The 10 Most Damaging Chick Flicks Ever Made
There’s no denying it: ladies love the chick flicks. For men, they’re instruments of torture they must endure with their woman so they can be rewarded at the end of the night. Women, however, eat them up — especially the under-30 crowd. They’ll drag their boyfriends to them, bond with a group of girlfriends while watching them, or sit at home alone crying to them. Never mind that they’re vapid, formulaic crap that Hollywood can churn out faster than Sandra Fluke can go through condoms. They’re still successful.
Too bad they also send some of the worst messages to women in the history of mankind. Horrible stereotypes, insulting characters, idiotic relationship advice… it’s all there. Some chick flicks are better at hiding it than others, but generally, you can count on the same thing each time. The worst part is, women are actually starting to believe the lunacy they see in these movies!
So which are the worst offenders, and what damaging messages do they send?
10. The Notebook
Damaging Message: Cheating Is Great!
Also Seen In:Six Days Seven Nights, Sweet Home Alabama
The Notebook is considered by many women to be one of the most beloved movies ever, a perfect example of what romance and long-lasting love are supposed to be. Too bad about half of the movie revolves around the main character cheating on her fiance.
For those who haven’t seen it, Allie and Noah are high-school sweethearts. Allie’s rich and Noah’s poor, so they break up after one summer. Noah joins the Army and fights in World War II; Allie goes to college and gets engaged to a handsome soldier turned lawyer. After getting engaged, she runs back to Noah, rolls around in the hay with him a few times, and ends up insulted at her mother’s insinuation that she’s a tramp. None of this matters, of course. Noah and Allie love each other so much that cheating on the man she promised to marry was perfectly acceptable. Heck, even her fiance didn’t get mad at her. It’s romantic, see?
The lesson here is that, hey, it’s totally cool to cheat on someone if that’s what your heart is telling you to do. It doesn’t matter if it’s right or wrong. If you’re following your heart, then cheat away!
So glad you mentioned “The Notebook”. I hated that movie. And every time someone says “Oh, it’s so romantic!”, I have to gag. I’ve actually gotten into arguments with friends about that one.
And “Twilight”…ugh. Just…ugh.
Bridges of Madison County had that same Ok To Cheat vibe.
To the cheating vibe, I’d add “You’ve got mail” and “Serendipity.” In both cases they make the partners/fiances so unappealing, it’s like they deserved to be betrayed. (Well in Serendipity John Cusack’s fiance, was actualy sweet, it was only Kate Beckinsale’s fiance who was so self involved he didn’t deserve her.)
Wasn’t The Horse Whisperer another one along the same lines? Seems to me there were a rash of unhappily-married-woman-has-fling movies that came out about the same time.
Actually in “The Horse Whisperer” Kristin Scott Thomas’s character ‘Annie Maclean’ never cheats on her husband ‘Robert’ (Sam Neil), and before her daughter’s terrible accident happened I didn’t really get the impression that she was unhappily married. After the accident that nearly kills her daughter ‘Grace’ (Scarlett Johansson) and severely injures Grace’s beloved horse as well, it is clear that no one in the family is particularly happy. Annie’s obsession with saving Grace’s horse starts out as her way of saving her family.
Now an obvious romance blooms between Annie & Tom Booker, the ‘Horse Whisperer’ (Robert Redford), during the movie. You could cut the sexual tension in that movie with even a dull butter knife, but both Annie & Tom realize that for it to work she would have to give up everything including both her career as a successful magazine editor and her family. In the end Annie never crosses that line; she never cheats on Robert with Tom, and the movie ends with Annie driving away leaving Tom on the ranch and going back to her husband & daughter.
It’s been a few years since I’ve actually seen this movie, and I’m certainly no expert in ‘Chik Fliks,’ but I got an entirely different message from “The Horse Whisperer” than what is presented from the other movies listed in the article. What I got from it was a mother desperate to save her daughter & her family, and willing to make whatever personal sacrifice is necessary to do it. (If I remember correctly she does end up losing her job.) While doing it she finds herself in a position where she is extremely attracted to another man, and had amply opportunity to cheat, but in the end she resists committing adultery, saves her daughter, and the horse, and then goes home to her husband and family.
Like I said, it’s been quite a while since I’ve seen this movie. So if I’m remembering something incorrectly, sorry, but I remember this movie as sending a rather positive message.
Yep! Me too Shawna! The only catastrophe not on this list was “The Bridges of Madison County”. A very close friend of mine and I got into a terrible argument about this movie. The reason? Because I felt that saying that it’s ok to have a “sneaky-nobody-knows-that-you-cheated-so-you-now-can-have-some-good-memories-to-hold-onto-so-that-you-can-stand-the-family-you-despise-theme”, was unbearable to me.
Gag is right! The author of the article has it right.
When I suggested that if the lady were that unhappy with her life, that perhaps she should have done the decent thing and talked with her husband, or frankly just said to her family… I can’t do this, you would have thought I put cayenne pepper in someone’s underwear!
Don’t you know it’s better to be the silent adulterer? Don’t you know stupid, stupid Rosellen, that the affair gave her the strength to carry on? Oh… poor Rosellen doesn’t know that secretly betraying one’s husband makes everything better! After all, the heroine doesn’t leave her family… she musters on because the fling with the photographer gives her that boost she needs to endure… Oh, and the courage to befriend the town home-wrecker!
Yoi! I also learned from my friend that I don’t understand the complexities of life, and there is no black and white. Lesson learned.
One possible explaination is that your friend was screwing around and thought you were being judgmental (as you should be).
I had a similar experience with a friend and frankly I am tired of all the single mom dismissals tossed my way. I left my marriage for the right reasons and have never cheated on anyone, ever.
I know many women who buy into all these dramas because they like the feeling of living in romantic chaos so they create it in their lives. None are friends. My friends are boring and loyal like me!
To add insult to injury, the “Notebook” had a glaring anachronism in the scene where the star-crossed couple are lying in the middle of a N. Carolina intersection. The stoplight had a yellow caution light. Yellow lights weren’t added to stoplights until at least 20 years after the 1930′s scene, most especially not in the rural South.
I keep hoping this wasn’t just someone trying to be funny:
http://i.chzbgr.com/completestore/2010/8/26/16ba1bb8-0f9d-4983-ae28-fca13678fb4e.jpg
Not sure you got the point of Hitch it doesn’t belong on the list. Hitch was a good message to women to ignore the jerks
Hmmmm, I disagree with the list (what else are blog post comments that involve top ten lists supposed to say?)
All chick flicks are tied at #1 (as the worst). Only the presence on-screen of one actress can bring a film down to the absolute basement of the outhouse, as it were, of terrible chick flicks. And that actress is Janeane Garafolo. Fortunately, for chick flicks, no movie with her in it, can rightly be called a chick flick, because even women find her an annoying gnat, and she totally kills any impulse towards romance in both genders alike (and in hermaphrodites and trans-genders, as well).
The heroine of Clueless, a teenage girl named Cher, is ditzy, superficial, and shallow.
Clueless is supposedly based on Austen’s “Emma”. Austen must of done some grave turning that that movie came out.
Not sure if the “English Patient” is a chick flick but that movie has a repugnant message. Steal another man’s wife, when the slut gets hurt in a cave and the British fighting the Nazis in North Africa for good reason don’t help you find her go over to the Nazis. But hey it is all in the name of love.
I don’t like modern chick flicks for the reasons you cited but I like period pieces.
