new puzzling instance of resistance phenomena that cannot be accounted for by even the most recent accounts of imaginative resistance that incorporate considerations of narrative context, such as genre and narrative artistry. I sketch a solution that points to the violation of gender norms and the challenge to power dynamics as the source of resistance. I argue that rough heroines reveal an important element of narrative engagement that has been largely overlooked in the literature: appreciators’ interpretive horizons.

Robustly embodied imagination and the limits of perspective-taking

“…We argue that from this embodied approach it follows that experiential imagination is subject to architectural constraints stemming not simply from its cognitive structure but from imaginers' particular history of interactions. We conclude that the epistemological value of experiential imagination is limited in offering access to the perspective of others differently situated due to these constraints, and that this view supports concerns raised elsewhere in the literature (Clavel Vázquez & Clavel-Vázquez, 2018;Jones, 2004;Wiltsher, 2021).…”

“…If the engagement with narrative artworks itself depends on experiential imagination, the embodied constraints will presumably also shape how one engages with them. For example, one of us has argued in previous work (Clavel -Vázquez, 2018) that the imaginative engagement with characters in fiction is partly determined by appreciators' situation. While the engagement with art could be an open avenue for optimism, further work would need to examine whether it could offer the relevant insight if it depends on robustly embodied experiential imagination.…”

Learning Implicit Biases from Fiction

“…Moreover, imaginative resistance itself can be biased. Adriana Clavel-Vazquez (2018) argues that we experience more imaginative resistance to the violent, immoral actions of "rough heroines" than we do in response to "rough heroes." 17 Creators of fictions about immoral protagonists use a variety of techniques to weaken our resistance; their skill in overcoming this resistance and eliciting sympathy for the perpetrators of horrendously unethical acts is arguably an artistic achievement (Eaton 2012).…”