2. Romance Conventions
• Romantic films often explore the essential themes of love at first
sight, young with older love, unrequited love, obsessive love,
spiritual love, forbidden love/romance, platonic love, sexual and
passionate love.
• Romantic films serve as great escapes and fantasies for viewers,
especially if the two people finally overcome their difficulties,
declare their love, and experience life "happily ever after", implied
by a reunion and final kiss.
• The films involve the affectionate romantic involvement of the main
characters and the journey that their genuinely strong, true and pure
romantic love takes them through dating, courtship or marriage.
Romance films make the romantic love story or the search for strong
and pure love and romance the main plot focus.
• Occasionally, romance lovers face obstacles such as finances, physical
illness, various forms of discrimination, psychological restraints or
family that threaten to break their union of love.
3. “Chick Flicks”
• Romance films are generally referred to as chick flicks due to the
general target audience being predominantly females.
• Chick-flick is a slang term for a film genre mainly dealing with love
and romance and designed to appeal to a largely female target
audience. Although many types of films may be directed toward
the female gender, "chick-flick" is typically used only in reference to
films that are heavy with emotion or contain themes that are
relationship-based (although not necessarily romantic as many
other themes may be present).
• Chick-flicks often are released en masse around Valentine's Day.
• Some frequent elements of chick-flicks include having a female
protagonist, thematic use of the colour pink (along with
metaphorical allusions of the colour), and romance and/or dating
based storylines.
4. “Chick Flicks”
• The concept of films designed to appeal specifically to women has
existed since the early days of cinema and has been known by other
colloquial terms, including "women's pictures". Those were generally
critically panned upon their release. However, women's films such as
the 1950s melodramas directed by Douglas Sirk – Imitation of Life and
Made of Honor, for example – are often thought by modern critics as
significantly different in tone and content to modern chick-flicks.
Specifically, critics cite what they see as the ironic and complex
criticisms of American culture in those past films.
• The 1961 film Breakfast at Tiffany's, commonly known as one of the
'classic' films from the golden age of cinema, is sometimes considered as
an early chick-flick due to common elements such as dealing with
loneliness, obsessive materialism, and happy endings.
• While most films that are considered chick-flicks are light-hearted, some
suspense films also fall under this category, e.g. What Lies Beneath.