No doubt about it, English P is a chick flick. But not for all of them. I have a friend who says he wishes he’d taped my wife and me tag-teaming on how rotten the movie was. I will say that the military hardware was pretty accurate, but then, that doesn’t mean much with movies. Patton is great, but how did the Germans get so many American tanks?
However, I do think #2 should be Bridges of Madison County. Why? Because it was a stealth chick flick. We men saw it had Clint, and figured it couldn’t be that bad. My wife knows a number of women who managed to get their husbands to take them for that reason alone. (And I know it’s bragging, but my wife once again showed her excellence in dissuading her sister and friends from doing that. She made it a girls’ night, knowing that we men would hate it. Part of why I love her.)
You forgot “Somewhere In Time”, where the message is that someone can travel through time via hypnosis to become a poor boy who can seduce a rich girl before accidentally finding a penny from his original time, thus breaking the hypnosis and sending him to his death.
Ugh.
Great list. The only disagreement I have is where you say about Titanic, “True love happens right away.” While it’s not true in all or even most cases, ‘love at first sight’ is a real phenomenon. It happened to me so I know.
Mom2TwoBoys:
Yeah, but, no.
I mean, yeah, there’s love at first sight, and it happened to you; and, no, there’s not really “love at first sight” (which means it didn’t happen to you).
I don’t mean any disrespect to you; anyone who is called Mom2TwoBoys is almost certainly level-headed and a good wife and isn’t likely to believe the damned lie that I’m about to spend some time debunking. So please don’t take what follows as a rebuke to YOU; I’m just pointing out something to any young girls who should happen to read your note and go “Squeee! There really is such a thing as love at first sight!” These young girls have been mind-raped for a profit margin, and I want to jump in here and make sure they don’t get the wrong idea.
I would guess that what happened in your case, Mom2TwoBoys, is that you and your husband-to-be were folk who happened, at the time you met, to be capable of developing into a mature couple together on account of your personality traits, the things that had thus far happened in your lives, and your overall character.
In addition, you had the body chemistry and the mental “good mate” templates that happened to match one another well enough to send you both quickly into the infatuation phase of chemical attraction…and a good enough match that you both experienced it more strongly than you had with other folks previously. (If there’d been any. That varies depending on how many prospective mates you’d ever had the opportunity to socialize with before, which varies a lot with your circumstances.)
That infatuation phase often fizzles out if the folks turn out to be long-term incompatible. But you were fortunate in that your infatuation event happened to occur with a guy who was (because of his personality, experiences, and overall character) good marriage material for you. He was at exactly the right point in his life to have a good effect on you, and you on him.
Or something like that.
I’m just pointing out that chemical infatuation is not supernatural; it’s more like getting caught in a hormonal rainstorm. (If the conditions are right it’ll happen, but it’s somewhat random when it does, and it doesn’t mean anything except that your mating instincts function normally.)
And, someone being a good personality match, a person of good character, and being at the right point in their lives to make a good mate is also not supernatural.
So, when these things happen all together to two people who’re compatible in other ways, we call it “love at first sight.” It looks like that one rare thing happening, but it’s actually relatively-common things intersecting particularly serendipitously…which is rare. Inasmuch as the initial infatuation is particularly strong and leads smoothly and seamlessly into the later mature phases of discovering one anothers’ long-term compatibility, it all feels like one thing, but it’s one thing with a lot of moving parts which could have failed.
Why say all this boring analysis? Just to rain on someone’s parade?
No; not unless they’re marching themselves off a cliff. But in that case I want their parade rained out.
One of the DAMAGING notions we mature people are obligated to fight, like the ones in these 10 Damaging Chick Flicks, is the one that says: “love” is some supernatural thing that “conquers all.” It says that “sudden attraction” is a reason to get married or to have sex. It says that so long as you’re in the grip of “love” everything will work out all right in the end.
B*****IT!
I mean, okay, if by “Love Reigns” or “Love Conquers All,” one is making a Theological Declaration referring back to the notion that “God Is Love,” then there are probably ten or fifteen different Soteriological or Eschatological ways that “Love Conquers All.”
But most little girls who get this notion drilled into their brains aren’t engaging in High Eschatology. They’re not reading the Summa Theologica and muttering, “God is Love, and Love Is All You Need.” The Beatles weren’t channeling St. Augustine’s Confessions, and neither were all those screaming, crying girls.
No, the modern woman-child enraptured with notions of “love at first sight” is just a self-absorbed teenager who thinks that all of life is a movie and they’re the star, and that if some fate-driven supernatural thing called “love at first sight” or “being soulmates” CAN happen, then it MUST be going to happen to THEM, because after all, they’re the Chief Protagonist in the movie of their life! The script DEMANDS it!
Right? Riiight?!!
No. That kind of fate-driven endless-courtship storyline in which a man is destined to sweep the girl off her feet and whisk her off to a life of endless adventure in which the scenery is ever more beautifully cinematic, her living quarters ever more palatial, he wardrobe ever more princess-like, and the chemical impact of the man on her pleasure-centers is ever more intriguingly tingly…that whole storyline is B*****IT.
It is merely pornography for a certain part of the female brain, sold endlessly to female brains by Hollywood, who have learned that an addict is a reliable customer, and that it’s just as easy to get women hooked on porn as men, so long as you target them with the right kind of porn.
Mom2TwoBoys, I’m pretty sure you know all that. If you didn’t you’d be one of those silly women with the rationalization-hamster running freely in her head, no longer feeling the old tingle for your husband and wondering when she could escape the drudgery of her two boys and find a new Prince Charming now that the old model isn’t showroom-shiny any longer. And a girl like that wouldn’t use Mom2TwoBoys as her online moniker, most likely. It’d be FreeSpiritChick or LadyInWaiting or SultryButSavvy or some mythos of that ilk.
But for all you unmarried young women out there who haven’t yet comprehended reality — who aren’t yet Red Pill Women or who haven’t read Hooking Up Smart or who don’t understand why the Church Boys don’t light your fire like the Bad Boys do?
Get wise, ladies. You will bring heaps of misery on yourself and others if you don’t get wise. “Love at first sight” is felicitous; a random happy coherence of several commonplace biological and biographical facts. It happens, like winning the lottery happens. But waiting for it to happen, mistaking sexual attraction for it “happening,” and then wondering why it suddenly ceased to “happen” two years into the marriage betrays a stupid misunderstanding of the whole thing. Winning the lottery happens, but playing it day after day isn’t a life-plan.
R.C., I sincere thank you for writing that all our for my benefit. I know you put a lot of thought into it. I also appreciate that you assume I am intelligent and already know about it. I am and I do. I studied the concept and came up with the same information. I continue to call it love at first sight, though, because that’s what it felt like and frankly, unless you experience it, you wouldn’t understand.
Unfortunately, we were swayed by family members and other events and made the mistake of marrying different people and regret it to this day. The lesson I try to teach my sons is to be true to what they want from their futures, not what I want.
Whew!
Well, Mom2TwoBoys, I’m glad I didn’t step on your toes any more than I did. I was rather assuming you’d wound up with the guy in question. Still, what I wrote wasn’t so much for your benefit (since, as I suspected and you confirmed, you were already aware of it).
My hope is that more women, especially the next generation of young women, will get their heads screwed on straight about these kind of things. Hollywood Rom-Coms are toxic when it comes to setting a person’s expectations regarding dating and sex and romance.
And I meant what I said about it being like porn. Just as there are too many men dealing with ED and relationship problems (and wildly off-key bedroom expectations) because of porn addiction, I think there are a lot of high-functioning “endless courtship” addicts among the young women out there.
