By Dan Lalande
Chick flicks.
As any movie connoisseur can tell you, that genre’s history is as fractured as a life-releasing egg. In the days of the silent film industry, women played an invaluable role as actors, storytellers, directors and editors. Then, in 1927, came sound. Ironically, this was what muted their voices. A tremendous amount of capital was required to redesign shooting facilities and exhibition houses. Bankers were willing to pony up only as long as one liability was off the books: women, then deemed a financial liability. Desperate for the money, the big studios went about creating a masculine monoculture.
The evidence of that inequality remains onscreen: check out those ol’ black-and-whites on networks like TCM and Tubi. You’ll find but a handful of stories about women, despite such dynamic presences as Katherine Hepburn, Barbara Stanwyck and Joan Crawford. As for comedy, thank God for the saucy Mae West, who could not be cut down to size.
The recalibration that would be the “chic flick” would have to wait … a very long time. It wasn’t until the 1980s, after a long battle by feminist film critics, that female-engineered films about gender-based issues found themselves back on the screen. Looking to make the political digestible, the creatives behind these vehicles erred on the side of comedy. Smart move. They doubled the size of their audience, did big box office and created a vehicle that’s kept female creatives employed ever since.
Many of those pioneers—Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, Sally Field, Diane Keaton and others—now star in a popular subgenre devoted to an issue that glamour-fixated Hollywood has long ignored: aging.
These “silver sisterhood” films include such titles as Book Club(s), Poms and Eighty for Brady. Then, there’s TV’s Grace and Frankie—yes, it’s a two-hander, but it always makes room for seasoned actresses alongside co-producers/stars Fonda and Tomlin.
They’re lighthearted but not insubstantial looks at post-feminist existentialism. The women therein, whether they’re simply sharing wine or going on travel junkets, exchange evolving views on health, family, romance and sex. Battle-scarred Boomers, they walk a tightrope between independence and loneliness; their professional years are behind them, but they maintain a need for purpose; they struggle with sticky definitions of “age-appropriate behaviour” but remain devoted to fun. Small wonder the moral of these ensemble pieces is almost always Thank God we have each other!
They’re a happy, watchable affirmation that the solidarity that spawned the feminist movement not only holds, it’s serving an important new purpose. And while the odd critic feels that these films betray that thinking, emphasizing the mini rivalries that break out within each story, in the end, the bond almost always re-forms.
The films vary in quality but there’s no denying their cultural value. On Netflix, Apple TV, Amazon Prime and the two “Pluses,” Disney and Paramount, female friendship is not only alive and well, but it’s also dramatically demonstrating its value within the final fraction of life’s timeline. In 2013, the animated Frozen broke ground when Prince Charming’s mythologized kiss was replaced by an act of sisterly appreciation. Today, that same appreciation is all over the screen.
Dan Lalande’s book Girls Just Want to Have Funny: Female Film Comedies of the 1980s will be available later in the year.
