Isn’t It Romantic Genders Grow Even More Disparate As ‘Chick Flicks’ Become A Genre Of The Big Screen

Wifey and Hubby want to take in a movie.

So Wifey says, “Hey, we can just make the 5:30 showing of ‘The English Patient.”’

And Hubby replies, “Give me a break! That’s a chick flick. Isn’t there a guy movie out there we can see? What about ‘Mars Attacks!”’?

Welcome to the troubled world of gender-based moviegoing.

Now, no one at this late date is going to deny that certain differences exist between men and women. And it’s clear that these differences are not just physical but emotional as well.

Even given its obvious exaggerations, the above scenario demonstrates that the differences may be most apparent in the movies that the respective sexes prefer.

Jami Bernard makes a good case for it. In her book “Chick Flicks” (Citadel Press, 240 pages, $16.95 paperback), the author/film critic writes about the movies that women love and the men “who would rather choke on a beer pretzel than go to … yet another sensitive story of a young girl’s coming of age.”

First, Bernard defines a Chick Flick as “any movie that makes a special connection with a female audience.”

From that obvious beginning point, Bernard - just turned 40 and a reviewer for the New York Daily News - insists such a movie boasts qualities that women typically find fascinating: “female stars, familial situations, cute guys, emotional catharsis,” etc.

“Or,” she adds, “it can be defined in reverse by just how far afield it is from a typical Guy Movie.”

In other words, think “The English Patient” vs. “Mars Attacks!”

If you’re still unclear on the difference, consider a specific scene from another typical Chick Flick, Rob Reiner’s “Sleepless in Seattle.” In one of that movie’s funniest scenes, actress Rita Wilson breaks into tears as she explains why women invariably are moved by the film “An Affair to Remember.”

Men, Wilson’s character charges, get the same experience only when watching the suicide mission in “The Dirty Dozen.”

Yeah, so what’s her point?

Seriously, though, this gender split is one that Bernard, the author of three previous film-related books, sees in her own life. During a recent phone interview, Bernard explained the division in terms of the Earth Mother of all Chick Flicks - “Thelma and Louise” - and how that particular movie inspired her to write a book on the whole subject.

“A lot of men who should have liked it because it’s a road movie…got very upset,” she said. “They didn’t know who to identify with. They felt it was male-bashing. So I thought I would look at many of the movies that draw women and why they draw women.” (“Thelma and Louise” male-bashing? What a concept.)

In her book, Bernard studies 75 movies in all. In each resulting essay, she attempts to rate each movie not only in terms of quality, but she also rates each in terms of its attractiveness to women audiences.

Take “The Bridges of Madison County,” for example. Clint Eastwood’s adaption of the Robert James Waller best-seller is irony indeed; here we have one of the deacons of the Guy Movie directing and starring in the ultimate Chick Flick.

“The path not taken fills women with equal measures of anxiety and longing,” Bernard wrote. “Would life have been better with the one that got away? ‘The Bridges of Madison County,’ about a weekend fling that allows an ordinary housewife to experience the best of both worlds, answers that nagging question.”’ Slow, sensitive and heightened by a superb performance by Meryl Streep as a middle-age Italian emigre, “The Bridges of Madison County” features no nudity, no explicit sex and not a single exploding car.

What was Eastwood thinking?

Well, what he was thinking about is not as important as whom he was thinking about. As it turns out, his target was the audience of women who would most appreciate Waller’s tale.

And even though that very audience might want Streep’s character to run off with her new lover, it feels relieved when she doesn’t, Bernard wrote. Why? Because “she is wiser and knows that any relationship that has a chance to achieve blessed everydayness will suffer from it as well.”

Four days of fantasy is enough.

In contrast to Eastwood’s seriousness, consider how humorist, and regular guy, Dave Barry would have directed the movie. “In Barry’s imaginary version, Streep starts the movie by getting naked to look at herself in the mirror,” Bernard wrote. “In scene 2 she is working in the cornfield in a thong bikini when Keanu Reeves pulls up. Barry’s scenario continues, with more sex and other sexual partners.”

Whatever version you choose likely says a lot about your gender.

But not everything. Exploding cars show up even in Chick Flicks. Renny Harlin’s “The Long Kiss Goodnight,” which stars his wife Geena Davis, is a case in point.

“I loved it,” Bernard said on the phone. “I don’t mind that a character is like a cartoon figure. I like action movies, also. But here, at least, the character is a woman, and she has a great sense of humor.”

Bernard saw humor particularly in the fact that Davis’ character is “a housewife only because she forgot she’s a trained assassin. It’s a metaphor for how you have grand dreams but you get detoured and become a housewife in suburbia.”

Hmmmmm, feminist metaphor blended with automatic weapons… maybe all you Wifeys and Hubbies aren’t as divided about movies after all.

Especially when you consider that “The English Patient” features a couple of fairly cool plane crashes.

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