Look at Tom Hanks! He’s being all sensible with his mac and brolly, whilst you couples are going down the whole ‘love will keep us warm’ route. It won’t, and you will die of flu-based deaths, but that’s all part and parcel of the chick flick. In chick flick world, people live in Nora Ephron’s idea of a house, which means 80,000 square feet of open plan kitchen and rugs made out of dead river-mice. They have a job whose income is entirely disproportionate to their means of living (wedding planner, dog walker), a gay friend, and a pet that doesn’t shed hair. Relationships are also woven out of myth and lore; people chase each other down in taxis instead of having a conversation like a normal person, “I love you’s” are exchanged within three minutes of meeting, and NO-ONE EVER WRAPS IT UP. You know what I mean.

Jerry Bruckheimer said chick flick plots revolve around the dilemma: ‘how do you cope with money and love?” which is probably the most intelligent thing he’s ever said or done. And that’s why I hate chick flicks. Because they make me agree with Jerry Bruckheimer.

I shop, therefore I am

as seen in The Devil Wears Prada, Pretty Woman, Confessions of a Shopaholic, Clueless, The Women

Another chick flick, another montage-based activity. Confessions of a Shopaholic had the gall to release a film about a woman that can’t stop shopping IN THE MIDDLE OF A WORLDWIDE RECESSION, which is insensitive, but full of chutzpah. Julia Roberts can apparently leave the horror of being a streetwalker behind by buying a fancy hat, and The Women can assuage their adulterous guilt with Chanel No. 5. I’ve thought of a film; it’s going to be called Recessionista, and it’ll be Kathy Bates licking spaghetti-o’s off her shirt because they just laid off 300 people at her local factory and she can’t afford food. Fun!

Give me my gender-biased clothesstuffs!

As seen in Mean Girls, Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen, Marie Antoinette, Pretty in Pink, Wild Child

Here we have one example of pink used as irony in Tina Fey’s Mean Girls. The mum is a crazy old soak trying to reappropriate notions of the young feminine, mostly by getting a boob job and wearing a lot of pink. Such is the genius of Tina Fey. The others, sadly are less knowing. Molly Ringwald can’t go to a priest’s funeral without bunging on a shapeless pink sack, and Wild Child displays an impressive range of rose-hued clothing for a film that suppresses any sort of reasonable plot.

Why Audrey, you’re beautiful!

As seen in My Fair Lady, Miss Congeniality, She’s All That

The makeover is a fall-back for the chick flick, and introduced the dangerous myth that taking off the dungarees and putting a bit of mascara on will guarantee that boys will flock to you like white on rice. You can understand why its so alluring to film makers, though (can we call the person who made Wild Child a film maker?) Got a spare 20 minutes which could be filled with a montage to the sounds of Texas? Shove in a beauty transformation. It doesn’t matter if your original subject is classically beautiful – just shove a pair of glasses on her (and a ponytail! Always a ponytail!) and watch the magic happen.

Stumbling = always cute

As seen in Bride Wars, Bridget Jones Diary, The Wedding Planner, Four Weddings and a Funeral, 27 Dresses

Ugh, i just realized 4/5 of those examples had plot lines solely centred around weddings. Rising bile aside, all these films contain the distinct untruth that being a twit is indelibly cute and endearing. The girls in chick flicks are almost always neurotic. They trip and stumble. They’re scatter-brained. Not to say that’s not true; once I tried to drive to London and ended up in Didcot Parkway – but I know there are millions out there more eminently sensible than I. Why can’t everything be like the bit in Pride & Prejudice where Charlotte Lucas marries Mr Collins because she’s over the hill and may as well settle? Now that’s real. Not the foppish, goggle-wearing Grant getting movie star Julia Roberts.