News
Despite Award Snubs, 'Chick Flicks' Flourish
By Robert Marich
Jan 22, 2010 – The “chick flick” is alive and well in Hollywood, even if they don't get respect, writes Eric Felten in a Wall Street Journal opinion article.
The Golden Globe awards made (500) Days of Summer, It’s Complicated and Julie & Julia best comedy/musical film finalists. But wait a minute! The raunchy guy film The Hangover won in the category.
“If there is a Tinseltown prejudice against chick flicks, it hasn’t put a dent in the number of productions, which just seems to grow and grow,” notes the article, looking past the Golden Globes snub.
Felton calls Avatar a stealth chick flick. “Director James Cameron says that he started out to make ‘a classic guys adventure movie’ but the story ended up being all about women, with such themes as ‘how guys relate to their lovers’ mothers.’”
Helping a trend to production of women-appeal films is that consumers increasingly watch movies alone on DVDs and other TV platforms, whereas in the past the tendency was more to group viewing that mixed genders and thus resulted in less gender specific films.
“Take the surprise hit The Blind Side, which combines a venerable female genre (the tale of a mother's determined struggles on behalf of her ward) with reliably male subject matter (football),” says the article. “I'm surprised it took a smart producer so long after Jerry Maguire to realize that, to reach a broad audience, you can do worse than to craft a gridiron chick flick.”
Film marketing campaigns often highlight romantic subplots to try to grab the female audience, typically in second waves of ads or ads placed in female-skewing media such as women oriented cable channels. “Advertising might pump up a small romantic interlude in an action-adventure film to court the female audience for a film with strong male appeal,” says Marketing to Moviegoers: Second Edition. “For example, Disney gave prominence to the character portrayed by the comely Keira Knightley in the 2004 action period drama King Arthur.”
For full text, click link below:
online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703699204575017090557235652.html
www.marketingmovies.net/news/horror-films-and-the-women-that-love-them/
www.marketingmovies.net/chapters/chapter-1-creative-strategy-for-marketing/