Chick Flicks

by Suzanne Ferriss, Mallory Young

From An Affair to Remember to Legally Blonde , "chick flicks" have long been both championed and vilified by women and men, scholars and popular audiences. Like other forms of "chick culture," which the editors define as a group of mostly American and British popular culture media forms focused primarily on twenty- to thirtysomething, middle-class―and frequently college-educated―women, chick flicks have been accused of reinscribing traditional attitudes and reactionary roles for women. On the other hand, they have been embraced as pleasurable and potentially liberating entertainments, assisting women in negotiating the challenges of contemporary life. A companion to the successful anthology Chick The New Woman’s Fiction , this edited volume consists of 11 original essays, prefaced by an introduction situating chick flicks within the larger context of chick culture as well as women’s cinema. The essays consider chick flicks from a variety of angles, touching on issues of film history, female sexuality (heterosexual and homosexual), femininity, female friendship, age, race, ethnicity, class, consumerism, spectatorship, pleasure and gender definition. An afterword by feminist film theorist Karen Hollinger considers the chick flick’s transformation from the woman’s films of the ’40s to the friendship films of the ’80s and those of the "return to the classics" trend of the ’90s, while highlighting the value of the volume’s contributions to contemporary debates and sketching possibilities for further study.

Genres: Nonfiction, Feminism

272 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

Reviews

[Chris]

This book has been sitting on my bookshelf since 2008--I initially acquired it as a secondary research source for my senior thesis in college, on rom coms. I had read some of the essays at the time, but always intended to return and finish the book at a later date.

Like all collections of essays by different writers, the readability and interest level varies dramatically from author to author--so I the three star rating in this case is intended to convey that variability. Overall, I enjoyed the book. It was surprisingly nice to dive back into serious feminist film analysis. It makes me want to dig up a feminist analysis of the Avengers movies!

[Petty Lisbon]

I enjoyed this book's categories. I feel like it really covered a lot of different ground. My favorite pieces were on Chica flicks, Go Fish, older women, and Southern movies. I think it did a good job reading too much into symbolism. It would've gotten a four with the action and sci fi movie, and maybe the second chapter, edited out.

[Dennis Greene]

this collection of articles on feminist theory has several very strong pieces which makes it effective .

[Vasili Birlidis]

Read for WST 3335 - Gender Analysis in American Film with Dr. Kelley (fourth year, University of Florida, Spring 2017).