Kyle Daniels had been trying to go out with a girl for about two
weeks.
Finally, they made a plan to go to the movies on a Sunday
afternoon.
Superbowl Sunday afternoon.
This was a little over two years ago. Now a first-year
biochemistry student at UCLA, Daniels remembers it being one of the
few years he didn’t watch the football game.
“I (only) ended up watching the first 10 minutes with her
dad,” Daniels said.
Giving up the rest of the game, Daniels watched “The
Wedding Planner” instead. His favorite movie is
“Gladiator.”
“When I like a chick, I’m willing to do whatever it
is she wants to do,” Daniels said. “There were other
chick flicks out, but that was the newest one.”
It’s Valentine’s Day, and those warm and fuzzy
romantic comedies, known as “chick flicks” are again,
depending on your point of view, threatening to invade or enhance
your date.
“Sociologists of gender have generally shown that girls
are socialized into thinking more about romance than boys, which
might account for greater popularity of these films among girls and
women than boys and men,” said Abigail Saguy, a sociology
professor who specializes in gender studies.
This seems to be the generally accepted belief, as films dealing
with romantic themes, in both comedic and dramatic ways, are
immediately labeled as “chick flicks:” movies only for
girls.
“I don’t know any guy that wants to go see, say,
“˜Maid in Manhattan,'” said Melissa Ponce, a
first-year physiological sciences student.
However differences drawn on such gender lines don’t
always hold. Reviews from “Maid in Manhattan” were
generally split, but little correlation can be found between
reviews and gender. Some male critics liked the film, while some
female critics didn’t.
The same goes for the newest romantic comedy released titled
“How to Lose a Guy in 10 days.” While few critics
overall liked the film, the ones who did were no more likely to be
male than female.
The trend continues outside the professional critical sphere.
Daniels liked “The Wedding Planner.”
“I don’t really like Jennifer Lopez, but it was a
pretty good movie,” Daniels said.
And Ponce admits romantic comedies have their faults.
“Sometimes they’re really corny, and that’s
not OK,” Ponce said.
But according to Saguy the assumed gender gap behind romantic
comedies isn’t as large as society tends to believe.
“Most studies also find that males and females tend to be
more similar than different, but that researchers (and marketers)
tend to reify gender differences,” Saguy said.
Society’s quickness to label romantic comedies as
“chick flicks” is one such classification. Still, many
men do enjoy such films and many women don’t.
“I’m not a guy that’s just into action,”
Daniels said.
And Ponce doesn’t like only the romantic comedy genre.
“On dates I go to better movies,” Ponce said.
“Not those cheese balls.”