In an age of Chick ____ (fill in the blank) as a marketing gimmick, the New York Times yesterday ran an interesting article on the future of a film genre which, as of late, has not been doing well ticket-wise: think The Holiday with Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet; Catch and Release with Jennifer Garner; 27 Dresses with Katherine Heigl; Music & Lyrics with Drew Barrymore; P.S., I Love You with Hilary Swank. But did they bomb at the box office because people are tired of movies with more feminine themes, or because they were just crap movies? We're leaning toward the latter..

Maybe we're just fortunate to be surrounded by dudes who are so secure in their masculinity that they're psyched to watch When Harry Met Sally on USA while hungover on a Sunday, but by 2008, shouldn't we have all gotten to a place where men can enjoy stories about romance, women can dig action flicks (and porn) and no one's sexual or gender identity has to be mocked or questioned because of it? The Times article didn't think Knocked Up could be considered a chick flick, but why not? It's a movie about the ins and outs of pregnancy, for god's sake. Does the fact that it's got dudes smoking pot in it automatically disqualify it as such? Or is something deemed "chick lit" only if any straight male would rather have a facial than sit through it?

We're torn between embracing the term "chick ____" and tossing it in the bin. On the one hand, what's so bad about female leads and feminine perspectives? And why shouldn't guys be interested in people who make up the majority of the population? A woman's touch is certainly important in fields that have previously been dominated by men: for example, the third annual Feminist Porn Awards were just held last weekend--certainly a good thing.  

On the other hand, we can see how the label marginalizes work (especially with an over-reliance on pink in title designs) that should otherwise just be judged on its artistic merit: Radar recently had a great article which re-envisioned some of the classics with new bubble-gum "chick-lit" covers.

What do you think?