2000

23.1

Peter Darbyshire

Romancing the World: Harlequin Romances, the Capitalist Dream, and the Conquest of Europe and Asia

On Feb. 14, 1992, the residents of Warsaw, Poland, woke to find themselves invaded once again. Rather than a military invasion of tanks and airplanes, though, this was a cultural invasion, the opening shots of which consisted only of a single symbolic gesture: the unfurling of a Harlequin Enterprises banner atop the Stalin-built Palace of Science and Culture in downtown Warsaw. The red heart prominently displayed on the banner announced to all that the world’s largest romance publisher had arrived in the country and was ready to do battle for the hearts and minds of the Polish people. While the country’s intellectuals rose to Harlequin’s challenge from the moment the North American company entered Poland, denouncing the expansion as the latest stage in the “Americanization” of Europe, the battle was ultimately won by the masses. The majority of the Polish people were simply not as interested as the intellectuals in contesting Harlequin’s presence, and a wide audience of readers quickly embraced the new romance novels flooding their country, making Poland a lucrative market indeed for Harlequin Enterprises.

The critics of Harlequin’s move into Poland may have taken some consolation in the fact that their country was simply the latest in a long line of countries to fall before the irresistible advance of Harlequin. Despite facing various attempts at cultural protectionism and encountering stiff resistance from markets normally closed to foreign competitors, Harlequin had become one of the dominant publishers in Europe since its arrival there less than two decades earlier. Poland could no more escape having its bookstores saturated with romanticized tales of American life than could France or West Germany. While Poland was one of the first Eastern Bloc nations to fall (East Germany was technically the first, but it was a somewhat different case due to its reunification with West Germany), it was quickly followed by Hungary, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Russia, and even China—a process that is still very much ongoing today, with the potential for great future profit for Harlequin. In fact, at a 1998 company meeting that I attended, Harlequin president Brian Hickey stated that the Russian and Chinese markets were the key to Harlequin’s future, expected to earn over five hundred million dollars annually by the year 2000.

While the claim initially appears valid that Harlequin’s expansion into these new markets is simply part of the ongoing Americanization of Europe, this claim falls short of understanding the real complexity of the situation. Rather than simply being the result of America’s entertainment industry forcing itself on a new market, Harlequin’s success in the Eurasian sphere is actually a result of the romances’ success infulfilling an ideological fantasy for their readers, one that has more to do with the benefits of successful capitalism than it does with America itself. In fact, recent studies of the reception of American cultural products in Europe have revealed that European interest in America as a place is minimal at best, and that the success of these cultural products is more dependent on the ideological values America represents. In order to fully comprehend what sorts of values Harlequin romances signify to their Eurasian readers, it is useful now to provided a brief history of the company’s various operations in Europe and Asia.

Harlequin has actually maintained a presence in western Europe since 1971, when it bought the British romance publisher Mills & Boon, which, as Paul Grescoe points out in The Merchants of Venus, was the company responsible for the birth of Harlequin Enterprises. Harlequin took its first tenuous steps into mainland Europe in 1975, when it opened an office in Holland. Prior to this move, Harlequin experimented with European distribution by licensing the rights to its books to local European publishers who released them under their own imprints. While this venture was successful enough for the European publishers involved, it offered little to Harlequin in the way of direct profits or brand-name recognition (the latter, of course, being what Harlequin’s success is based upon). This situation changed dramatically after Harlequin opened its office in Amsterdam. While the office initially produced only one line and lost money in the process, within three years it was distributing several lines throughout Holland and selling upwards of 50,000 books a month for a tidy profit. Larry Heisey, Harlequin’s president at the time, called the operation “a classic example of how to introduce a brand” (Grescoe 107), indicating that Harlequin executives considered the expansion into Holland to be little different from the introduction of a new product into a supermarket.