They know in theory that life isn’t like a movie. But in practice they don’t know what it actually is like, so when they start dating and start looking for a mate, they fall into that template. Two kids and a lot of bills later, they find themselves disappointed by the daily grind and unhappy and astonished to find that the tingly high of initial infatuation doesn’t last until death do us part. It comes and goes and varies in intensity and both people have to work through the times when the tingles aren’t there to get to the next time when they are.
As I said before, you’re certainly aware of that, Mom2TwoBoys.
But…hello? You other young women out there? Pay attention to your elders on this one. Yeah, we’re a mite slower and wrinklier than you are now and we’re content with stuff that seems unbearably dated to you, and there comes a point where everything we say sounds like You Kids Get Off My Lawn. But we know a thing or two. You can jack up your life and the lives of your kids pretty badly with emotional scarring if you don’t get wise and play this right. The book of Proverbs is right: “Get wisdom, get understanding.”
I had a friend once tell me something that an older man had advised him, and it stuck with me: “Make all your most important life decisions while standing in a graveyard. Keep in mind such things as whether, when your family and friends are standing around delivering eulogies, will they be glad that YOU were their Husband/Wife/Dad/Mom/Brother/Sister/Son/Daughter/Friend?” I haven’t always had a literal graveyard handy at decision-time, but I have kept the Long Term Perspective, and it’s kept me out of trouble more than once.
Play for the long term.
Well said R.C. Perhaps if movies portrayed the real world? You know, much like it takes hard work, faith and determination to make something of yourself, the same holds true with life in general and in particular relationships.
You cannot walk around on a 24 hour love buzz! It doesn’t work that way. Hammering out life’s curves it where the pay off comes.
As usual, PJ Media has some of the most thought provoking comments. Blessings to all of you!
It’s interesting to me how the ‘love at first sight’ and ‘happily ever after’ seemed to be linked together by you but not by me. Perhaps since my life course has not been linear I never assumed it to include ‘happily ever after.’
I also agree that there are some who crave the endless courtship and the drama of it all but I’m not convinced that movies have all that much influence. Parenting no doubt, does. And I agree, it takes both partners in a marriage to work through differences, but if only one is willing to work, it’s best to leave and focus on being a parent as I have done.
Long winded but very accurate. You might want to see my comment at 35.
I agree that love at first sight does happen. But in the real world, it’s followed (if you’re lucky) by years and years of boring old life-goes-on. It’s that long, difficult, everyday part of love at first sight that Titanic leaves out. In a way, that makes it the perfect love story. All fun, no work.
same here, and she later admitted it was mutual, she made up her mins about the same time i did. that was almost 46 years ago, we’re still together.
Love at first sight, just had our 34th anniversary.
I find the longer it goes, the easier it gets, even with some pretty severe health issues.
And I hated every one of those movies.
Well, jeez, where to start?
1. First off, if the reason your wife/girlfriend goes to bed with you is to “reward you at the end of the evening,” you are one pitiful puppy.
2. Otherwise? Some of these films are good, some bad, some have messages, some don’t. You seem to think women are suceptible to being influenced by the evils of something like Pretty Woman. Do you treat them like dumb children? If so, that may be your problem in (1). LOL.
Thank you.
Also, The book “The Notebook” is a bit different than the movie. Better, in my opinion. Far better.
I am surprised you didn’t throw in An Officer & a Gentleman for good measure. Has it occurred to you that many realize these plots are not realistic & people watch these movies just for their entertainment value? A bit like reading trashy novels.
Yeah, it could be included, but watching Lou Gossit Jr. kick Richard Gere’s a$$, and then spray him in the face with a hose just to further his misery made it otherwise worthwhile.
I disliked Officer and a Gentleman because it makes a big deal about getting through a course that takes a few months. At the time, my wife and I were in the middle of what became 7 years of training for me and 10 years of training for her to fully qualify in our professions – I laughed at the notion that a few months of effort was at all impressive.
While it doesn’t compare in length of time to a surgical residency, becoming a fully qualified Navy aviator can take years. After the initial training as portrayed in the movie, there’s flight school. If you make it through that, you go on to being trained in the aircraft, carrier qualifications, weapons qualifications, etc. Then you go to the fleet and the real training begins. It’s far from an easy path.
That’s very true, of course, and I admire and respect any man who earns his wings as an aviator in whichever branch of the service.
Yes, I understand that as I have a brother-in-law who flew jets off carriers; but the movie’s premise is somehow this short qualifying program is a hugely difficult commitment; it’s not.
With all due respect, it was not about a few months” worth of effort.
the movie was about the emotional struggle oif the Gere character and the stuff he had to come to terms with.
once he dealt with his issues he could become the Officer and Gentleman of the title.
Taking a film as a guide to life is riduclous, but taking the setting of a film as having anything to do with real life is silly too.
“The heroine of Clueless, a teenage girl named Cher, is ditzy, superficial, and shallow…”
Yeah, but only on the surface!
Well, I see the clueless about the kid growing up, realizing and getting beyond their shallowness. But that’s probably because as a father of girls, I tolerate everything else in Clueless because of the Dad’s line:
“Boy, I’ve got a .45 and a shovel, and it doesn’t look like anyone would miss you.”
I agree that Clueless does not belong on this list. I can’t stand “chick flicks” nor hospital tv shows (except House). This gal prefers action movies. There is a romance from the fifties, “Love is a Many Splendored Thing” that guys could watch with their girl without gagging. “Gone with the Wind” isn’t bad either.
You forgot Grease with it’s message, to get your guy become a tramp, toss aside whatever values you hold.
HA! That was basically the punchline of MAD satire of Grease!
MAD magazine was always on top of things, calling out the b.s, in pop culture.
I remember that! Hilarious!!
Although, it’s ususally not recalled that Danny gets his letterman sweater as an athlete to get her approval.
They BOTH change their image for the other.
But of course Danny discards his sweater and rejoins the gang pretty quickly when Sandy shows up in her slut outfit.
I think John Waters’ “Crybaby” is an antidote to “Grease.” Similar message (along with others), but it depicts the actual social standing of the supposedly uber-cool “greasers” more accurately.
“My Best Friends Wedding”: If he doesn’t come back sabotage everything good in his life!
One unfortunate film that was given the kiss-of-death designation of a chick flick was Legends of the Fall. Three brothers, of which Brad Pitt was one, are in love with the same woman. It was a rousing good guy movie set in WWI and Prohibition, and libertarian to boot. Why the notion got around that it was a chick flick escapes me, but that killed what should have been a fairly successful movie.
Three words that made Legends of the Fall a chick flick:
Brad Pitt’s hair
Good list. Most of these movies are indeed horrible, but two points. Some of the dopey assumptions and conclusions reached in these movies are already out there in the real world, people believe them, and many already live there lives accordingly. That the movies reinforce them is indisputable, but I doubt they sway people who aren’t already susceptible to believing them. Sometimes these movies are popular simply because of the star. My parents have been married for over 50 years and there is no evidence that either has been any less than totally devoted to each other. But my mother not only owns two DVD’s of Dirty Dancing, she never fails to miss it whenever it’s on on television, which by my reckoning, is more ofter than should be allowed by law. The popular star Patrick Swayze should be the subject of a serious dissertation. He was only an average actor who died too young, but most of the movies he made are popular still, and he managed to star in classic chick flicks like Dirty Dancing and Ghost; classic guy films like Roadhouse , Point Break, and Red Dawn; and classic cult films such as To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar.
A lot of circa WWII British movies had this trope. Even the war movies had a sappy romantic subplot where the husband is usually an officer and senior to and often in the same unit as the boyfriend. The husband is usually the archetypal stodgy, stiff upper lip type and older while the boyfriend is young, handsome, charismatic, fun-loving as they call it. In the end, the husband always walks away (and at least once into a mine field with predictable results) so the young man can have his wife.
