people love to make fun of genres they don't like, and I'm not immune on either side.
I find a lot of genre conventions of romance extremely grating, for example, for my own personal reasons. on the other hand, I love the horror genre, also for my own personal reasons, and people love to tell everyone how mindless and distasteful they find horror.
I think being a hater is fine, as long as everyone's self aware about it (i.e. not like, genuinely declaring every genre-enjoyer as somehow lacking interiority or any sense of political consciousness solely based on the content of their favorite fictional stories).
I also think any sincere enjoyment of a genre--any genre--should contain some honest interrogation and critical engagement with how these genre conventions reproduce genuinely reactionary ideology. some understanding of why these tropes emerge and are successful is important.
(e.g. why does the romance genre market itself to women & often rely on stories where the female protagonist gives up financial independence and embraces "tradition" to evoke gendered fulfillment? why does the horror genre market itself to men and often rely on stories where the power, autonomy, and agency of women and children is the source of danger, to evoke gendered fear?)
but the thing I will push back on is when people leverage (the surface level of) real critique just to express distaste for a genre they don't like for personal reasons, while implying their own preferred genres are above these same critiques.
like it would be disingenuous to highlight misogyny in the romance genre and obscure misogyny in the horror genre, or visa versa! there's misogyny (and racism and ableism and so on) in all of it.
something I've believed for a long time is that at the heart, genres are less about settings and narrative beats and more about emotional guarantees. a romance story promises you the experience of social anxiety/misunderstandings, excitement/nervousness, and catharsis of loving comfort. a horror story promises you the experience of suspense/dread, regret/shame, and cathartic revelation of previously unspoken trauma.
the ways these feelings are most readily evoked by the same misogynistic culture are distinct, but the underlying misogyny itself is not distinct, if that makes sense. (e.g. comfort is evoked from the idea of an honest, predictable, maternal woman who commits to one man forever. fear is evoked from the idea of an untrustworthy, unpredictable, dangerous woman who has her own interests that might contradict those of men.)
I find the critiques of reactionary ideology within mainstream storytelling much more interesting when they can be understood together within a wider scope, rather than perceived as unique to one genre.
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