That is a good point. The sopposed gender preferences are steriotyped. A chick-flick has romance, while a man-movie has action. I prefer to imagine that diferent people have different tastes, which are not strictly determined by gender. I have made a post describing women who are into action, like me. You gave the opposite scenario, where men are into romance. I think both scenarios are fine. I love gender subversion anyway. A man can like girly stuff and still be manly. My favorite example is bronies. They are men who like My Little Pony (especially the latest generation), which was sopposed to be for little girls. They make it fine to be a fan of something intended for the opposite sex.
Wow. This trope seems steriotyped big time. It is restrictive for women to be associated only with romance. I am a woman, but my taste differs. I like some romance, but excessive amounts bore me. I like my fair share of action too. The steriotype I identify most with is a nerd. So I really dig the thought-provoking stuff. A great example of breaking the steriotype occured a couple of nights ago. I saw The Avengers at the movie theater. It may be steriotyped as a man-movie, the opposite of a chick-flick. However as a woman, I really enjoyed it. My favorite characters were Loki and Thor, because they are obvious references to Norse Mythology. Yeah they are that old. I was excited about thinking of various versions of supernatural people: superheros, deities, robots, aliens, monsters etc. My mom noted that mythology references are the kind of thing that apeals to geeks.
Saying that the protagonist is female may be a bit too far in defining. A great aversion (maybe a subversion) is the The Hunger Games. As of now, I have only seen the movie. The protagonist, Katniss, is a girl. However the story is mainly based on action and adventure. My favorite characters are Katniss and Peeta. They subvert gender roles without drawing too much attention to it.
Thermonuclear Warrior
This article can't seem to make up its mind about whether it likes chick flicks or hates them, but it does have some mix of strong feelings about them. There's a fair amount of opinion and social commentary in the article that isn't needed.
For example it makes snarky remarks about execs targeting stereotypical women in the first paragraph but then goes on to comment "Heaven forbid a guy should sincerely enjoy such a movie" in the next paragraph. From there it basically gets defensive about the genre as though chick flicks are under serious attack. Chick flicks are as well regarded as pure action flicks, they get about the same amount of eye rolling.
Personally, I don't think there's anything wrong with Chick Flicks, since it's just a movie. They're not my favorite movie genre (I'm more of a fan of comedy, action, and things with lots of explosions), but I like watching one when it's done well. If a guy 'secretly' likes to watch these, it supposedly means he's not 'manly' enough. I know that's just a media portrayl, but since when does one's taste in film determine one's level of masculinity? It's official; the media thinks we're stupid.
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