Disgusting. It’s even more sickening to think that was a trope women actually found appealing. Shoot, I would have fragged the young sociopath or gotten him drummed out in disgrace and then divorced the wife anyway.
But this whole thing goes back even further to the romances begun by Elanor of Aquitaine. She’s the one who really codified the nonsense we know today as “Courtly Love.” If you actually find a complete or nearly so copy of the rules, you’ll see all the nonsense listed about these movies in spades. Basically they were rules written by bored “noble” women to get over-testosteroned alpha males to engage in often lethal combat (jousting and such) for their sexual thrills. The rules also codified how affairs and even rape (of common women by nobles) were allowed. So this foolishness goes back at least that far and probably further.
Speaking of Eleanor of Aquitaine, have you ever seen “The Lion in Winter” with Katherine Hepburn and Peter O’Toole as Henry II? If I remember right it had a very young and not-yet-famous Timothy Dalton and Anthony Hopkins as supporting actors. Sorry to change the subject, but I feel I’ve earned it, as I was smart enough to not see any of the movies on the list, except “Pretty Woman” (God knows why) and the last 45 minutes of Titanic.
A long time ago I watched it so I don’t recall much about it.
Eleanor: How did we get from where we were to where we are ?
Henry: One step at a time, my love, one step at a time.
“The Princess Diaries”.
Damaging message: expect nothing less than a rich and handsome prince. That only rules out 99.99999% of men.
First, pleasantries. Great post. Loads of fun. Now the quibbles. You don’t distinguish between the movies that contain bad themes and those that promote bad themes. I’m with you on The Notebook and commenters on Bridges but, for instance, Clueless does have a ditzy blond that is presented as cool, but the movie is about her becoming less ditzy, focusing on more significant things. Ditto Twilight. The parts you describe take less than, what, half the first book? His goal is actually to protect Bella and does all that jerk stuff to drive her away. Then, you egregiously omit truly horroifying films like Thelma and Lousie, i.e. friendship between women is the ultimate relationship and noble even in joint suicide. Not only is it that awful, but also women put it on lists as the most empowering. (The Telegraph had something on this last summer.) It has to be the worst.
Didn’t see all of these movies, but after reading the reviews of those, I won’t bother watching them on DVD’s. Good analysis, and I enjoyed the comments posted.
Bottom line–why waste time on junk?!
Lord how I LOATHE chick flicks. My most hated is Kate and Leopold where I sat through the whole thing wondering why a classy guy like Leo would look twice at that vapid, unpleasant Kate person.
Agree on Kate & Leopold. You must be more resilient than I am, I had to leave the theater about three times just to get away from it. The only reason I came back each time was that my wife was still there watching it.
“Not only is it that awful, but also women put it on lists as the most empowering”
You’re right of course – a very good point. But now I have to admit that there are TWO of these dang films that I’ve actually seen in their entirety – but I swear, I didn’t enjoy either of them!
OK, how about a counter-list? Can people name “chick flicks” with positive models?
I’ll suggest “Fifty First Dates”, one of my daughter’s favorites. Adam Sandler’s character shows concern for his romantic interest, respect for her father’s wishes and a willingness to accept the woman’s disability and build a life with her.
My best half and I both enjoyed “As Good As It Gets”.
Melvin Udall: Never, never, interrupt me, okay? Not if there’s a fire, not even if you hear the sound of a thud from my home and one week later there’s a smell coming from there that can only be a decaying human body and you have to hold a hanky to your face because the stench is so thick that you think you’re going to faint. Even then, don’t come knocking. Or, if it’s election night, and you’re excited and you wanna celebrate because some fudgepacker that you date has been elected the first queer president of the United States and he’s going to have you down to Camp David, and you want someone to share the moment with. Even then, don’t knock. Not on this door. Not for ANY reason. Do you get me, sweetheart?
One of the more common chick flick storylines is a big lie. One of the two either tells a big lie about themselves in order to meet the other, or omits a key bit of information about themselves that would repel the other. When the lie or omission is revealed, they split, and then later reconcile. Message: lying is OK as long as it gets the girl/guy to fall in love with you (the fake you first, then the real you later). In real life this kind of deceit doesn’t end in marriage. Examples: Wedding Crashers, The Lucky One, Failure the Launch, Never Been Kissed, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, etc.
Yes!!! Great point. Your entire list has characters that lied to and manipulated their intended and then scored true love…ugh.
You’re surprised? Just look at the covers of the women’s magazines at the checkout counters including those aimed at teenage girls. Over the years I’ve seen plenty of articles about how to lie to and otherwise manipulate men/boys. Headlines like: “how to wrap him around your finger,” or “get him to say yes,” etc. Very often these include other headlines on the covers about how to use sex, slutty flirting, etc. to get your way too. So these movies are just a reflection of the larger meme aimed at females in our culture.
Not surprised at all, you’re absolutely right. I am disgusted by though.
Unfortunately, the next generation of girls coming up is being indoctrinated by Family Channel classics like “Pretty Little Liars” and “The Secret Life of American Teens”. I am afraid for my sons.
I don’t blame you. That’s what the girls get and all boys get are depicted as incompetent idiots unable to function without a girl telling them what to do, mentally/physically abusing them all the while and the boys are supposed to take it with a smile. Boys get treated in ways in those “kid’s” shows that, if done to girls, would be grounds for arrest.
With all that, girls are being taught to favor violent, narcissistic sociopaths, but then they act surprised when it doesn’t turn out like in the movies and even to blame themselves for doing something wrong.
I don’t have kids and I too fear for the future.
I am immensely impressed by the intelligence, character and authentic patriotism of a very large percentage of young people I meet, so I have faith they will survive the indoctrination and become a great generation…
You should be, but, not because of this pap. This article really lays out how the left is doing their best to destroy the thing that makes women so awesome, and different, from men. http://www.singularity2050.com/the-misandry-bubble/
Just stumbled on this article, and had to point out that you kind of ignore this little thing called history. This guy named Shakespear wrote some plays a few years ago where the entire story is based on a lie or deception (see Much Ado About Nothing, Taming of the Shrew, or The Tempest) to create the tension in the plot.
I know … stunning that people would make stuff up to attempt to entertain people while making stuff up (see definition of ACTING), but hey, it’s been going on for at least the last five hundred years or so. Haven’t read too many of the Greek comedies, but I’m guessing they probably had something similar back then as well.
Mostly Martha, Amelie – Letting people into your life can be rewarding.
Totally agree! Can we add “Dear Frankie” to that?
I second that. “Dear Frankie” should be at the top of the list. Any film that advocates that a mother repeatedly lie to her son by writing fake letters from his father, and lives in a state of frigidness and mistrust of men is the last film that anyone should see.
Come on, Mean Girls was good.
http://www.thewrap.com/movies/column-post/toronto-film-fest-nick-cassevetes-incest-who-gives-damn-love-who-you-want-55581
Let’s see what The Notebook director is up to.
I see, defending incest.
It seems though it is okay to cheat if you are the POTUS.
It is pain, almost like death to have your other half cheat on you, if you love them any way. I guess if you do not really care for them it is alright??
I’m a dude. Mostly I just laugh at chick flicks, because I cannot get emotionally invested in them. To me, they are just hyperbole, caricatures of women, in order to highlight the absurdities.
