Brouhaha Rhythm
I Wish I Knew How to Quit Chick Flicks
People have declared for ages that, for a man to be a proper boyfriend, he has to be willing to watch an occasional chick flick with his significant other from time to time. As a point of policy, I’ve responded by proclaiming how wonderful it is to be dating a woman who doesn’t even like chick flicks, thereby negating the cookie-cutter advice. Yet I’ve recently come to the horrifying realization that I may be gravitating more towards the genre than I thought I would.
True, I haven’t fallen into full blown addiction, but when I’m trying to describe “When Harry Met Sally” to my friends and find myself trying to rationalize it as only “chick flick-ish,” it becomes increasingly apparent that I have some self evaluation to do.
Let me make this abundantly clear: I do not consider myself a fan of chick flicks. I got excited over the “Iron Man” trailer and enjoy watching action films, with or without River Tam beating up everyone. I’ve never seen “The Notebook,” a fact to which I continue to cling to as reassurance that I still possess a modicum of machismo (well, maybe not quite a modicum, more like an iota, really). I still believe that “Titanic” didn’t deserve Best Picture, although the fact that I thought “As Good As It Gets” should’ve won instead, doesn’t do much for my case.
On the flip side, I’m not exactly what you might call “stoic,” either. I paid money for the “Music and Lyrics” soundtrack, and the presence of Hugh Grant alone seems to classify the film as a chick flick. I really liked the movie “Waitress,” although I mostly watched it to gauge Nathan Fillion’s acting when occupying a role that didn’t require him to wear tight pants. I even cried a little when I saw “Moulin Rouge,” although I suppose a movie with as many women-dancing-in-unmentionables scenes as that movie did doesn’t necessarily count as a chick flick.
So with all of that evidence to be reconciled, where does that leave me? I mean, I feel secure enough that if I decide that chick flicks officially fall among the types of movies I like, I can say so. At the same time, though, it seems almost hypocritical of me to parade around my non-chick-flick-fan girlfriend as evidence that I should be envied by all who are dragged to chick flicks, and then force her to be the one who has to bow her head in shame and admit that she gets dragged to chick flicks. Just doesn’t seem fair, does it?
Now that I really think about it, I may be getting ahead of myself. Clichéd film moments still nauseate me to no end, even in action films. I spent something like six months arguing and debating the cinematic merits of “Alien Versus Predator,” of all things. And throughout my childhood, I studied like a monk from the Jackie Chan school of fake martial arts. So maybe there is hope for recovery, after all, almost as much as there is hope that I don’t have a problem at all. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go watch copious amounts of sci-fi. Nothing salves the sting of chick flicks like out-of-this-universe hijinks.