The Collective

Recently I was arguing with an older male coworker (who prides himself on being labeled as an older male coworker) because he was being very judgemental about movies he was labeling as chick flicks (labels are important to him). He was saying that chick flicks were movies that woman watched because women were in them and these women both watching the movies and in the movies had no substance to them but emotions and the movies had no point but to make the (female) viewer feel something. Something stupid, he added.

I've always thought that the label chick flick applied to movies that often starred women and dealt with subject matter that supposedly appealed more to women. I've always been open to chick flicks as a genre because "movies that appeal to women" is a ridiculously broad label and therefore, shockingly, stops being a label. I love as many chick flicks as I hate and I hate all awful lot because um, hello, don't try to force everything into traditional gender roles. IT'S NOT A THING.

Ahem.

So, what I am trying to say is that there are lots of chick flicks that have nothing to do with gender roles. People (like my coworker) might still try to make them about gender roles because people are sheep, but we're all too good for that shit, am I right?

This is precisely why I hated and despised and hated some more He's Just Not That Into You. That movie sucked hard in all the ways, except the part that made Sarah Brown write my single favorite review ever on the internet. So, did you read that? Okay, now I'm going to talk about a different movie that doesn't make get the ALL CAPS RAGE.


Confessions of a Shopaholic

I wasn't sure I'd like this; I was very, very fearful of a "you know how women are with their shopping!" vibe, but it totally didn't exist. Fisher gave the role a very Bridget Jonesian feel and I liked the campyness of naming the fashion magazine Alete (get it? Elite?) and the parent mag company Dantay West (get it? Conde Nast? ha!). I like the very cute boy with an accent that I thought I had never seen before, but forgot he was in another chick flick I love, The Jane Austen Book Club (he's better in this one though).

Here's what else I loved about this movie:
-despite being a lot about fashion, I never felt all small because I don't know anything about it
-their is a genius magazine column with great branding, a clever logo, and a theme that ties in with the movie
-the best friend is multi-dimensional (although vaguely)
-one terrific drunk scene
-CGI mannequins are actually cool and not creep like the Old Navy ones
-Andrew Bernard and Barack Obama and Jessie from Toy Story and Rory Gilmore's crazy Yale friend who dates Marty are ALL in it
-it was cute and fun
-it was funny
-it talked about business cat things like APR and FINANCE
-I wasn't able to read more than 2 pages of the book, but now I kind of want to (but I won't, because I'm still going to trust my first instinct)

In conclusion: very yes. This chick flick makes you feel, sure, but it doesn't make you feel needlessly and it sure doesn't make you feel anything but light and fun. It might make you feel like you should balance your check book or, perhaps, care about fashion a scootch more, but it won't make you feel silly about being a woman, and it won't make you feel like women are silly, so it's a winning chick flick in my book. You should see it because it's fun and because it's probably at the cheap theater near you by now.