ABSTRACT
Scholarly consideration of popular culture presents special challengesparticularly in those areas that resist easy generic categorization and simultaneously invite the danger of stereotyping. Such challenges certainly arise in any attempt to study chick flicks. If defining the content and audience for chick flicks throws into doubt conventional formulations of genre and potentially reinforces stereotypes of femininity, perhaps we might look to looser ways of approaching the topic. Can we propose instead a spirit and sentiment of chick flicks that can be summed up as success and survival for-and between-soulmates, sisters and girlfriends? And if we do, then what is the place, purpose and meaning of the songs so closely associated with many of these films?
