Magic Mike, or, How A Stripper Got His Groove Back

Note: This review would be nothing without images. If you object to HOTNESS, read no further.

Like most Americans, I like to see movies. On a rainy day, I can even sit through two in a row. Unlike many Americans, I tend to seek out movies that have a strong statement to make. Even if I don’t agree with that statement, I still enjoy thinking about what the filmmaker was trying to accomplish and to what degree he or she succeeded. However, that doesn’t mean I ignore all silly blockbusters.

Enter Magic Mike. Or, as everyone under the age of 30 knows it, The Channing Tatum Stripper Movie.

I was pretty excited to see this movie. Channing Tatum’s abs finally got their own screenplay! So I got together a group of my lady friends, and we planned a girl’s night out, complete with cosmos. When the time came, we trooped over to the theatre along with 200+ other women and one distressed-looking husband. From the clinks of bottles hitting the ground, it sounded like several people had brought their cocktails with them. The air was rife with anticipation for the upcoming swoon fest.

Finally the movie began. There was an audible cheer when Tatum’s tush was bared in all its glory. But after that, it was silent.

The thing is, we had all come to the theatre wanting one thing: a stripper movie. Give us some hot guys dancing absurdly well-choreographed dance routines. Stephen Soderbergh however tried to give us something else: a good movie which happened to feature strippers. We wanted an hour and a half of fantasy. He gave us a drama with plot and character development.

Ordinarily, I would celebrate this. But that’s just not what I wanted right then. I had seen Woody Allen’s new movie, the indie favorite Beasts of the Southern Wild and Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom, and now I wanted my guilty pleasure, damnit!

Ironically, Soderbergh did exactly what the big studios DON’T do. He made the movie he wanted to make rather than the movie the audience wanted to see. So not only did he make a movie that stubbornly refused to be a mindless indulgence; he also made a movie made from the male perspective rather than the female perspective.

A key scene which illustrates this gender divide takes place after Channing and the baby stripper he is mentoring take a pair of hot young things out for the night. There is a montage of them dancing, making out, snuggling and (inexplicably) diving off a bridge. So far, so good. I would not mind snuggling with either of these men. But then comes this line from Tatum: “Dude, how pregnant did you get that girl’s mouth?”

Well. Well, well, well.

Women have no pleasure receivers in their mouth. It is not possible for a woman to receive physical sexual pleasure from performing oral sex. A woman who says she enjoys giving blow jobs is one of three types: a) someone who genuinely enjoys giving sexual pleasure to others, b) someone who believes in the give and take of pleasure (i.e. the exchange of oral sex between partners), or c) a ho with poor self esteem and daddy issues. Yet many men seem to have this idea in their head that the world is full of women who just can’t wait to have a dick in their mouth. Living as I do across the street from an afterhours bar, I have been privy to many late-night drunken conversations which support this claim.

I think a lot of women were disappointed in this movie. If I’m going to watch a “realistic” movie about male stripping, I want some consideration of the fact that sleeping with a stripper (male or female) is asking for a STD. Instead, Soderburgh tried to straddle this awkward line between sexy fantasy and hard-core realism. Other than those lovely choreographed dance scenes, this movie did not work.

Does this mean then that sometimes audience satisfaction is more important than an artist’s vision? I think yes—particularly as concerns mainstream movie releases. Movies are the prime expression of the American experience. Sometimes you can get more out of them when the director pays attention to what his audience wants.

Another note: I own nothing. But god I wish I did. And as always, comment away! Channing Tatum wants to know what you think (because he is a sensitive man. . . and a stripper.)

Growing Up Unnatural: Jason Reitman’s Young Adult (2011), Part 3

Finally we have arrived at the conclusion to this three-part review of Jason Reitman’s Young Adult. For those who have already read Parts One and Two, thank you! If you haven’t, you can easily reach them here and here.

