David Spates "Therefore I Am" Published June 25, 2002

Chick flick or manly movie?
You decide

Guys, how many times have you been dragged kicking and screaming to a chick flick? Maybe it's your wife's or girlfriend's (or maybe both -- uh-oh!) birthday. You get dressed up for a decent dinner at a restaurant where they don't use paper napkins. After dining, she directs you to the local 10-screen Googolplex. Only after the 14th coming attraction, your popcorn tub down to nothing but unpopped seeds, do you realize in horror that you've been shanghaied to Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood.

I feel your pain. Truly I do. It cuts both ways, however. You women suffer through more than your fair share of manly movies. I hear many ladies gripe about how their husbands or boyfriends (maybe both -- double uh-oh!) insist on taking them to dopey movies featuring lots of gasoline explosions, a demonically possessed hovercraft or, worst of all, Jackie Chan.

There's no denying the marketing strategy. Filmmakers create films with certain demographics in mind. There's no way to make a movie everyone will love, so the studios target fairly specifics groups of people, and one of the most common distinctions is gender.

Exhibit A, please. I'd like to present a magazine advertisement culled from a recent issue of Sports Illustrated. You don't get much more manly than SI. Only guys will read about a game that happened nine days ago. The ad is for the Columbia House DVD Club. It's the one where you get four movies for 49 cents each and then spend the next four years of your life mailing back cards stating that you don't want the "featured selection" for $24.95 plus $7.95 shipping and handling, particularly since you can buy the exact same movie at your local mart for $17.95 plus tax.

Now, Exhibit B, please. I hold an advertisement from the same company, but this one was published in a magazine dripping with estrogen, Redbook. (By the way, guys, if you haven't flipped through a woman's magazine like Redbook or Cosmo in a while, you'll be amazed at what they're reading. And guys thought WE were preoccupied with sex?) I'd like to conduct a quiz. With these two ads for the same DVD club pulled from two very different magazines, I'm going to name a movie. You guess in which magazine's ad the movie is featured. Got it?

The first one is The Fast and the Furious. Right. That was an easy one. It came from SI. It's the epitome of a manly movie -- fast cars, fast women, lots of horsepower, probably no discernible storyline whatsoever.

Movie No. 2 is Steel Magnolias. Again, that's an easy one. I'm starting slow to get you in the groove. Of course it came from the Redbook ad. Like The Fast and the Furious, I've never seen Steel Magnolias, but I know a chick flick (or a stupid manly movie) when I don't see it. Although Steel Magnolias is obviously a chick flick, it must have some redeeming qualities. My wife stops channel surfing the moment she comes to it, and she has pretty good taste in movies. By the time the credits roll, she's openly weeping. I don't really know why. I think maybe someone dies at the end.

No. 3: Jurassic Park III. You guessed it, SI. Who needs a plot? Computer-generated monsters will attract more guys than a 6-foot hoagie.

No. 4: Braveheart. SI? Redbook? Tough one. I threw you a curveball. Braveheart is in both ads. Guys dig the cool battle scenes. Girls like Mel in a skirt, plus he carries a serious torch for his murdered wife. Braveheart has a little something for everyone.

No. 5: Pretty Woman. Let's see, Richard Gere throws around lots of money, and Julia Roberts is a street-walker who gets whisked away by her knight in shining armor. Not really a tough call, is it? You'll find this chick flick featured in the Redbook ad.

No. 6: Titanic. It's Redbook, but most guys will sit through it again. It's a chick flick, but just barely.

No. 7: Rush Hour. Duh.

No. 8: Shakespeare in Love. Duh again.

No. 9: The Gladiator. Hmmm. Another dome-scratcher. The answer? It's in both SI and Redbook. Why? It's for the same exact reasons as Braveheart, right down to the battle scenes, the skirt and the serious torch for the murdered wife. Russell and Mel are practically interchangeable in these two movies.

And finally movie No. 10: Top Gun. Ouch, another difficult one. On the one hand, there are lots of battle sequences with huge over-compensating war machines the likes of which would have made even Freud roll his eyes. Combine that with a hook-laden soundtrack and lots of masculine combat banter, and you've got the makings of a real manly movie. On the other hand, we have chick-magnet Tom Cruise falling all over himself in pursuit of Kelly McGillis. Which magazine? Top Gun shows up in the Redbook ad. It probably was a close call, but I think the scene in which Tom and Val Kilmer are seemingly steadily spritzed in baby oil while playing sand volleyball nudged Top Gun toward the Redbook crowd.

What was your score? Is it a manly movie or chick flick? Sometimes it can be tough to tell. When in doubt, check the cover of the magazine.

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David Spates is a Knoxville resident and Crossville Chronicle contributor whose column is published each Tuesday. He can be reached at davespates@chartertn.net.