“Damaging Message: Girls Are Evil, Catty Bitches”
Well, yes, they are. Men fight with fists, women with their tongues. Used to be, men would duke it out over a woman. Women compete for social status to compete for the men. Watch how women critically eye the clothing of other women. Sometimes they say what they are thinking. Their tongues are sharp, then they bring those tongues to their marriage.
Sure, the movie is over-the-top about it, but a kernel of truth is the basis of comedy. What’s really important, though, is that all those chicks on the cover have great legs!
Anyway, this has been around forever. Romance novels are porn for women. Emotional porn. You can be a totally worthless tramp, and you can have the dream guy every girl wants, because, gosh, you’re just so awesome inside, and he’ll totally see you for what you are. Pure fantasy. Chick flicks are the same thing.
Kind of interesting that this article argues that it’s bad for women to think that “clothes and cash” are important, but in another article on this site about the ’50s and ’60s high fashion designer Emilio Federico Schuberth, the author gushes over his legacy, including his mantra that a woman needs to be always elegant and “a la page” (French for “with it,” apparently). This list has some poor flicks, but also some genuinely fun and entertaining movies like “Pretty Woman.” Not sure if I’d give too much credence to any message sent by teen flicks like “Clueless” and “Twilight.”
Should be noted that Rose didn’t like her family or her fiance in the first place. If she did, she wouldn’t have taken the shipwreck as an opportunity to disappear, pretending to be Jack’s widow instead of her real identity.
I hated Titanic overall, but I’ll say I thought the movie made it pretty clear she was looking for a way out from the beginning, which saves the movie a bit from this complaint. On the other hand, in recognizing that she was looking for a way out, it seriously diminishes any faith we have that she feels love for Jack–he could easily just be a ticket out. It’s one reason I never took the movie all that seriously. Aside from the atrocious acting by DiCaprio.
Let’s just admit it: the author of this ‘list’ hates ‘chick flicks.’ OK, it’s a free world, and all.
But when oh when are we going to see an equivalent list of ‘guy flicks’?
It is my theory that people who loudly despise ‘chick flicks’ are really wanting the world to know that they are superior to ‘those women.’ Really, I left ‘feminism’ by the wayside long ago, but this sort of sneer-y list brings it all back.
>>>>>>Let’s just admit it: the author of this ‘list’ hates ‘chick flicks.’ OK, it’s a free world, and all.
But when oh when are we going to see an equivalent list of ‘guy flicks’?
Your wish is my command:
1). Spiderman. In real life, being exposed to incredible amounts of radioactivity / bitten by spiders does NOT give you super powers. Just think of all the poor men who lost their lives doing that because of the movie. Oh wait — there aren’t any, since nobody actually thinks these movies represent reality.
2). “The Godfather” and similar gangster movies (“Goodfellows”, etc.) Being a real-life gangster is far less glorious than movies pretend it to be. Most gangsters are simply low-life thugs. Look at all those people who could have become doctors or engineers and decided to become gangsters instead. Oh wait — there aren’t any, sine nobody actually thinks these movies represent reality.
3). Every Hollywood movie ever made. These movies are known as “fiction”. That is, stuff that people make up, not accurate representations of reality. Trying to do in real life what people do on the screen in movies thus might not work in the same way, esp. if it involves high explosives and/or car chases and/or spaceships and/or magic spells. Therefore, Hollywood must be shunned at all costs lest somebody mistake reality for what’s on the screen. I mean, what other possiblity is there?
Tyhe other possibility is to understand that these things afre STORIES about characters and their struggles in a STORY.
Most of those mentioned here are comedies.
I find it puzzling that they are being treated as fables rather than STORIES about flawed characters.
So let’s look at better STORIES:
Oedipus Rex – main character ends up killing his dad, sleeping with his mum. Glorious!! Yes, for the language; it’s hardly a command to “go thou, and do the same”.
Macbeth – Apparent message: yes, lads, go and kill your king and don’t notice your wife going insane. Oh, the hilarity!! no – it’s a play about the darkness and struggles of characters who have committed dark acts and the playing out of their moral disintegration.
Most of Shakespeare, Flaubert, Balzac, Dostoevsky, Bashevis Singer, Bellow, etc – all those great authors, writing about ordinary people who have flaws and struggles. STORIES. Some comedies, others tragedies.
For heavens’ sake.
I’m not disagreeing with you – I’m just agreeing in different words.
And to the author – if STORIES annoy you so much, I believe there are ample media outlets that feture other types of content.
Go thou, and enjoy them.
Your ridiculous comment makes it clear that you are most likely a typical foaming-at-the-mouth, man-hating, femi-nazi lunatic – with extremely hairy toes to boot, no doubt.
I am sorry but I totally loathe chick flicks, I do not see the appeal, so don’t paint us all with the same brush!
Ok, maybe being the devil’s advocate here but I’m going to take exception to Dirty Dancing in the list. It is still one of my all-time favourite movies and both as a kid and now the love angle was largely a distraction to what attracted me to the film: that a young girl with no self-confidence and largely over-looked could discover a hidden talent and through perseverance and a lot of hard work blossom with it. Sure, the guy was the catalyst but the dancing was for her — the need to prove to herself and to others that she could accomplish something really amazing and the confidence she gained, not from her relationship with the guy, but from achieving her goals in dance. It isn’t the guy who gives her the confidence — if anything for most of the movie, his actions are a damper on that– it is her own growing belief in herself. Getting the guy is just a bonus and you know at the end of the movie that if Johnny disappeared, Baby would be just fine.
Come on, folks… did “Clueless” (for example), an enjoyable *satire* of teen life, “damage” anybody’s life?! Only if someone actually believed it to describe reality — and someone who did THAT probably thinks Harry Potter is real, too.
This article could be titled, “don’t take important life advice from romantic comedies”. You don’t say. But nobody ever expected you to — including the makers of these comedies. They’re entertainment, not instruction.
You don’t understand what informs culture. This culture is more about Gone With The Wind et al to a far far greater extent than is about logic and reason. Let alone true religion. Our values are rotten.
Movies do not represent reality. Who knew?
Apparently NOT the author of this article….
I get the sense from this article that they went into those movies looking for problems to point out, and not to be entertained. Truth is, this is fiction, not reality. Men, for instance, very often are bumbling idiots when it comes to women (the complaint about Hitch). The movie doesn’t suggest all men are–that’s something the author of this article read into it. It’s not actually there.
The same could be said about most of the other complaints. Romantic comedies fit into these complaint structures because *that’s what they are*–they are stories about screwed up, ludicrous characters succeeding in love despite the fact that they are often neurotic messes. If they weren’t womanizers, bumbling idiots, stoner wastrels, sluts, or ditzes, there would be no conflict to overcome and therefore no movie. We laugh at these characters, we don’t idolize them. Someone seems to have missed the boat on what a romantic comedy actually is.
Unfortunately, this article is the equivalent of a chick flick. It tells us that one can write inane columns and find a place on a favorite political site.
an immortal life and spending it all attending high school! That was a friend’s reaction to Twilight. I pointed out that after all that time you’d be sure to get algebra and trigonometry down cold! History would of course get easier and easier as more and more of what was being taught was stuff you had actually lived through…
We suffer from serious disfunction here in the West regarding our romantic world view. The world is not romantic. Life is not romantic. Lust is not love. As a male I took advantage of this deficiency of awareness and logic especially rampant within the female population for decades. I feel guilty over it given my now Christian outlook but I also was somewhat of a victim.
The prevalent zeitgeist allowed a poorly parented boy to extend his adolescence indefinitely. That he ever did develop any character is literally a miracle. However the real victims of the dysfunctional culture are women. It is why so many middle aged women are alone, poor and bitter. When sex is freely distributed without responsibility from either sex there is little reason for men to stay with any one woman in this culture. Men do love variety and its like a drug. The more you take the more you want.