Plot Summary: Once Mavis Gary (Charlize Theron) was the prom queen on the arm of the hottest guy in school (Patrick Wilson). Now she is 37, divorced, and childless. The book series for which she is the ghost writer, a ghastly low rent version of Gossip Girl, is about to be cancelled. Her apartment is a pigsty, and her only companion is her tiny dog Dolce. With such a life, it is no surprise that she becomes more than a little upset when she is one of many recipients of a mass email announcing the birth of her high school boyfriend Buddy’s first child with his wife Beth (Elizabeth Reaser). So, ignoring the increasingly urgent phone calls from her editor demanding a draft of the final book in her book series, Mavis returns to her hometown of Mercury, Minnesota, to get back the life and husband that should have been hers. Along the way, she meets another old classmate in the form of Matt Freehauf (Patton Oswalt). Though initially unable to place him, she eventually remembers him as “that hate crime guy”—a reference to an incident during their senior year in which Matt was viciously beaten by a bunch of jocks because they mistakenly thought he was gay. The attack left him with a debilitating limp and a permanently damaged cock. He watches, often with bourbon, neat, in hand, as Mavis’s attempts to seize back her man lead her downward into a bleakly hilarious meltdown.

Everything that has happened in the movie thus far were steps on the way to the climax at the baby’s naming ceremony. Charlize Theron, always a beautiful woman, is truly dressed to impress in this scene. Her outfit is immaculate, as is her hair and accessories. But her lipstick is a little too red, and her eyes seemed glazed. She has already begun to lose touch with reality when she arrives at the party, and when Buddy rejects her for a final time, she is undone.

Her drunken meltdown in front of her friends and family is truly spectacular. Everyone looks at her in horror and embarrassment as she bitterly tells them how she got pregnant by Buddy at 20 only to lose the baby shortly after. “If things had been a little bit more hospitable down south in my broken body,” she says, things would have been different. Everything would have been different for Mavis Gary had she been able to bear Buddy’s child seventeen years ago.

It’s not surprising that she goes to Matt after this disastrous confrontation. I haven’t spent a lot of time analyzing Patton Oswalt’s character in this review. This is really Mavis’ story. But his character is important in that it allows Reitman and Cody to develop their themes. Without Matt, Young Adult is the story of a crazy woman. With him, it is a story about outcasts.

When Mavis comes upon him, he is painting his action figures in his room. Without much being said, we sense that he doesn’t get many visitors in this room. They have a heartbreaking conversation:

MAVIS: I think I’m crazy. No one loves me. You don’t love me.

MATT: Mavis, men like me were born loving women like you.

There is such hopelessness in both of their expressions. They are both broken people, and they know it. So when they make love, it is clearly not out of lust or romantic love. To me, their desire for one another is born out of a deep need for comfort and human contact. They connect as the only two people in the movie who have not moved on to the adult world of marriage and children. It is not surprising that Reitman cuts away from the actual love making to multiple shots of Matt’s toy figurines, looking on with blank expressions.

SPOILER! I was disappointed when Mavis chose to leave Matt behind at the end of the movie but not surprised. Their brief relationship provided a temporary refuge for one another, but there was never any indication they had built a base from which to rebuild their lives. While they lie in bed, Mavis tells him that she needs Buddy because he knew her “at my best”. Matt replies: “You weren’t at your best [in high school]. I saw you every day. You had this mirror inside your locker. You looked at that mirror more than you ever looked at me. And I was at my best.” He’ll never move on from the idea that he was ruined at age seventeen. As for Mavis, she is obviously not capable of the mature love, care, and respect that are necessary for a long term relationship. The very next morning she has resorted back to her old ways of teenage bitchiness.

So what, if anything, does Young Adult say about what it means to be male/female? I’m not looking for a cut and dry answer. Jason Reitman has made a movie here that does not have a clear moral. This is not a cautionary tale, unless you want to say that it warns emotionally damaged alcoholics that they are heading towards an unhappy life. But that shouldn’t come as a shock to anyone.

