Chick Flick

I’m not subjected to chick flicks much. My wife is a perfectly sensible person, and is not in need of much “Sisters Gettin Their Groove Of The Ya Ya Yanni Ripped Bodice You’ve Got E-Mail You’ve Got She-Male Altar of Andie MacDowell A River And A Spotted Liver Runs Through It.” She’s not much interested in westerns either, whether they’re of the John Wayne variety or the more recent cuddlin’ cowboys. Thank the lord.

But then again, she’s not all that interested in watching “Lawrence of Arabia” or “The Godfather” over and over again either. Chicks are like that. I guess. What the hell do I know about it?

But if I had to point out a chick flick, and say convincingly it’s both good and estrogeny, could I do it? No fair saying “Groundhog Day.” Everybody likes that one. It’s like saying your favorite book is the Bible during a presidential debate. Yeah, sure it is. I bet you read it when you’re in the bathroom and at the beach, too. Yeah, guys like “Groundhog Day” too, but all in all, we’d rather watch Sonny Corleone hit his brother-in-law with a garbage can lid. Again.

OK, so you hold a gun– or perhaps, a curling iron –to my head: pick a chick flick that’s good and chicks like.

That’s easy. “To Sir, With Love”. And the music’s good too:

You can make a lot of money making bar bets about who sang that one. Take action all night long on Petula Clark and Shirley Bassey, and then clean up when you tell them it’s Lulu. It’s the best kind of trivia question, too; everyone has a guess, and everyone that guesses wrong says: “Of course!” when you reveal the answer, not: “Who?”

Why is “To Sir, With Love” a chick movie you ought to watch, especially if you’re a chick? Because it’s about becoming a woman,and doing so by shedding all the infantile delusions young girls have about being an adult, and really being one. Let’s face it, if this movie was made today, the teenage girl Judy Geeson played would blossom as a woman by sleeping with the teacher, that handsome Sidney Poitier. That’s icky all around, and forty years ago, they knew that. Do you think you’d find this quote in a movie today:

“I am tired of your impudence, rough behavior, and sluttish manner. There are certain things a decent woman keeps private. If you must play these disgusting games, DO THEM IN YOUR OWN HOME AND NOT IN MY CLASSROOM!”

It’s important that people barely grown don’t think they’re being adults by doing adult things in a childish way. Why chicks put up with movie after movie of old men trying to cadge one last blast of jerky adolescence out of the world at young girls’ expense, like vampires, and watching young women submit to such indignities as an entre to adult society, is beyond me. I don’t much care for the obverse of that seedy coin either– old broads trying to find one last landscaper to sleep with them before they swap the G string for Depends. Double ick.

Back when they made this movie, people could still write sophisticated lyrics with a sort of narrative in them– neither a sermon nor a simple exhortation to nihilism — and people still knew how to sing them. And as you watch little Lulu belt it out, you can hear her gratitude and admiration for the man that allowed her to be an adolescent while coaxing her into being a real, adult, woman. A woman person.

Yeah; it’s a chick flick. Chicks are people too, ain’t they?