Our silly fairytale psychology regarding human pair bonding is destructive. Add in pure unadulterated materialism ( you may need to look up the full long form definition ), a fat happy and spoiled populace and you have half the reason we are in societal collapse. Maybe 75% of the reason.
“Damaging Message: Girls Are Evil, Catty Bitches”
You mean they’re not?
Dang. All these years…
Someone mentioned Rape of the Soul and i wanted to share what many on this board ans other boards are simply unaware of the massive Hollywood brainwashing. It is not only for money but for social engineering and the rabbit hole goes much deeper then I care to presently dicuss; because my experience has been that once any information that shocks a person’s world view comes into play the assault begins with the messenger.
I leave you all with this book: http://www.amazon.com/Rape-Soul-Michael-A-Calace/dp/B000MLH99C/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1348065538&sr=8-3&keywords=RAPE+OF+THE+SOUL
There are plenty of videos from Fritzspringmeir and others on Mind Control. As my manager calls the Lifetime channel the commie network. Even he does not realize how accurate his assessment happens to be. The entire marketing of Americana is for the decline of the Christian conservative values via Freud and his nephew Bernaise(sp?) Embedded imagry has NOT been eliminated merely spoken that it has to palcate the few right wing ‘nuts’ [/sarcasm]
The destruction of American Christian Conservative values are based on Marixist ideaology and is as sublte as a grain of arsenic in a loaf of bread. Still tastes good but years of ingestion will take its toll.
We see the fuits of how we as a nation are socially imploding, chick flicks being a small player but an important one that contributes to our demise.
There is truly a battle against rulers of darknes, wickedness in high places agiainst power and principalities. If your time allows you can find Esoteric Kitten videos that show Hollywood MKultra techinques, also from Fritz and others and you will see that yes we truly live in a matrix and what we percieve to be real is an illusion. The sad issue for me to deal with is how religious/christians are the most gullible and the most ardent to argue against the possibility of mind kontroll; when we (OSS) brought Josef Mengele here for that very reason. (See Operation Paper Clip and many more)
The chick flicks are but one facet of assault on the soul and yes it is mental rape of one’s very physic. Freud knew what he was talking about and his nephew took it to new levels. From teh first cigarette commercial to embeded imagry on liquire labels to digital imagery. Digital is very effective the reason for teh hurried push for all digital TVs. But that is also a different topic.
Take care keep the the fight of faith…..
In defense of Legally Blonde, Elle is the perfect antidote for the nasty, feminist bra-burning man-hating over-educated bitch. And I’m surprised the movie was even mentioned on this list.
Elle was clearly not dumb and never pretended to be dumb. She just didn’t have very high goals for herself (apparently due to societal and family expectations). As we come to learn through the course of the movie she was very smart, and nice, to boot.
I personally think it’s a great movie and one I identified with as a woman in a man’s field. She showed that a young woman could be a lady, be smart, compassionate, and still get the villain to confess on the stand, Perry-Mason style. All in a pink suit. My daughter and I have watched this movie more times than I can count.
And it has some awesome one-liners!
That was my take. As a previous commenter said, “superficial, but only on the outside.”
I actually didn’t mind “Clueless,” either. On one hand, it was a complete satire of silly, superficial Valley Girl culture. On the other, I think it depicted Cher as a genuinely good person. You don’t have to act serious and wear smart-girl glasses to be good.
The practicing the law is not a man’s field. There are more women in Law School than men because of preferential admission.
I was going to browse this article, but after reading the comments about The Notebook why bother? The point made about so-called cheating is so beside the point in the film as to be laughable. Furthermore, would it have made the story better if the character had stayed with someone she didn’t care one whit about just to satisfy some prudish notion of “loyalty”? I don’t think so.
Beside, engaged, ain’t married! If the character discerned she wasn’t called to marry the guy she’s engaged to, then she damn well better not marry him!
Does anyone remember THE LAKE HOUSE? That has got to be the chick flick to end all chick flicks. My wife rented that DVD and forced me to sit through it. God awful. It also had the most predictable plot I have ever seen. But she loved it.
Re Titanic and love at first sight: Of course you are right, but seriously, we’d have to throw out a large chunk of the world’s great literature (including a lot of Shakespeare) if we write off this plot device. No doubt some people think that love is that easy, but the blame lies with their parents, not movies and books. The worst part of Titanic was not that but rather the silly upstairs-downstairs rich versus poor stuff, also a standard plot device but tiresome.
It’s funny about “love at first sight”: it’s more common than we think. My own father took one look at my mother, fell in love, and asked her to marry him on the first date. She waited 2 weeks before saying, “yes”. And they stayed married for the rest of their long lives.
As for a list of dangerous ‘chick flicks’. I would like to know what the author thinks would be ‘good for’ chicks, good enough to get on a list of ‘good chick flicks.’ I suspect there would be a lot of boring stuff on that list.
I actually hate boring chick flicks. I would much rather see a good action or suspense thriller any day. I guess as a woman that makes me odd.
No, just more desirable.
While not in the blockbuster category, you can’t forget the “must see” chick flick, “Shirley Valentine”.
Synopsis:
Unappreciated middle-aged housewife in midlife crisis convinces her overworked husband that she deserves a solo vacation to Greece. While there, she hooks up with a Greek lothario who seduces her into the best time she’s ever had in her life. When time to head home, she skips her flight, and tells her hubby she won’t be coming home. Husband flies to Greece and pleads with his wife to come home. She realizes that while it was a wonderful dream, she must return. And so goes home with her more appreciative husband and a promise of a changed relationship.
Yeeeccch. Where do I begin? Husband doesn’t have time for her because he is WORKING ALL THE TIME to provide their nice home, things for the family, etc. which gives this woman time to brood on her “injustices”. She’s ready, I mean really ready, to drop all that he’s given her and chase some momentary lust-induced affair, which anyone with a brain sees will go nowhere once the novelty wears off.
Bottom line. Selfish, narcissistic wife doesn’t care who she hurts in her zeal to grasp the last opportunity she sees to have real romance. The husband’s generosity is returned with betrayal. Despite being betrayed, he’s the one who has to grovel. She never apologizes for her infidelity. He spends god knows how many thousands of dollars to keep his marriage together.
If the gender roles were reversed, a male Shirley Valentine would have been a contender for “Jerk of the Decade”. Instead, the character and this movie was lauded with heaps of praise for protraying a woman emancipating herself. I think it was more like reducing a woman to the basest level detested in a man.
Real people don’t scamper off to Greece when they’re feeling out of it. They suck it up and carry on. That takes strength of character. If you want adventure and romance – sorry, you’ll just have to get it with hubs or wifey tagging along. That is, if all those promises you made in church in front of God and everybody, and all those years you’ve striven to make the marriage work, really mean anything to you.
I saw the movie Twilight before I repeat the book. The movie was so awful, I thought, “My God, that was awful. I’ll never get those two hours back. I wonder how badly they butchered the book for it to be this bad.”
So I read the book. Nope, the movie was a perfect representation of a poorly written piece of tripe. I used to say, “Reading is never a waste of time,” until I read Twilight. And Mitt Romney says he likes the series? Urgh, that should tell you something. And no, I don’t think Obama’s favorite books would be any better either.
I haven’t seen all these flicks, but expected to see a mention of Thelma and Louise.
