Word police? 
Unless some mods chime in, no one here is telling you what words you can and can’t use. People are explaining the connotations of “chick”. What you choose to do with that info is up to you.
This is like applying for a major bank loan wearing a torn dirty tee shirt and a backwards ball cap and then screaming prejudice because you got turned down. Words matter, and their meanings change over time.
Many women are going to make a judgement call about you based on your referring to them as chicks. If you want to be pegged as a proudly retrograde misogynist, then by all means keep using it.
No, it isn’t as bad as some words, it is more faintly demeaning than some I can easily think of, but it now reads as a slur, if a man says it.
I use the term “chick flick” and find it useful in getting my point across. Explaining why I do not want to see a movie without using the term would be difficult/impossible to do in two words.
What even is a chick flick?
Movies I’ve seen described as chick flick:
The Craft
The Devil Wears Prada
The Notebook
Bridget Jones’ Diary
Love, Actually
10 Things I Hate About You
The Princess Diaries
Little Women
Steel Magnolias
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
Clueless
Granted, there’s genre overlap but chick flick covers rom-coms, dramas, and even a little into horror and the main characters span the gamut of ages. If there’s one unifying aspect, it’s maybe that what masculine focus the movie may have is more or less incidental, but even that is debatable.
I’d prefer if you used more than two words because “chick flick” does not clarify for me why a particular movie doesn’t appeal to you.
It’s not inherently offensive. It is used offensively by some people. And some people take offense at any informality regardless of intention. So it’s a judgment call based on context.
Really? Your list seems fine to me. I can’t see how I could clarify beyond “it’s a chick flick” when I haven’t seen the movie.
That explains the lack of cover sheets on your TPS reports.
I’ll just go ahead and make sure you get a copy.
The Craft and Steel Magnolias are movies dealing mainly with love and romance? I just googled the first 4 movies in my list and none of them came out within 2 months of valentine’s day.
Your definition reads like someone coming up with a definition to fit some pre-conceived notions, not one built out of analyses of movies popularly considered chick flicks.
I think the general definition of chickflick would be a movie that women generally like more than men,and the kind of movie a guy might watch only to please his girlfriend or wife, but he personally has no interest in at all. Is that an ironclad definition, no but then there never are.
Good grief. Any movie in which a woman is the protagonist is a “chick flick” and you don’t want to see it?
Do you think that women should assume they don’t want to see any movie in which a man is the protagonist?
Is “rom-com” a better term? I know I’d never sit through a “rom-com”, but I thought “chick-flick” was a better term, including “rom-coms” as well as “period romance” and other genres.
That quote was something I grabbed off google. I’d watch a movie with a woman as protagonist if the movie wasn’t a romance/comedy/etc.
Yeah, like Showgirls.
Ha! I slay myself. There are many movies with female protagonists that I would be happy to watch and that aren’t “chick-flicks” which is a broader category than rom-com, in my opinion. Some examples: Captain Marvel, Alien(s), Silence of the Lambs, The Wizard of Oz, the Blind Side, Erin Brockovich.
My opinion of the work “chick” is that it shouldn’t really be used to describe another woman, even if you’re a woman, even if you don’t personally find it offensive. It’s not nearly as bad as “nigga”, and many black Americans don’t find that offensive when they refer to each other or themselves that way – just listen to many modern hip hop songs. We still wouldn’t want a poster here, black or not, to refer to a movie character as “that nigga with the long hair”.
Again, for emphasis, “chick” is nothing close to “nigga”, but it’s still dismissive of women. I don’t think it should be modded (like “nigga” would likely be), but it doesn’t add anything to a conversation and may offend other posters. Plus, it’s not like I know the sex of every poster on the board – how do I know you’re not a misogynist male pretending to be a woman?
So, what about “chick-flick”? I find that less off-putting than referring to a woman as a chick, but I can’t say that I know why.
And if the presumption is that a “chick flick” is a priori inferior or unworthy, then it speaks to the issue at hand. As Inner Stickler was saying, I believe, some depend on the (pejorative) connotation of the term to suffice, instead of a specific description, such as saying, for example, that the movie is sentimental or formulaic. In other words, there are all kinds of films with women protagonists that aren’t necessarily disagreeable out of hand–unless one believes that by definition they are.
I would note, though, that a compound noun doesn’t necessarily carry the exact same connotations as its elements, and terms can be co-opted (proactively or not), which influences the connotation, (e.g., from pejorative to approving).
Yes, “rom-com” is a better term. It means something reasonably specific, and it doesn’t categorize on the basis of gender. If you want to be more general, you could use “romance”.
And there are all sorts of quotes on Google. That’s the particular one you chose to grab; and you didn’t qualify it when you first posted it. I’m somewhat relieved that you appear to be disagreeing with it now.
Wtf? A “rom-com” is a romantic comedy. A “chick-flick” is a movie that appeals to a female audience. They are not remotely interchangeable even if most people think rom-coms are chick-flicks.
For my purposes, I know what movies I don’t like. I just call them chick flicks because they are at least close to being in that genre. I know them when I see them, but they are rom-coms, “cute” movies, uplifting films, etc. You know, chick flicks.
Though I am male, I recommend Mr. Right with Sam Rockwell and Anna Kendrick.
I think “bro” comes closer than “dude” when used as a descriptor rather than a standin for a name (as in “hey bro” which, like “hey dude”, is more just a casual greeting). When used like in the phrase “Bernie bro”, it implies youth and insignificance, albeit without the connotations of physical weakness that calling someone a newborn chicken conjures.
It’s not a genre. And it is denigrating. There’s a very strong connotation of ‘these are silly movies that only women would like; but they’re not worthy of the attention of a proper Man’.
Dear Diary: TIL that Hidden Figures, Babe,* October Sky*, School of Rock, Cool Runnings, Slumdog Millionaire, Big Fish and *Rocky *are “chick flicks”.
Since those are part of the list of “uplifting films” I just got from Google.
Yes, notorious “chick flick”, that Rocky. Oh, Rudy, too, famously chick-y.