With the long-dreaded finals period looming ahead, many students are starting to share their strategies for coping with the general gloom that characterizes the end of each semester. Some will turn to comfort food, others will rely on daily whiny phone calls to parents and still others will depend on a chick flick's provision of a warm, fuzzy feeling. While the first two approaches are equally common among students of both genders, the third one is generally snubbed by male students. The reason for such snobbery? Chick flicks, as the wording indicates, are for chicks. Guys shouldn't have anything to do with this type of movie.
While this self-selection may seem to make sense at first, I find it rather disconcerting. Instead of trying to dissect male students' cinematographic tastes in order to understand my distress, I decided to take a look at chick flicks themselves. After doing a little research on the definition of chick flick and skimming a handful of "Top (insert number) Chick Flicks" lists, my conclusion is twofold: The use of the term "chick flick" is problematic, and so is the fact that some movies explicitly market themselves as chick flicks to appeal to a female audience.
Though there seems to be no general consensus as to the precise definition of chick flick on which movies fit the variety of interpretations of the term, it appears to me that most people indiscriminately use the expression "chick flick" to designate films that have a female protagonist, are heavy in emotional content, deal with love or have themes that are relationship-based. Under such a framework, movies that are commonly referred to as "chick flicks" range from "Legally Blonde" to "Titanic."
The usage of "chick flick" bothers me because it implies that women are expected to be drawn to this type of movie. This assumption supports the essentialist perspective on gender, which basically argues that women and men are inherently different and that women, unlike men, naturally have a sweet tooth for emotions. Not only is this take on gender highly inaccurate, but it also legitimates a hierarchical organization of the traits, behaviors and interests of both genders — and you may have rightly deduced that those associated with women are relegated to the bottom of the hierarchy.
What I also find bothersome in the term chick flick is its derogatory flavor. It belittles women and girls as inconsequential beings, just as it dismisses anything that specifically appeals to women as futile and shallow. Are girls' night out or shopping by essence less meaningful than watching football or playing video games? My answer would be no. We have all been socialized into continuously trying to discern what is male and what is female and have internalized society's norms and expectations about each gender. Unfortunately, these social constructions have pegged the female gender and anything it represents or implies as secondary.
Chick flicks are not only problematic from a lexical point of view, but also from a marketing vantage point. While movies like "Titanic" conform to some people's definition of chick flick, others like "The Princess Diaries" or "Bride Wars" are explicitly marketed as such. Their promotional strategy is perceptible as soon as you set eyes on their poster. From the title of the movie to the omnipresence of the color pink, and from the display of perfect hairdos to the carefully selected outfits, everything blatantly points to a movie that is targeted to a female audience. You know that whatever speculations you make about the content of the movie, your guesses will not be far from what awaits you in the theater: an attractive female protagonist, some romance, pretty clothes, a ridiculously unrealistic ending and possibly some female rivalry thrown in to spice up the over-used recipe.
By unequivocally marketing themselves as chick flicks, these movies perpetuate stereotypes about women (their top priorities are to secure a man and to look beautiful), reproduce social expectations of what it means to be feminine (yes, you need to show a bit more of that cleavage, girl, and don't forget your dominatrix heels) and further reinforce the conventional wisdom according to which women's activities and interests are intrinsically frivolous and inferior to those of men (you name it).
As long as we persist in using the term "chick flick" and the entertainment industry continues to leverage this term and gender stereotypes for marketing purposes, a movie categorized as a "chick flick" will never earn as much respect as a film unburdened by this epithet. And women, especially those who watch these movies, will always be seen as a more or less realistic approximation of the protagonist. Addressing these two issues will evidently necessitate more than just a change in diction or a reformation of the movie industry's marketing strategies. But for now, I hope we can all think twice before dismissing a movie as a "chick flick," so that watching "Bridget Jones's Diary" is no longer a guilty pleasure, and male students cease to believe they need to impose upon themselves a walk of shame after watching "Sex and the City."
Sarah Lu '12.5 is a sociology concentrator whose column was largely inspired by her suite's shared appreciation for "Love, Actually." She can be reached at sarah_lu@brown.edu.