The theme I repeatedly notice is the daddy figure who provides the security and reinforcement needed to make the girl whole. In Dirty Dancing it’s Baby’s father. In Pretty Woman it’s Gere. In Thelma and Louise it’s the well-meaning detective who, alas, doesn’t reach their car in time to prevent their glorious exit.
#7 should replace “joke” with “lie”. It’s hard to find shows that present strong, integrated, emotionally-balanced, masculine, heterosexual male characters. Granted, we all have defects, but why is it all the big screen/ little screen boys and men are either idiots, fiends or absent? Even in coming-of-age flicks like “How to Eat Fried Worms” the tangential female character becomes the conscientious overseer who validates the boy’s actions with her nodding approval? It can’t be the boy growing up on his own; the girl has to approve of it first. It truly is an all-out assault on maleness. But, what do I know, I’m just a guy.
Well now, is it really true that so many women are modelling their behavior on the bad conduct displayed in those silly, vapid movies? What about the soaps and those romance novels? Oh my, the horror of it all. It seems women do need to be restrained in their movement, work, speech and clothing after all. For their own good. No more voting or driving. In public, women need to be covered up from head to toe and have a male relative supervising. Cassy, you are truly a women ahead of the curve. Nice work kid. : )
I always imagine Baby from “Dirty Dancing” spitting on troops returning from Vietnam before she went underground with 0bama’s future friend Bill Ayers to plant bombs in Army washrooms. You know this is where her Daddy issues would take her as the 1960s wore on.
Today, Baby would be a Professor Emeritus of Third World feminist studies with a generous pension.
Gawd, I hate that movie…
I despise chick flicks for the reasons given here, and more. And I’m a chick!
I do have weakness for ‘Titanic’, though. But not because of the “romance”. I just enjoyed the story itself and I liked Rose and even Jack.
Thanks for the critique: Here’s where I stand after reading yours.
10. ditto
9.sorry, I diverge…liked the character, they’re teenagers. They do stupid stuff. After 20 years of teaching, I’ve seen most of what is in the movie.
8.ditto mostly. Girls should have flings before they settle down so that they can retreat into the memories instead of working on their marriages.
7. Again with Hitch, it ends up that the girl is attracted to the guy on his own merits, not on the advice given to him.
6. McGuire, I think you missed the point of the movie, it is about the guy giving up his bachelorhood for something more, the Cuba Gooding character’s center of his life is his family and he is well taken care of by his wife, who has learned the basic lesson about men: if we’re not having sex, make me a sandwich. Do that and I’ll swim through shark-infested waters to bring you lemonade.
5.Mean Girls: again teenagers, a co-worker with teenaged daughters once remarked that girls should be put on an island at 15 and then return to civilization at 21. Every woman agreed with him. Teen girls are terrible, but turn into a pleasure and joy to be around.
4. never saw it
3. ditto, Cameron’s storylines are shallow and dopey, and ruins a perfectly good disaster flick.
2.ditto, I have Evangelical Christian friends who love this flick, I think it sends a dopey message.
1.Haven’t seen it, won’t see it, but if that’s the message, then deep 6 it.
5.
I despise chick flicks and have for decades. I have friends who come over to watch movies and they always want the mushy stuff…I CAN’T TAKE IT!!! Give me a good thriller with a twisty plot any day. The comedies nowadays have the most terrible scripts I don’t know why anyone past 8 years old would find them humorous. Bathroom humor abounds. What happened to talented script writers? And no, I’m not a feminist. I’m married for 40 plus years, still paint my toenails and all that girl stuff, and I hate The Notebook. My movie type: To Kill A Mockingbird, Shawshank Redemption, Alien, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, The Marathon Man…
I’m sure a lot of folks don’t want this discussion to go back to politics but it’s funny that liberals talk about how backwards and callous conservatives are but then these movies represent their concept of love. Although I suppose the Twilight author is a Mormon. But anyway, Hollywood makes these films- cheating in okay, going to hookers is okay, emotional abuse is okay, manipulation of others is okay so long as it is for a laudable goal (i.e. your own satisfaction). I understand that these movies are fantasy but seriously how do they come up with this? Why are these products consumed?
Liberals ALWAYS say that there is too much violence in movies and not enough sex. Well, the negative consequences of violence are routinely shown in movies and the possible negative consequences of sex are NEVER shown. You’ll never see Brigette Jones having to live with an incurable STD or Bella committing suicide because of Edward’s abuse or the character in the Notebook never fully getting over the fact that they were horribly betrayed by a loved one. That’s reality.
The Apostle Paul’s explanation of love is still the best. Compare his explanation to what you see in these movies and ask if these are the same things or something different (i.e. love or lust?)
Titanic repulsed me because the “hero”, the “dashing caring sweet male every girl wants to own” was a cheat, looking out only for his own pleasure. This one should fall into the category of “cheating on your spouse/finance is right and good, IF the guy is (fill in the blank). Dr. Zhivago falls into this same category. I despised how the “good” doctor abused his “friend” by bedding his wife repeatedly. Reminds me of the bible story of how King David took the beauty next door for himself, sending her husband off to the front to be “killed in battle”.. then the prophet came round and told the tale about the king stealing a sheep from a poor man…….
Marital faithfulness (and I include betrothed couples, as is biblically fitting) is devalued in all such flicks, and I despise THAT message more than all others combined. Hollywood, being in the main good marxists, is about tearing down the underpinnings of family stablity as one of the means to destroy society. They’ve been at it a long time, and are not likely to change much. And we continue feeding that monster. When will we stop offering sacrifices to the idols of godless Hollywood? They continue to provide this trash because we continue to ask for it with our dollars.
One of the best movie lines i’ve ever heard is from Urban Cowboy:
“You can’t expect a man like me to be true to one women”. Now that is a real man!
The ONLY film on this list that I hae seen is “Titanic” and, quite frankly, I only rented it to see what the fuss was about. It is, without any room for doubt, the most moronically written film of all time. Your average Ed Wood offering features more believeable plotting and dialogue. I can only speculate as to the wretched awfulness of the other films on this list.
There was an appalling aura of smugness and condescension about the whole Jack/Rose thing. I wanted to scream, “Who are you two idiots to look down on everyone else?” (It’s like James Cameron believed he invented the whole star-crossed-lovers-from-different-worlds schtick) Jack is only there to show how “free and spontaneous” both he and the other Third Class passengers are when compared to the bloated, fat-cat capitalist caricatures in First Class. Rose was that most awful of creatures – The pretentious, “feisty”, “socially conscious” liberal-arts college girl. (I know she wasn’t exactly that in the film but that’s what I kept thinking.) All Billy Zane needed to complete his character was the Snidely Whiplash top hat, cape and twirled moustache. (Let’s not forget about David Warner’s incredibly evil yet also amazingly incompetent henchman.)
The film is a technical marvel and the special effects that render the real-time sinking of the ship are truly awesome. Yet to get to them you have to hack your way through that tiresome modern-day prologue and and all of James Cameron’s obsessions on class warfare. It just isn’t worth it.
James Cameron is a scumbag. Every interview he does, every comment he makes makes me hate him more.
Always thought that they should have released an edited version (no Rose, no Jack)of “Titanic” as a documentary showing all the relevant historical parts concerning the sinking. The special effects were awesome. I would have bought the DVD.
I rented the VHS from blockbuster video way back when, and zapped through all the scenes with kate & leonardo. It still wasn’t that interesting, but yes, the CGI was very good.
Hey, you forgot Bridesmaids! Not sure what the message is, but it’s one of the dumbest movie made.