I would not want to socialize with Mavis Gary, but she is not inhuman. In the middle of her breakdown at the naming ceremony, she says of her miscarriage to Beth, “I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.” When Buddy tells her after her failed seduction at his child’s naming ceremony that she is “better than this”, he’s absolutely right. There is something inside her that is of great value. But she has internalized her own suffering and become warped as a result. Mavis’ wit and humor also make a big difference in how we perceive her. It is so much easier to empathize with a character that we enjoy watching on screen than a bore. Consider Juno McGuff, another one of Diablo Cody’s creations. Juno would have been a much sadder, less enjoyable picture without its titular character’s preternatural wittiness. Mavis may be a “psychotic prom queen bitch”, but she has a ready answer for everyone. She is a damaged person who has not lived up to her potential. And now, as everyone else she knew as a teenager is moving on to adulthood, she has been left behind.

I sincerely enjoyed this movie, and there is so much more I could say about it. But this review has already gone on too long, so I will cut myself off. I encourage anyone who made it this far to do two things. First, see Young Adult. As of June, it was still available at Redbox (for American readers). For everyone else, it is available on iTunes or at Amazon.com. Then, after you’ve watched, come back and tell me what you think. Am I completely wrong about everything? Should I just shut up and enjoy it as a comedy? Tell me tell me!

Get it now on Amazon.com! http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=thbonbepl-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=B007IQX1G4&ref=tf_til&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr

Growing Up Unnatural: Jason Reitman’s Young Adult (2011), Part 2

In this post, we return to the world of Young Adult, directed by Jason Reitman, written by Diablo Cody, and starring Charlize Theron and Patton Oswalt. If you haven’t already done so, I invite you to read Part One! And, of course, if you are so inclined leave a comment.

Plot Summary: Once Mavis Gary (Charlize Theron) was the prom queen on the arm of the hottest guy in school (Patrick Wilson). Now she is 37, divorced, and childless. The book series for which she is the ghost writer, a ghastly low rent version of Gossip Girl, is about to be cancelled. Her apartment is a pigsty, and her only companion is her tiny dog Dolce. With such a life, it is no surprise that she becomes more than a little upset when she is one of many recipients of a mass email announcing the birth of her high school boyfriend Buddy’s first child with his wife Beth (Elizabeth Reaser). So, ignoring the increasingly urgent phone calls from her editor demanding a draft of the final book in her book series, Mavis returns to her hometown of Mercury, Minnesota, to get back the life and husband that should have been hers. Along the way, she meets another old classmate in the form of Matt Freehauf (Patton Oswalt). Though initially unable to place him, she eventually remembers him as “that hate crime guy”—a reference to an incident during their senior year in which Matt was viciously beaten by a bunch of jocks because they mistakenly thought he was gay. The attack left him with a debilitating limp and a permanently damaged cock. He watches, often with bourbon, neat, in hand, as Mavis’s attempts to seize back her man lead her downward into a bleakly hilarious meltdown.

When last we left Mavis Gary, she was heading home to Mercury, Minnesota, to reclaim her former lover from what she sees as a dire fate: being a new father. As she travels, she listens to the mixed tape Buddy made for in high school—appropriately called “Mad Love.” More specifically, she listens to the song “The Concept” on repeat. It’s aural time travel back to the ’90s, when Mavis was queen of the world.

It is in Mercury that we meet the other main character Matt Freehauf (Oswalt). Matt’s as messed up as Mavis, but his injuries are both internal and external. He describes the brutal attack which left him crippled at eighteen:

MATT: When we were seniors, a bunch of jocks who thought I was gay jumped me in the woods and hit me on the legs and the dick with a crowbar. It was national news—I mean, until people found out that I wasn’t really gay. Then it wasn’t a hate crime anymore. It was a fat guy getting his ass beaten.

MAVIS: Didn’t you get to miss a bunch of school?

