Welcome to the new golden age of romantic comedies: "The possibility of a happy ending for these characters offers us hope for ourselves."

For years, calling a movie "girly" sounded like a veiled insult. All it took was for a story to revolve around female desire, gossip with friends, and a closet with more shoes than childhood traumas for it to be automatically relegated to the frivolous, inconsequential, and minor corner. But the release of The Materialist , starring the irresistible Dakota Johnson-Pedro Pascal-Chris Evans trio, bursts onto the scene this summer as proof that romantic comedies are experiencing a second (or third) awakening. More irreverent, more self-aware, and more ambitious.

Welcome to the new wave of chick flicks .

"The term itself is a statement of intent. It means, very informally, " girl" or "dick" in Spanish. These are films, series, and books that in many cases have turned out to be genuine commercial phenomena, enjoying a popularity that has lasted for decades , but are generally considered to be of low narrative quality by their target audience," explains Pilar Baradat, FPU predoctoral researcher in Communication at Blanquerna, a center of Ramon Llull University.

The chick flick phenomenon emerged from the so-called chick flick culture, a series of popular cultural events in the late 1990s and early 2000s in the United States and the United Kingdom, particularly focused on young, middle-class women. Baradat, who is developing her doctoral thesis on this topic, points out that " chick flick fiction is one of the clearest manifestations of this cultural trend, but women's magazines, certain types of music, and even some car models created during that time are also part of this culture."

"The biggest problem with automatically classifying this type of content as girly stories is that it essentially devalues the content. This type of content is labeled as if all works that involve emotions or romance automatically have less artistic rigor simply because they're aimed at a predominantly female audience," says Bel Bárez, a teacher and literary content creator on TikTok. " The only thing it reinforces is the idea that this kind of fiction is superficial or trivial, when a lot of this content addresses very deep themes from a more emotional perspective ."

The trivial view of this type of fiction comes from an escapist cinematic perspective, an escape from reality, as opposed to more serious stories. In short: we look for series and films that flatten our brains , that allow us to disconnect from the stress and frenzy of everyday life. They can be Turkish soap operas, the kind that liven up our grandmothers' afternoons, or cheesy romcoms to watch as a couple, like Notting Hill or Love Actually .

" We're in a difficult socioeconomic situation, and historically, whenever this happens, there's a boom in certain genres within the entertainment industry . As happened with screwball comedies after the Great Depression of the 1930s, audiences now also favor fiction with escapist elements, especially in the case of romance," says Berta F. del Castillo, Digital Communications Manager at Freemantle Spain. The cultural journalist and film and series critic also believes that, thanks to the democratization brought about by social media, "it's a much more recommended genre, something that didn't happen when the monopoly on opinion fell to critics who didn't tend to view this type of proposal very highly."

Comfort series, cozy fiction ... there are many Anglo-Saxon terms to define the same thing: audiovisual products with simple plots, empathetic characters, and memorable scenes that serve as a hug on dull days. Del Castillo gives the example of Gilmore Girls : "It premiered more than two decades ago, but many viewers continue to discover and enjoy it today. In this case, escapism is combined with that nostalgic feeling that has made it an annual must-see."

Bárez believes that a large part of the appeal "is the possibility of a happy ending for those characters with whom we feel so identified, which offers us hope for ourselves." So... are we tired of more thoughtful fiction? "On the contrary, many of us continue to enjoy deep and complex stories that make us reflect and leave us thinking about them for a long time. Both styles coexist harmoniously; each contributes different things, and I think that's the key. It's not a question of replacement, but of balance ."

From the popular Sex and the City or Gossip Girl to Emily in Paris , somewhere between social satire and light escapism, chick-lit fiction has also been the subject of constant criticism due to the superficial or stereotypical way in which it portrays women. " They often idealize romantic love and promote models of behavior that do not coincide with the feminist values ​​promoted in previous decades ," says Baradat. "These characteristics are closely related to the context in which they emerged: the rise of post-feminism, a movement that, while it takes up certain elements of feminism, also celebrates traditional femininity and individualism, leaving aside many of the collective struggles of the original movement."