Mean Girls was pretty accurate in comparison to my awful school experience. I think we go very overboard by saying it’s damaging. It’s just one of the many ways girls can be. If they made a movie where school girls weren’t backstabbing each other, I wouldn’t be able to relate.
Again, I’m seeing nothing wrong with Pretty Woman. If someone is really young and stupid, then they might think this is a normal scenario. Chances are that no man is going to want a relationship with a prostitute, but it could happen. And yes, the prostitute had no class or tact but that doesn’t mean she’s incapable. I don’t think that the money or clothing changed her. I think the money, clothing and better living gave her the opportunity to believe she can be better than she was. Sometimes people keep themselves in a bad living situation with just their attitude and lack of self love.
Oh and I absolutely agree about Twilight. Beyond how he treats her, how she treats herself is sending a wrong message to teenage girls. She tries to kill herself just to get his attention? That’s dangerous. And the idea that he’s going to try and kill himself because she does, well, it’s a story as old as Romeo and Juliet but I’m sure any other guy would just be bummed out and move on. And then the guy that actually treats her well and wants her to have her life gets repeatedly ignored.
“Wuthering Heights”. In the words of the great Florence King, “It’s killed more good women than the cholera.”
Hey, Wuthering Heights ain’t all bad- it’s a side-effect-free treatment for insomnia in men.
I always thought of Titanic is a murder movie as she ignores his ideas so he has to continually worry about saving her instead of saving himself after saving her. This way she gets rid of him permanently.
Agree with most of the list, don’t forget Steel Magnolias, the Julia Roberts character was somewhat weak. Another to be on the lookout, when they make 50 Shades into a movie/series, I cannot imagine why anyone wants to read those.
This has been one of the most thought-provoking, interesting, and polite exchanges of ideas I have seen in a longtime. Bravo!
have read a number of the comments above. some really made me laugh. some were a bit on the foolish side.
some of the movies listed were wastes of film. several i would not waste my money to see after reading the synopsis of them. they portrayed women mainly as vain, brainless, money-grubbing, usually trashy dressing, with no thoughts of sense of worth or true value of others.
the majority of films now seem to denigrate men & women in one way or another – especially morally. if a film lists vampire anywhere on it, i will not read any further, much less go see it.
i like a good comedy movie. hate the filthy language that seems to be the norm in today’s movies, along with the constant sexual innuendos, if not outright sex scenes, even in movies that are supposedly for family audiences.
there was an excellent movie named titanic staring miss barbara stanwyck, which in itself, was a ‘chic flick’, but had redeeming qualities, as did many of the movies of its time period…which the vast majority of movies made in the last 30 years or so do not. many of the posters of now are much too young to remember such movies or do not appreciate b & w films. older movies could steam up a room with a glance, yet a child in the room had no idea of what was going on because they had not been exposed to constant sex on the screen and on tv. cheating spouses got what they deserved – not a pat on the back & an ‘its ok dear’, unless they paid a price first. girls and boys that went bad paid for it one way or another, if not now, they were caught later.
there is lust at first glance, it may last a few days or dates. by then a real attraction may start to develop, but the luster may wear off too. life happens. it takes time for real love to develop.
First a fact. Females select their mates. Anything else is called “RAPE”. What I taught my 3 sons was to watch and see which females were selecting him. Then make your choice and later, when it gets close and comfy, have them get on top. Can’t be convicted of rape if she is bouncing away. That is because signals can be misread and femes are famous for changing their mind.
Second, a shudder of horror. Fluke with a condom? On her Dildo! Boggles the mind. Thang must look like a diseased wombat.
Haji can’t shoot.
Yeah, it’s kinda like how the guys so LOVE their ridiculously impossible action flicks that have no plot, no characters, just a lot of noise.
Difference is, women often refuse to go to action flicks with their boyfriends or husbands, but then force (or try to force) their men to “chick flicks” with the idea that somehow men are going to be “enlightened”. I don’t think any guys believe that “Transformers” has a deep meaning that women should glom onto.
Luckily for me, my gal despises chick flicks, and would rather see “Avengers” than anything with the word “sisterhood” in it.
These are all what I call “really well done BAD MOVIES,” lame messaging in slick, fun-to-watch packaging. Add to the list “True Lies,” where frumpy housewife Jamie Lee Curtis joins her husband Arnold Schwarzenegger in espionage by: getting involved with a loser pretending to be a spy, then pretending to be a prostitute, dressing sexy and doing a pole-dance on a bed post, getting into trouble and being unable to defend herself, and having to be dramatically rescued by her husband in the end.
So, the key to being loved and respected by your husband, and joining him in his work, is to dress like a prostitute and be in every way utterly helpless, clueless and clumsy. Basically a bimbo. That’s a role model for a “strong woman?????” All my friends loved that movie, but I was appalled.
Actually, Wayne and Garth (Mike Myers and Dana Carvey) of “Wayne’s World” fame were saying “as if” long before “Clueless” was even written.
“Message to women everywhere: chick flicks are not real life. You don’t form a deep, meaningful bond in a matter of days.”
If all women understood this, they would never give guys the “I just want to be freinds” speech when a good, decent, nice guy asks them out. They would actually take a chance on the guy and see what happens. And they wonder why they claim that there are no available men out there. Yes there is! They’re in the friend zone, right where you left them!
“The Most Damaging Message of All: If A Guy Treats You Badly, It’s Because He Loves You”
He hit me
And it felt like a kiss
He hit me
And I knew he loved me
- from the Crystals’ “He Hit Me”, produced by feminist icon Phil Spector
“The heroine of Clueless, a teenage girl named Cher, is ditzy, superficial, and shallow. She spends most of the movie butchering the English language, screwing up virtually everything she touches, and ruining relationships left and right.”
Clueless is a remake od Jane Austen’s “Emma”. Jane Austen wrote satires – anyone who thinks “Pride and Prejudice” is a love story hasn’t read it seriously.
Dare I say it? I think this writer chick has wasted her precious time by Bridget Jones’ over analyzing this subject.
Come on–we are missing the obvious! This is an excellent and important topic, and I commend PJ for this article. But it is missing the elephant in the room. THE MOST DAMAGING CHICK FLICK OF ALL TIME IS **MAGIC MIKE**: IT IS UTTER PORNOGRAPHY, mainstreamed to the women of America, peddling a lesson that the aggressve and demeaning objectification of men is a woman’s natural right; that men are sex toys and women entitled to act toward men in ways that society says is absolutley abhorrent when men do it. (One could never even imagine a Magic Monique movie). This female porno movie is the most poisonous ever peddled to women, bar none.
The worst chick flick I have ever seen is Thelma and Louise. The movie is a non-stop women=good/man=bad hatefest.
This list is pretty good altogether but you missed a few points:
“Pretty Woman: Damaging Message: All Women Need Is Clothes and Cash”
Which is why Jason Alexander (the short, bald guy) played her love interest, right? Oh wait, her love interest is filthy rich and played by an actor who was deemed The Sexiest Man Alive (Twice)! The Real Message: All Women Need Is EVERYTHING. Or: Average Guys Need Not Apply (hypergamy). According to this movie, being incredibly handsome and a multi-millionaire is qualifies you for True Love with a streetwalking prostitute. Look no further than 50 Shades of Gray for a more modern example of the archetype.
These movies are chick-crack; modern fairy tales that women can’t resist. The equivalent for males would be “superhero” movies, where the male acquires power, risks his life to save the world and thus proves his worthiness, allowing him to win the heart of the female. The only difference is that boys learn early on that they are never going to be Spider-Man or James Bond. A troubling number of women don’t seem to abandon the Anastasia Steele fantasies until they are into their 30′s and 40′s.