Harlequin capitalized on this success by moving into West Germany in 1976, buying a fifty percent interest in Cora Verlag, one of the country’s top publishers. Sales for Harlequin titles quickly reached 160,000 copies per title, a figure matching the popularity of Harlequin romances in America itself. It quickly became clear, however, that there was more to Harlequin’s success than aggressive brand marketing. In an effort to make the subject matter of these romances more familiar to their reading audience, Cora Verlag began experimenting with romance novels set in Germany and written by German authors. Almost without exception, readers rejected these “local” romances, preferring the romances set in America. This pattern repeated itself when Harlequin expanded into Austria and Switzerland, with readers rejecting romances that weren’t American or English. Despite Heisey’s claims that it was the Harlequin brand which was responsible for the company’s success, the popularity of Harlequin romances in these new markets seemed to be more associated with a specific type of American content.

It is significant to note, though, that this popularity of American subject matter wasn’t isolated to Harlequin romances, but instead coincided with a more general continental demand for American cultural products. It is no accident that Harlequin first achieved popularity in Holland at the same time that Dallas was sweeping Europe, or that Harlequin’s expansion into Poland occurred around the same time as the construction of EuroDisney—a piece of America literally transplanted into the heart of Europe itself. What is perhaps most important to note about this trend is the variety of underlying reasons for this widespread fascination with Americana. As various critics have noted about the European reception of Dallas and EuroDisney, the interest in these cultural phenomena lies not so much in their literal representation of America as it does in their ideological representation of America as a place which symbolizes the possible wealth and affluence that the capitalist system has to offer.

The origins of America as such an ideological symbol actually precede Harlequin’s arrival in Europe by decades, and can be traced back to the years immediately following World War II, with the Allied occupation of the former Axis powers. The citizens of these countries were confronted not only with troops lining their streets, but also with American music, American books, American soft drinks, American appliances, and so forth. More importantly, as Reinhold Wagnleitner has pointed out in “The Irony of American Culture Abroad: Austria and the Cold War,” the sudden proliferation of these American products was accompanied by a proliferation of American ideology actively disseminated by the Information Services Branch (ISB), an institutional structure dedicated to the utilization of “every possible material and psychological means to create a respect, if not admiration, for the American attitudes and purposes, and thereby vitiate the propaganda of competing political philosophies” (Wagnleitner 285). In pursuit of this goal, the ISB took control of every cultural industry in the occupied territories and imported as many American cultural products as it could. During this time it was common to go to a cinema in Germany and watch an American film like Gone With the Wind, preceded by a short propaganda film praising America and American values. From the moment American products began flooding Europe, then, they were directly associated with the values of democracy and capitalism, which the war-torn countries of Europe were increasingly embracing. Perhaps more importantly, American cultural products were thus also associated with an opposition to fascism and the growing influence of communism, and they were consequently seen as a symbol of resistance to these oppressive regimes.

It is this kind of ideological value that has led to the popularity of Harlequin in the former Eastern Bloc nations, despite the fact that these nations don’t have the same history of American occupation as countries like Germany. Like other American products such as jeans, Marlboros, and Coca-Cola, Harlequin romances represent democracy and capitalism themselves—the very antithesis of the old communist order. The popularity of Levis in Russia, for instance, is less about the quality of the brand and more about open rebellion against communism through the endorsement of capitalist consumption and the display of affluence (Levis being an extremely expensive product in Russia). Similarly, the popularity of Marlboros in Europe owes much to a famous ad campaign depicting a cowboy boot crushing a barbed-wire fence—a not-so-subtle reference to the products of American consumer capitalism crushing the Berlin Wall and communism.

The inextricability of the Harlequin romance from the ideology of democracy and capitalism was perhaps made most clear when the Berlin Wall came down in 1989. Within hours of the borders between East Germany and West Germany being opened, Harlequin employees were handing out free books at the border crossings, eventually giving out 720,000 Harlequin romances. For many citizens of the former communist nation, then, their first encounter with democracy was literally in the form of Harlequin romances. Brian Hickey even seemed to recognize the ideological content of his company’s romances in a 1991 speech to shareholders, when he called the books “propaganda” (Grescoe 254). This association of Harlequin with democracy and capitalism set the stage for a pattern that repeated itself in other former Eastern Bloc nations, such as Poland. When Harlequin expanded there, for instance, the company took over an entire television channel for eight hours on Valentine’s Day (now popularly known as Harlequin Day in Poland) and interspersed Harlequin commercials with television shows that praised the affluence and quality of life in America, such as Dynasty and The Cosby Show. Moreover, for many Polish women Harlequin represented their first encounter with women’s liberation, as the company set up various organizations and clubs supporting women’s rights and sponsored numerous awards for enterprising women.

