Chick Flick
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"Hold it, hold it. What is this? Are you trying to trick me? Where's the sports? Is this a kissing book?" |
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The Chick Flick is a genre of movie which is nebulously defined, not by its content so much as its market, namely women.
They tend to be romantic in content, whether drama, comedy, or both. Women are likely to be noble victims or sassy, klutzy twentysomethings looking for love, and men either charmers who may or may not be secret jerkasses or hopelessly confused but sweet. Being centred around women you are also likely to encounter scenes of women actually talking to each other outside of jealous Cat Fights (though such a thing may turn up).
Sometimes movies that don't fit this formula will be considered Chick Flicks simply because they feature a female protagonist. Or, for that matter, even having women in them for reasons other than Fan Service. However, a female protagonist is not actually necessary for a Chick Flick -- Made Of Honor or What Women Want for example both have male protagonists while still being clearly marketed at women. A male Chick Flick protagonist is likely to be a Handsome Lech who learns the error of his ways through coming to terms with his feelings for the female lead.
It's worth noting that the Chick Flick genre (that is, the Romantic Comedy or "rom-com") is actually supposed to be popular because it serves both sexes as a good date movie. Some of the more successful examples do this right (usually if they have a decent comment to make on the nature of men and women), but for the most part, not so much. Possibly the most triumphant example of this date-movie genre is Love Story, which, according to legend, is responsible for more pregnancies than any other single film.
The literary equivalent is Chick Lit. The polar opposite is a work Rated "M" for Manly.
Compare/Contrast Lifetime Movie of the Week, the dark, embittered and often vengeful Evil Twin of the Chick Flick. Some even say that Chick Flicks are what a woman's life is before marriage. Lifetime Movies are what it is after she gets married.
Not to be confused with a Chick Tract. Ever.
- 13 Going on 30
- 27 Dresses
- Beaches
- Because I Said So
- Breakfast at Tiffany's
- Bridesmaids
- Bride Wars
- Bridget Jones' Diary and Bridget Jones: The Edge Of Reason
- Calendar Girls
- Chocolat
- Clueless Any adaptation of a Jane Austen novel qualifies (this one's a modern-dress version of Emma.)
- The Color Purple No one said a Chick Flick can't tackle serious subjects.
- Compromising Positions
- Confessions of a Shopaholic
- The Devil Wears Prada
- Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood 'Sisterhood' in the title is generally a giveaway.
- Don Juan Demarco
- The Duchess which is about the complex love triangle between the duke, his wife and the duke's mistress Lady Bess Foster.
- Enchanted April So much so it could be the Trope Namer
- The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain This one can also work for straight guys who enjoy subtler comedies (there must be some straights like that.)
- Enough. Well, perhaps not a chick flick so much as a big-screen Lifetime Movie of the Week turned Up to Eleven.
- Ever After
- Fever Pitch
- Four Weddings and a Funeral
- Fried Green Tomatoes - A rarity for being about something else than shopping, love or men. It's about friendship between grown, mature-minded women past their teens.
- Girl with a Pearl Earring
- The Help
- How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (Indeed, a great deal of Matthew McConaughey's output falls into this)
- How Stella Got Her Groove Back
- I Love You Too
- In Her Shoes
- The Jane Austen Book Club
- Julia
- Julie and Julia (no connection with the above movie)
- Legally Blonde
- Little Women Any and all versions.
- Made Of Honor
- Marie Antoinette
- Maid in Manhattan
- Mamma Mia!!, at least in movie form, is a Chick Flick through and through.
- Mean Girls
- Mona Lisa Smile
- Monster-in-Law
- Moonstruck (arguably)
- Music and Lyrics
- Must Love Dogs
- My Best Friend's Wedding
- My Big Fat Greek Wedding
- My Brilliant Career A criminally-overlooked Australian gem.
- Never Been Kissed
- The Notebook
- Notting Hill
- Private Benjamin
- The Other Boleyn Girl where history's Henry VIII is torn between the lady like Mary and her scheming sister Anne Boleyn.
- The Proposal
- P.S. I Love You
- Roman Holiday Perhaps a borderline case; the runaway-princess plot is chick fodder, but this movie also includes the male-pleasing sight of Audrey Hepburn riding a Vespa (she also gets to bash a guitar over a guy's head.)
- Romy and Michele's High School Reunion
- A Room With A View
- Rumor Has It
- Sense and Sensibility: Jane Austen, straight up.
- The Sex and the City movies
- She's the Man
- The Shop Around the Corner- this is the original version of You've Got Mail.
- The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants
- Sixteen Candles
- Sleepless in Seattle, which for good measure includes chick flick An Affair to Remember as a recurring joke.
- Pretty much anything with both Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks will be a chick flick
- Something Borrowed
- Steel Magnolias
- Stepmom
- Sweet Home Alabama
- Thelma and Louise
- Titanic, though it was originally anticipated as a disaster movie before it came out
- The Turning Point
- The Twilight movies
- Two Weeks Notice
- Yentl
- The Young Victoria about the famous British queen growing up.
- You've Got Mail
- The Wedding Planner
- Waiting to Exhale - A much more bitter take on this than usual.
- What Women Want
- When Harry Met Sally...
- Most of Lifetime's line-up are the "embittered and disillusioned" version.
- When they aren't movies about crazed stalkers and serial killers, anyway.
- Pretty much anything starring Meg Ryan, Hugh Grant, Julia Stiles,[2] or Drew Barrymore.[3]
- Brians Song is a chick flick FOR MEN
- ↑ Incidentally not a Chick Flick
- ↑ Well, except for The Bourne Series
- ↑ Except for ET the Extraterrestrial, Firestarter and the Charlie's Angels movies.. and, um, Poison Ivy