Art is a reflection of society's mental condition. You can gauge, with caveats, the overall attitude and outlook of an age by the art it produces and values. The dadaists of the post-World War 1 era, for example, were a response to what they saw as the primary cause of the war: the over-attachment to rationality. So they sought to counter that with deliberate paradox and irrationality.
Romanticism came about to elevate reason, exploration, and, as Walter Donway said, "to glorify man as a being of self-made soul." This was during the age when science was becoming primary to society's existence and when all mysteries looked conquerable before the engine of logic. Romanticism thus reflected the sense of agency and will of its age.
A full analysis of art in a given age would fill a space much longer than a readable blog post would allow. a general picture is possible by focusing on a few key popular franchises, which is what I'll do here. Just understand the intent is not to be comprehensive, just to explore the concept of what our art says about our modern culture.
Two popular series: Twilight and 50 Shades of Grey. Both are related: 50 Shades started as a fanfic of Twilight. It can be said that while 50 Shades is, in terms of content, more adult than Twilight, the themes it explores and expresses are very much the same. Both are tied to selfless love, the idea that love is about giving oneself utterly to the partner and that is the key to happiness. They portray their female leads not as empowered figures determining their destiny, but as pawns to cosmic forces of romance that they need to accept.
"Selfless love" is a destructive concept. Love is the response to the ideals of the individual. It is a selfish act, one where a person desires the company of another. In trying to paint love as selfless, it condemns the impulse to reach out and choose who someone loves as "greedy." Instead, it paints love as something that just "happens" per mystic forces that no one has control over. The concept of selfless love is a throwback to the anti-intellectualism of decades prior when the negation of love was critical to making people accept control from those above them. No doubt this is what influenced both authors, at least subconsciously, in how they chose to portray the way love operates.
The audience reflects this: they consist largely of young teen girls (for Twilight) or older women (for 50 Shades), people for whom love is either an unknown they are attempting to discover or, arguably, something they have never felt. The popularity of these novels reflects the distortion of love in our times, the confusion sown by a media that conflates physical sex with love and falsely portrays momentary hook-ups as being just as emotionally fulfilling as long term relationships.
Standing in stark contrast to this: the Hunger Games and Divergent. Both of these series are diametrically opposed to the passive themes of Twilight and 50 Shades. Their protagonists possess will and agency. They decide and act in their own interests, based on their own values and even if the larger society opposes their wishes. For Katniss, she acts to defy the games and eventually becomes a symbol of rebellion. Tris strikes back against pre-determined destiny by breaking free of the house system she was trapped in.
Between Katniss and Tris, Tris is clearly the stronger of the two. She chooses her partner, Four, because of how he represents her ideals. He is strong, confident, capable. He is not without weaknesses and nightmares, but he overcomes rather than wallowing in them. Katniss also chooses her lover, Peeta, though the reasoning there is muddier. Katniss also suffers in the third book when she allows herself to be used as a tool by others. The tragedy that results from that is a reminder never to surrender one's direction to others.
The popularity of Katniss and Tris with readers shows a clear contrast to Bella and Ana. They speak to a desire for heroines who control their fate and who act with a clear head and mind. Their popularity shows that popular interest in rational and intellectual characters remains. Even better, they attracted a large teenage audience of readers. The key will be: will these readers be convinced to discard their love of strong heroines in favor of the weak and passive, as a mark of false maturity? Or will they grow older and demand more works along these lines? Works that are, fundamentally, aligned toward Romanticism.
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