However, Harlequin’s success in countries like Poland and Russia also owes as much to the content of the romances as it does to their ideological encoding. While American products like Levis or Coca-Cola operate as cultural texts symbolizing American values, Harlequin romances additionally function as narrative texts literally embodying these values in the lives of the characters depicted. Specifically, Harlequin romances allow their readers to experience the ideal rewards of capitalism, insofar as the novels are usually fantasies of financial empowerment as much as they are romantic fantasies. The standard Harlequin narrative, for instance, usually involves a middle-class woman’s relationship with a rich, single male—usually a businessman, wealthy rancher, or male engaged in some similar occupation. The inevitable marriage at the end thus also involves a marriage into wealth, or at least improved financial security. It is this depiction of American life steeped in material success that is really responsible for Harlequin’s popularity in these new markets, as is evident in the success of other imported American narratives. For instance, Ien Ang’s study of the popularity of Dallas in Europe, Watching Dallas, has shown that it is not the lifestyle of the standard American that Europeans are interested in experiencing but the existence of successful capitalist entrepreneurs and all the trappings of wealth that a capitalist society has to offer. Viewer after viewer who liked the show referred to the clothes the characters wore, the cars they drove, and the apartments in which they lived. On the other hand, viewers complained when the show moved away from the milieu of successful capitalism and depicted more common American experiences. As one of Ang’s sources reported: “I don’t find everything entertaining. The farm doesn’t interest me much. Now and then you get a whole episode with nothing but cowboys and cattle. I find that boring....I like the pictures of the city a lot. The office buildings in Dallas. The talks about oil. I really enjoy that” (26). Indeed, many of the viewers focused on the pleasure they found in seeing the American city scene and the mansions or expensive apartments, and most of the viewers responded best to those elements of the story that dealt most with the capitalist lifestyle. In viewing Dallas then, European viewers largely seemed to be less engaged in consuming a text which actually depicted some sort of genuine American experience and more engaged in consuming a text that was overtly pro-capitalist, one in which the typical family drama had been moved into the realm of almost limitless affluence.

Similarly, it is this narrative of capitalist success which is ultimately responsible for the success of Harlequin romances in Europe and Asia. The novels are fantasies of the ability to transcend economic class, a world where women enjoy working in privileged positions in the economic system of capitalism and men are the masters of this system, the power figures who take care of those less wealthy than themselves. Lack of money is never a problem in the world of Harlequin romances, and romance itself is inseparable from an abundance of wealth and possessions. The appeal of such fantasies to readers living in emerging capitalist markets like Poland and Russia is obvious. As in the case of the American women interviewed in Janice Radway’s study of Harlequin readers, Reading the Romance, the readers in these new markets seek escape from the daily drudgery of their lives. Unlike Radway’s readers, though, these women do not live reasonably comfortable middle-class lives in an affluent nation. Whereas the resolution of love and the attainment of a stable and happy family situation are what Radway’s readers focus on, Harlequin romances have many other attractive features for European and Asian readers, not the least of which is the privileged position the heroines occupy in the economic sphere. Most Harlequin heroines work in some sort of respected professional capacity —they are architects, doctors, police officers—or, just as frequently, are the owners of their own successful businesses. To many Harlequin readers in markets where capitalism is still struggling, such employment is fantasy material all on its own. Take, for example, the case of the average Harlequin reader in Russia. As Nancy Ries has pointed out in “The Burden of Mythic Identity: Russian Women at Odds with Themselves,” professional jobs for women are still rare in Russia due to the restrictions imposed by Russian gender norms. However, the economic plight of most Russians has forced many women to work outside of the home, frequently taking two or three menial labor jobs. To these readers, the very socioeconomic order that is being depicted is an object of desire, with the readers consuming fantasies as much about their own empowerment as about tall, dark men. As one Harlequin translator explained when speculating on the reasons for the company’s popularity in Poland: “Many women here live in tough conditions. Their husbands are drunkards, their children don’t learn well, the money is tight. This offers a respite” (Grescoe 257).

