My Beef With Chick Flicks

Okay... I don't mean to overanalyze books and movies designed primarily for laughs... and I totally have no problem watching one from time to time.. .but I really need to get something off my chest.

I just saw Bride Wars, the new Kate Hudson/Anne Hathaway movie that can join the other pile of chick crap that gets me all flustered sitting in the theater. It had a few LOL moments, but in general--what a waste. I expected it to some degree, but honestly, if I see one more movie that highlights and perpetuates negative female stereotypes, I'm enrolling in film school and making my own.

Bride Wars portrays women as desperate, catty shrews who will kick their best friends to the curb for the sake of clothes, jewelry, status, and men. Sure, the two protagonists kiss and make up in the end, but not after entertaining throngs of moviegoers with plenty of immature bitchiness and psychotic episodes.

Almost every female character in the movie represented a different stereotype, from the woman who hated the fact that her friend would have a "better" wedding than her, to the woman counting on future divorces for more money, to the woman who really DID care that her best friend got the proposal first ("Oh no, seriously I am so happy for you, I'm not upset!" *gulps two pints of Ben & Jerry's.*) Even Kate Hudson's character has to stalk her boyfriend at the office and beg him to propose. These are ADULT women still reveling in middle/high school style drama.

If women are like that in real life (which I assume they are, since something inspires this crap and magazines like Cosmo even write about it), then we need some serious help. The desperation in every character made me paranoid (just for a second) that if I'm not settled and married before age 30, it's all over for me and I will die miserable, ugly, and alone. The only characters I could stand in the whole movie were the men, as they helplessly watched their fiancees lose it while they prepared to pledge their lives to each other.

I don't know why people so enjoy story lines that pit women against each other, but that seems to be the hot commodity these days. Movies like Bride Wars, Clueless, and Sex and the City, reality shows like Top Model and Rock of Love, chick-lit like Shopaholic (sorry Wendz!) and Bergdorf Blondes, and even songs like Beyonce's "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" reduce women to fashion, cat fights, and/or men.

And THEN we wonder why men don't respect us! I certainly don't want a man to reduce me to shoes and a clicking biological clock.

Can't we get some female role models who emphasize something other than Prada and Prince Charming? Women who won't go to extreme lengths to get the bag or the man? Women who develop character, intellect, career, family, and actual mature relationships? Fashion and (unfortunately) petty drama is a part of life too, but the role it has taken in our culture and daily lives concerns me, especially as it weaves its way through popular entertainment, ripe for the next generation of women to emulate.

We need more movies like "Little Women," "Anna and the King", "Contact," or even "Devil Wears Prada." But I guess a strong, smart woman isn't as entertaining as a cat fight between two glamazons.