Patton Oswalt’s sense of timing is essential to his portrayal of Matt. For example, when Mavis bluntly asks whether his dick still works he laughs a little and says “Yeah, it still works. It just kind of. . .” while making a crooked gesture with his arm. Through his body language, Oswalt manages to convey a sardonic resignation tinged with just a touch of self-pity. Of the two characters, he is more sympathetic, if only because his issues aren’t his fault alone.

But like Mavis, he is mired in the past. He has been denied a man’s life: he can’t move properly and (as he says) he’ll be “peeing and cumming sideways” for the rest of his life. So he takes refuge in the things he loved as a teenager. Like Mavis, he continues to listen to music from the ’90s (“Pledge Your Allegiance” by the Suicidal Tendencies is showcased in one scene). His bedroom is filled with dismembered and reassembled toy figures. And yes, I know there are many mature, socially capable men who still take joy in the action figurines of their youth. Also, the fact that Matt distils his own bourbon in the garage is kind of hot. But when viewed in combination with his residence in the basement of his sister’s home—it is implied that it used to be their parents’—the result is a portrait of a person who never moved beyond his high school interests. A significant portion of him is still a child.

Mavis and Matt can’t be adults in the way the others in their hometown are. Matt’s obstacles are physical; Mavis’ are psychological. What makes Young Adult interesting is that Reitman’s and Cody’s depiction of adulthood runs hand in hand with gender roles. This is most clear in the case of Mavis. Almost all the women her age she encounters in Mercury are mothers. Most are wives. Even the sales assistant in Macy’s sidles out of helping her find a dress to win Buddy back because a) she is clearly taken aback by Mavis’ pursuit of a married man and b) she has to pick up her son from school.

To Mavis, being a wife and mother in Mercury is the boring life. She continually presents her life in Minneapolis as cutting edge, and in a certain type of movie it would be the cool option. Big Time Self-Sufficient City Girl Returns to Hometown to Uncover Its Prejudices and Insularity. And it’s true that Mercury is generic. It has franchises instead of original restaurants and shops. In Mavis’ defence, when given a choice of where to drink, she chooses the neighborhood dive bar over the odious Champion O’Malley’s, this movie’s equivalent of Buffalo Wild Wings or Applebee’s.

But as we see in the crucial scene where Mavis is invited into Buddy’s and Beth’s home to meet their infant daughter, the people in Mercury are not generic pushovers. Buddy and Beth Slade have a loving and healthy relationship. When Mavis tries to hurt Beth by telling her she still sleeps in Buddy’s old T-shirts and boxers, Beth just laughs. She can’t be hurt because she is secure in her relationship. Furthermore, she isn’t a small-town housewife. She teaches special needs children how to recognize emotions. Granted, her employment places her once again in the maternal, nurturing role, but unlike Mavis she seems to embrace her job. It is telling that Mavis seems to identify somewhat with the children, who, unless they are taught emotions cognitively, go through life feeling neutral about everything.

The difference between Mavis and Beth is further underlined by the following scene when Mavis and Buddy go to Champion O’Malley’s to see Beth’s band play. The band, Nipple Confusion, is terrible. However they are still cheered on by a supportive crowd of friends and family. And when the first song turns out to be “The Concept” by the ’90s band Teenage Fanclub, Mavis buckles a little bit. But when she tries to rattle Buddy by reminding him that they used to listen to this song during sex, he carelessly shrugs her off.

Buddy and Beth have embraced their roles as “boring” adults, spouses, and parents. Mavis has not, and as a result she is left out in the cold. This scene is also significant in that it shows Beth surrounded by supportive female friends, all of whom watch Mavis suspiciously. Every interaction Mavis has with another woman seems to result in antagonism and one-upmanship. Beth relates to other women as a grown-up; Mavis is still the bitchy high schooler keeping an eye out for petty treacheries.

Mavis’ lack of a support system is further underlined by the succeeding horribly uncomfortable scene at her parents’ house. She bluntly tells them that she believes she is an alcoholic. Given that she has been drinking bourbon, neat, in almost every scene, the audience can only agree. But Mavis’ parents just laugh. When she asks them to take down the prominently displayed picture of her and her ex-husband’s wedding, they laugh again:

MAVIS: Mom, can you please take down that picture of me and Alan?

