Wow, Chris - you live on the edge! OK, ok, ok - chic flicks. I get what you're saying, but Beaches and Ya-Ya as cultural touchstones for how women define romance?!? I can't even begin to go there... It's like saying that women are comfortable with maudlin sentimentality masquarading as romance, intimacy and connection. That women like a movie with mediocre writing or acting as long as there's plenty of emoting. I won't slam these movies as there may be some here who relate to them, but one thing we all have in common here is how deeply BBM touched us.
I know Chris can defend himself, but since it must be the middle of the night in Australia I feel compelled to step in. Actually, Celeste, I was about to jump all over Chris for this one, too. But then it occurred to me that
someone likes
Beaches and
Ya-Yas, and it's certainly not men. (I had some 20-something male painters working at my house last summer and one day I overheard one of them tell the other, incredulously, "Yeah, so when I got home last night she was actually watching
Beaches!!") I'm hoping that what Chris meant is not that
all women like
Beaches but that all
Beaches fans are women.
Sadly, I do think there are plenty of "women who are comfortable with maudlin sentimentality masquerading as romance," just as there are plenty of men who define seeing buildings and people get blown up (dick flicks) as some high quality entertainment. But clearly members of the BetterMost community (and plenty of others) don't fit into either of those categories.
I myself will confess to frequently liking movies that many would classify as "chick flicks" -- ie, light romantic comedies. I couldn't drag my husband there in a million years (he's not a blow-em-up guy, either; he likes very few movies, in fact, but when he does they're usually about politics or history of labor unions or something.) I try to read reviews closely enough to distinguish between good chick flicks and bad (maudlin) chick flicks and avoid the latter.
Actually I don't like the term "chick flicks" at all because, like chick LIT, it tends to ghettoize movies/books for and about women, many of which
should appeal to audiences of both genders. (Like, is
Friends With Money a chick flick? A lot of people would say yes, simply because the main characters are chicks and the director's a chick -- even though it's not very romantic, more like a Woody Allen film with women.)