The independence that comes with such empowerment is also an attractive feature of these romances. Most of the Harlequin heroines are able to live on their own until the desired marriage at the end of the novel, and they thus have the luxury to choose from the selection of men available to them, often rejecting acceptable middle-class mates in favor of the rich, dominant man. This is a luxury which stands in stark contrast to the circumstances of many of the European readers of Harlequins, who do not have the economic ability to live an independent lifestyle and wait for the right man to come along.

It seems, then, that Harlequin’s popularity in the Eurasian sphere has largely been defined by the growth of American-style capitalism in this area. Successfully selling romance to the world appears to be inextricably linked to successfully selling the world consumer culture. Of course, this means that the long-term success of Harlequin is vulnerable to the same sorts of market conditions that affect the economic sphere. For instance, despite the popularity of Harlequins in Russia, the company’s future there is still tenuous due to terrible distribution problems caused by the poor economic infrastructure. Harlequin has yet to make any significant profit in this new market and may be forced to abandon it entirely if the situation doesn’t improve, as the company has already done in Bulgaria. Similarly, Harlequin’s popularity in China continues to be offset by its limited ability to function in this restricted market.

However, what is perhaps most threatening to Harlequin’s long-term success in these markets is not the limitations of an emerging capitalist system but the economic strength of a healthy capitalist state. Take, for instance, the case of Japan. Harlequin encountered the same popularity there as it did elsewhere when it expanded into that nation in 1976. However, as Japan’s economy grew to a level matching that of America and its citizens grew accustomed to a high standard of living, the popularity of Harlequins began to decline. Japanese readers had no particular fantasy interest in the lifestyles depicted in Harlequin romances as many of these readers were living in comparable affluence, which left the romantic relationship as the sole fantasy in the text. Without the fantasies of capitalist success playing a major role in the reading process, many Japanese readers soon grew tired of Harlequin’s unrealistic genre conventions and displayed an acute lack of interest in reading the romances simply for their American settings and characters, making clear what is really of interest in the books to foreign readers. In recent years Harlequin has been replaced as the dominant romance publisher in the country by the Japanese publisher Sanrio, which has overtaken its American competitor with its New Romance line. If current trends continue, Harlequin may have no future in Japan at all.

Similarly, Harlequin has increasingly been encountering difficulties in France as that country has grown economically stronger. Once the leading paperback publisher in the country, with print runs regularly exceeding 100,000 copies per title, Harlequin has recently faced a number of setbacks in France. Sales have been steadily slipping, and many of the romances published in the country are now heavily adapted and rewritten to reduce the level of their Americanness. Moreover, in order to ensure public acceptance, the French operation has been forced to advertise itself as a French publisher, one that simply selects the best books from Harlequin’s backlist. These growing difficulties recently prompted Harlequin to sell half its operation to the French publisher, Hachette, making the venture now as French as it is American. If the current situation persists, Harlequin’s French operation may soon face the same fate as its Japanese one.

It is clear, then, that Harlequin’s success in Europe and Asia is associated not with any particular interest in America itself, but it is instead associated with the ideology of capitalism that America represents and which Harlequin romances embody. For European and Asian readers, these books are capitalist fantasies as much as they are romantic fantasies and, as such, their appeal to the readers of emerging capitalist markets is obvious. What is less obvious, however, is Harlequin’s future in these new markets. While it is entirely possible that Harlequin may manage to entrench itself firmly in many foreign markets, as it has done in Germany, it is also possible that the success of capitalism in these markets may lead to an erosion of Harlequin’s popularity, resulting in the company’s falling victim to the very values its romances celebrate.

Peter Darbyshire

Department of English

215 Strong College

York University

Toronto, Ontario

Works Cited