MOM: Which picture, sweetie?

MAVIS: The wedding photo. We are divorced.

MOM: We just thought it was a nice memory.

MAVIS: Of my failed marriage?!

MOM: Well, the wedding wasn’t a failure. Remember the tiramisu?

You can almost hear the slap across Mavis’ face. Her parents seem to simultaneously not take her seriously and treat her like a failure. So, the question is, have they always treated her this way? It would explain a lot about Mavis if she always felt like she had to put up a shield to mask her deep insecurity due to the lack of connection she has with her parents.

It is easy to feel sorry for Mavis. Yes, she completely crosses the line when she makes a move on a drunken Buddy. Yes, she is an unpleasant person who brings a lot of her troubles done on herself. And yes, it isn’t fair that she can look better at 37 than I do at 24. But she has no support network in her family or friends. In her wedding picture, she looks radiant with joy. But it seems like once the marriage ended (or “failed”) she dropped off everyone’s radar. No one loves Mavis.

Part Three is on its way! As always, please comment!

Growing Up Unnatural: Jason Reitman’s Young Adult (2011), Part One

Plot Summary: Once Mavis Gary (Charlize Theron) was the prom queen on the arm of the hottest guy in school (Patrick Wilson). Now she is 37, divorced, and childless. The book series for which she is the ghost writer, a ghastly low rent version of Gossip Girl, is about to be cancelled. Her apartment is a pigsty, and her only companion is her tiny dog Dolce. With such a life, it is no surprise that she becomes more than a little upset when she is one of many recipients of a mass email announcing the birth of her high school boyfriend Buddy’s first child with his wife Beth (Elizabeth Reaser). So, ignoring the increasingly urgent phone calls from her editor demanding a draft of the final book in the series, Mavis returns to her hometown of Mercury, Minnesota, to get back the life and husband that should have been hers. Along the way, she meets another old classmate in the form of Matt Freehauf (Patton Oswalt). Though initially unable to place him, she eventually remembers him as “that hate crime guy”—a reference to an incident during their senior year in which Matt was viciously beaten by a bunch of jocks because they mistakenly thought he was gay. The attack left him with a debilitating limp and a permanently damaged cock. He watches, often with bourbon, neat, in hand, as Mavis’s attempts to seize back her man lead her downward into a bleakly hilarious meltdown.

It’s June 2012, and we seem to be in the middle of the Year of Charlize. With Snow White and the Huntsman leading the box office for the month of May and Prometheus promising to be a hit, Charlize Theron is the Hollywood It-Girl. Or, at least that’s what Redeye told me. I don’t watch awards shows (except the part where you get to see everyone’s pretty dresses) and have no particular interest in the contents of People, so I will just have to take the word of Chicago’s favorite low-brow daily newspaper.

As excited as I am to see Ms. Theron explode into a flock of ravens, I am more interested in her work that came a breath before the double whammy of Snow White and Prometheus. At the end of 2011, director Jason Reitman and writer Diablo Cody rejoined forces to make Young Adult, a darkly amusing movie about the costs of not fitting in. According to IMDB, its net gross was just over $16 million. Given that its budget was $12 million, this hardly qualifies as a killing for the production company. This was probably an unexpected blow for a lot of people, given that Reitman’s and Cody’s last mutual venture, Juno, had both made a bundle and changed pop culture as we know it. Plus, Young Adult has some big names in it. Besides Academy Award winner Theron, there’s Patrick Wilson (Watchmen, Hard Candy) and Patton Oswalt (Big Fan, TV’s King of Queens, and innumerable stand-up comedy tours). Even Elizabeth Reaser, who plays a small but essential role as Buddy’s wife/mother of his newborn child, was in the Twilight movies (an undeniable mark of fame, if not of taste). And the critics liked it—its certified fresh on Rotten Tomatoes.