After its golden age, which spanned from the late 1990s to 2007, there was a significant decline in its production. A trend that has reversed in recent years. The reason? Although Hollywood seems obsessed with superheroes and multiverses, streaming platforms like Netflix and Prime Video have long been investing in content that revives the classic romantic comedy, from The Bold Type to The Summer I Fell in Love . Anyone But You , the unexpected box office hit starring Sydney Sweeney in 2023, grossed more than $220 million on a budget ten times smaller. " Its financial success makes clear the popularity that spread like wildfire on social media, especially on TikTok, confirming that there were many viewers willing to consume these types of stories," says Del Castillo.

The key to success: a perfect blend of '90s nostalgia, soft empowerment, beautiful bodies, snappy dialogue, and an aesthetic that turns every shot into a polished Instagram story . But have they changed anything in the last 20 years? "New productions are trying to be more inclusive. I would highlight Bridgerton as a representative of today's escapist romance: even though it's a period story, much of the cast is non-white, something that many of the chick-lit fictions of the past were guilty of. All in all, the central themes, the female protagonists, and the target audience of these series remain similar to what we saw 25 years ago," Baradat concludes.

And fiction written for women (the " for" is important, not always "by ") is nothing new. Literarily, the queen mother of this subgenre was Jane Austen, back in the 18th century . An author who had to use pseudonyms and whose work was disparaged for addressing issues relevant to women. The same thing happened with weepies, melodramas from the last century aimed at a female audience.

Baradat explains that these works use familiar narrative formulas that work repeatedly: "It's common in chick lit books for the main couple to break up in the third act, all so that in the denouement they can create that epic ending in which they reunite and resolve their issues. It's something we anticipate, and yet it works to explain the story."

The push for literary adaptations to revive the industry is also not new. Bridget Jones's Diary , with four installments, and The Devil Wears Prada , with a sequel on the way, are just a few examples of fledgling fiction adaptations of best-selling novels . The latest? My Year at Oxford , Netflix's summer favorite: a sweet amalgam of clichés that turns into a tear-jerker of a drama.

Currently, most book adaptations come from Wattpad—the global platform for reading and writing novels—such as the After series, Culpa Mía , or To All the Boys I've Loved Before . The BookTok boom has also greatly influenced publishers and authors when it comes to selling the rights to turn their work into a blockbuster.

"Many of the stories that have been adapted already had a very large fan base, which has generated a lot of expectation and interest from both audiences who already knew these stories and from new audiences. Streaming platforms have known how to take advantage of their appeal to attract the attention of both teenagers and adults through social media ," says Bárez, who confesses to being an avid reader of this kind of novel.

Del Castillo agrees, emphasizing that platforms need to produce new fiction with a speed that doesn't match traditional television, following a quasi-Fordist logic. Turning to already developed plots with proven success is, for them, a more than succulent proposition: " To this must be added the enthusiasm of fans of the genre in the literary world, a group easily transformed into loyal viewers ."

All that said... are we facing a new golden age of romantic comedies? According to Baradat, the summer release of The Materialist isn't an isolated or irrelevant event, especially given the film's creators. "We're used to the companies behind chick-lit fiction being Hollywood majors or platforms. This one, on the other hand, was distributed by A24, a benchmark in the independent film scene, and directed by none other than Celine Song, director of Past Lives ." With a profile far removed from more commercial cinema, Song has just been announced as the screenwriter for the sequel to Bridesmaids, something that indicates the industry's interest in supporting this type of production with top-tier authors. " We could say that we're facing a possible new era of commercial fiction for women, yes ," the researcher concludes.

For Bárez, however, these kinds of stories have never gone out of style: "It's true that they may have had their moments of greater or lesser visibility, but they've always been present, since people connect deeply with them. The desire to laugh at oneself and at everyday situations is something that enriches us greatly."

This new surge in romance fiction proves that stories for girls —which were never just for girls—remain a privileged window for discussing love, identity, ambition, and desire. With humor. And also with pretty dresses and shoes, why not?