So why didn’t Young Adult shoot to the top of the box office charts like Juno? Obviously there could be a lot of reasons. But I think an important reason is that unlike Juno, Young Adult is a difficult movie. Juno is quirky and life-affirming. It features a couple of wonderful actors portraying sympathetic characters. We empathize with everyone on screen, whether it’s the titular Juno McGuff, dealing with “stuff way beyond [her] maturity level” or potential adoptive mother Vanessa Loring, perturbed by the fact that her future child doesn’t react when she presses her hand to Juno’s belly. Young Adult, on the other hand, showcases a shallow bitch doomed to die unloved. It also features excellent actors, but finding a sympathetic edge to these characters is a much more difficult task. At the end of Juno, you want to hug someone. At the end of Young Adult, you want to reassure yourself that as bad as things might get, you will never be as bad as Mavis Gary.

But more importantly, Young Adult is a challenge in a way that Juno never tried to be. It wants us to really think about what it means to fit in at any stage in life. More specifically, it examines how important it is to conform to what other similarly aged people of your gender are doing. And that’s why I believe it is the superior of the two movies.

Young Adult begins with Mavis in the apartment she shares with her yippy dog in Minneapolis. She is passed out in front of the TV. Her apartment is as unkempt as she is. From there we see her morning routine: brush teeth, remove painful adhesive bra from last night, chug a 2-liter diet coke, and play a desultory game on her Wii. All of this she does alone. Even her dog is banished to the balcony.

When she checks her email, there are only advertisements and work communiqués, one of which concerns the impending cancellation of her book series. But the real kicker is the email announcing the birth of Buddy’s and Beth’s daughter. As Mavis reads this, she absentmindedly reaches up and starts to twist her hair. This is no normal twirl around the fingers. Reitman wisely chooses to cut away before we see much of this strange habit, but as is later revealed, she is yanking out her hairs one by one. When the results are seen in a later scene, the distressing nature of this unnatural activity is suggested less by seeing the hairs lined up in a row but rather by the small sound of a single hair being yanked out by the roots.

At this point we are a little over five minutes into the movie, and Reitman and Theron have established Mavis as a solitary woman with deep issues. I am so impressed by the small details in this movie. For example, during Mavis’ dreary morning routines there are two reality TV clips played in the background. In one, Kendra Wilkinson (erstwhile mistress of Hugh Hefner) sobs while describing herself as one of the hottest people in the world. In the other, Kim Kardashian (no introduction necessary) talks about inviting her sister to a party because “who wants to go to a party by themselves?” Obviously this reflects Mavis’ neediness and loneliness. Ironically more is said about Mavis in these five minutes than any reality TV star has ever said about him- or herself during their longwinded “confessions.”

So Mavis, armed with an mixed tape Buddy made for her in high school (appropriately named “Mad Love”), heads back to Mercury. This is where Young Adult begins to really build up steam. Living on her own in Minneapolis, Mavis is just another cat lady in the making. Throw her back into small town Minnesota, and she is a human wrecking ball.

I had originally planned to cover this movie in one post; however it turns out I have a lot more to say about it than I realized. So: this is the end of part one. Part two will be up within the next few days, chock-full of more observations on Mavis Gary’ slide into destruction. Please, if you’ve seen the movie before, let me know what you thought! Or, if you haven’t seen the movie, comment anyway! As someone still new to the blogging community, I welcome all criticism and (if you like) compliments.

To Chick Flick or Not to Chick Flick

What is a chick flick? What is chick lit? Is there a set definition for these two terms, besides being something anti-male? Is calling a film a chick flick (or a novel chick lit) sexist? Over my next few blog posts I want to look at these questions by looking at specific films and books. Other peoples’ opinions will certainly be shanghaied into the equation—including that of my extremely intelligent yet exceedingly manly boyfriend.

Actually, I take that back. The inclusion of my boyfriend’s opinion is dependent upon how drunk I can get him. It’s going to take a lot of booze to get him to watch Twilight.

Oh god. Twilight. We’ll get back to that circus later.

These questions and the subject of chick lit/flicks as a whole have obviously already been looked at before. Denizens of the internet are undoubtedly already aware of Lindsey Ellis’s (aka the Nostalgia Chick) sardonic analysis of multiple Meg Ryan movies. And if there is anyone out there who has somehow missed out on her Nostalgia Chick videos, stop reading right now and go to http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/team-nchick/nostalgia-chick. Pick a video. Watch it. Then come back.

There’s an awful lot I like about Ellis’s analysis. Her take on the break-up scenes between Meg Ryan and the Lesser Man (aka Bill Pullman) in both Sleepless in Seattle and You’ve Got Mail is priceless. After all, what person wouldn’t want their breakup with their pleasant but otherwise unremarkable partner to be entirely lacking in regret or embarrassment? In both of these films (as Ellis points out) the Meg Ryan and the Lesser Man characters are essentially like, “Well, I guess we aren’t meant for each other. Meh. We were only a crucial part of each other’s lives for several years, but hey, it happens.” This uncomplicated breakup then allows the Male Lead and Meg Ryan to fall into each other’s arms guilt-free.

Of course, that isn’t how it happens in real life. I felt more pain breaking up with a jackass I had been seeing for two weeks than the Meg Ryan character felt while breaking up with her good-natured fiancé in Sleepless in Seattle. But compare the Meg Ryan reaction to L.M. Montgomery’s description what Anne Shirley feels after she rejects her first marriage proposal in Anne of the Island (one of the many Anne of Green Gables sequels). This quote is a little long, but I think it deserves to be included in its entirety:

She had had her secret dreams of the first time someone should ask her the great question. And it had, in those dreams, always been very romantic and beautiful. . . whether were Prince Charming to be enraptured with ‘yes’, or one to whom a regretful, beautifully worded, but hopeless refusal must be given. If the latter, the refusal was to be expressed so delicately that it would be next best thing to acceptance, and he would go away, after kissing her hand, assuring her of his unalterable, life-long devotion. And it would always be a beautiful memory, to be proud of and a little sad about, also. (61)

Montgomery’s point is, however, that this isn’t how rejecting someone works. Billy Andrews, Anne’s thwarted would-be lover, is hurt by her rejection, and Anne is hurt not only that her first proposal wasn’t the romantic dream she’d hoped for but also that she had to hurt someone else. Billy is a genial fool, someone with whom the reader could never expect Anne to wind up, but both Montgomery and Anne pay his feelings due deference.

On the other hand, the Sleepless in Seattle/You’ve Got Mail breakup scenes play out exactly as Montgomery’s Anne imagines rejecting her first suitor would occur. The Lesser Man sighs a little, looks one more time into Meg Ryan’s puppy dog eyes, and then moves on, never to be seen again in that particular movie universe.

Both L.M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables series and all of Meg Ryan’s movies are marketed to women. However, their content is clearly different. Despite being oriented around a young woman’s experiences, the Anne books contain some hard truths at their core. Rejection always hurts. It isn’t nearly as good pretending to wear the latest fashions as it is to actually wear them. Money matters. It takes work to have a loving relationship with your significant other. That last truth is particularly interesting when it is compared with what is often presented in “chick flicks.” Destiny as a reason for a relationship is a popular theme.

So. Are both the Anne series and the Meg Ryan movies members of the “chick” genre?

Over the next few posts, I would like to argue that there is a difference between media marketed towards women and “chick” media. The latter, as the female counterpart to “dick” media (and no, I’m not talking about porn) is centered on indulgence whereas the former is focused on female experiences. I’ll leave the Meg Ryan movies alone for the most part; Ellis has more than adequately covered that warhorse in her aforementioned Nostalgia Chick videos. But I do want to look at several different books and movies: Anne of Green Gables, Howl’s Movie Castle (the novel), Young Adult, Leap Year.

And of course. . . Twilight.