Chick Lit and Chick Flicks

s I write this in August, girl books and girl movies are as hot as the summer days — if not quite so steamy. No doubt about it, publishers and filmmakers have identified a profitable audience for confessional-style stories among girls both growing and grown-up, and they’re getting their products out before this trend, too, shall pass. A recent New Yorker cartoon conveys the literati’s snubbing of these works en masse — “Go bother your mother. She’s only reading chick lit” — while the cartoon’s very appearance means the trend can’t be dismissed altogether.

Visits to my two local chain bookstores confirm the prominence of chick lit in the marketplace. In the two featured displays in the Barnes & Noble teen section, the words confession and diary proliferate along with the candy-colored paperback covers. Series books dominate — Gossip Girl, the A-list, Jacqueline Wilson’s Girls quartet, the fifth of the endless Confessions of Georgia Nicolson. A few individual trade books compete for the audience, with similarly provocative titles such as The True Meaning of Cleavage, Confessions of a Not It Girl, and The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things. Most of these rise above the popular series in quality by addressing real-life problems and developing characters, but, with the probable exception of Ann Brashares’s Traveling Pants books, they don’t sell as well.

A large summer reading rack at Borders is likewise filled with bright pink, green, and orange, and here the books for adult and teen readers sit side by side, further blurring the sometimes fuzzy lines between them. The Princess Diaries joins all the series mentioned above along with a slew of adult titles in the same niche: Bridget Jones’s Diary, The Nanny Diaries, Trading Up by Candace Bushnell (author of Sex and the City), The Botox Diaries, The Dirty Girls Social Club.

Teen queens rule at the movies, too. This year saw the theater release of several films aimed at middle and high school girls, including the sugary modern fairy tale A Cinderella Story and the biting comedy Mean Girls (from SNL writer-performer Tina Fey). A display in Borders’s film section proclaims “Girls Rock This Summer” to advertise the DVD release of Ella Enchanted, Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen, and a “Special Edition” of The Princess Diaries (timed for the theater release of Princess Diaries 2) — all books gone Hollywood. There is simply no equivalent phenomenon, or amount of product, for teen and pre-teen boys. What accounts for the current onslaught of girl-ness?

The Chicks
Chick lit seems to be trickling down from its highly popular adult counterpart. The tremendous success of books such as Bridget Jones and Nanny Diaries, which lured teen readers as well as adults, has YA editors swimming in similar properties. Houghton Mifflin editor Eden Edwards tells me that one such manuscript by a pair of twenty-six-year-old, previously unknown writers brought movie interest from seven film companies based solely on the proposed title, “Confessions of a 10th Grade Social Climber,” and a very brief summary — a highly unusual scenario in YA publishing. (The book will be published as The Rise and Fall of a 10th Grade Social Climber in spring 2005.) Edwards also offers a theory on why so many books for teens are mimicking those tell-all novels that focus on intimate relationships, sexy clothes, and hot gossip: “Some of these books are written by young women from a generation that recognizes the power of their sexuality at a much younger age. I think that awareness has been around, but pop culture and the media certainly didn’t encourage earlier generations to act on it, as they do now.” The women on the wildly popular HBO series Sex and the City, for example, serve as sexually aggressive — and sexually demanding — role models as they work their way through a healthy portion of Manhattan men. But are teen heroines ready to go that far?

Junior versions of women’s magazines — CosmoGIRL!, Teen Vogue, Teen People — have features and formulas similar to those in their parent publications. CosmoGIRL! answers “Your Most Private Sex Questions” and offers a pull-out male centerfold (clothed from the waist down). An article titled “Your Secret Power” in the May 2004 issue gives teenage girls a lesson in putting their own erotic energies to work. “It’s the hardest thing to define but the most powerful thing you own: your sexuality. Learn to treasure it and you’ll learn to treasure you.” But the provocative headline gives way to traditional advice that’s more about confidence-building and less about sex; as in most books and movies for teens today, the material is more suggestive than overt. “You’ll understand that your sexuality is a gift that’s not to be given up easily,” counsels the cautious columnist.

Does this “secret power” fuel any of the popular girl series? In what other ways are they influenced by their adult predecessors? And what happens when the books go to the movies?

The Lit
The first single girl to win our hearts by spilling her guts — and dry-brushing her cellulite — was Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones in the late 1990s. By sharing the details of her botched relationships, dead-end job, and failed resolutions to reduce her consumption of alcohol, cigarettes, and calories, she gained our empathy and our trust. Bridget has no more idea than the average middle-school girl how to harness her secret power, but she is a living, messy, sexual being. Fielding’s nimble wit makes Bridget’s diary entries both poignant and gut-clenchingly hilarious.

Shortly thereafter, English author Louise Rennison produced a blatant rip-off for teen readers. Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging: Confessions of Georgia Nicolson appeared in the U.S. two years after Bridget Jones’s Diary. Georgia’s diary mimics Bridget’s from the form to the tone to the lusting after Colin Firth’s Mr. Darcy (from the BBC production of Pride and Prejudice). But while Bridget derives its humor from delicious irreverence, Georgia is generally whiny and often mean.

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants is another obvious adult-to-teen translation, invoking the mystical bonds of women (and girls) made holy in Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. And it’s déjà vu all over again as Cecily von Ziegesar’s Gossip Girl series dishes about sex and the city’s over-privileged, hard-drinking private-school brats. But whereas Carrie Bradshaw observes her friends’ romances to draw some touchy-feely insight for her Sex and the City column, anonymous instigator Gossip Girl posts the down and dirty on her Upper East Side social set, whether truth or juicy rumor. Same characters/different coast populate the A-List novels by Zoey Dean. Like a Gossip Girl refugee, prep-school-perfect Anna Percy heads to L.A. in need of change; by the time her plane lands, Princeton hottie Ben Birnbaum has invited her to the wedding of an “A-List movie star,” where she meets the rulers of Beverly Hills High. The tell-all style of these two teen series (both Little, Brown) also show signs of influence from adult exposés The Nanny Diaries and The Devil Wears Prada, in which the narrators skewer their abusive, self-centered employers. Both are said to be based on experience. Nanny co-authors McLaughlin and Kraus did time caring for the precious offspring of wealthy New Yorkers, and Lauren Weisberger worked for Vogue editor Anna Wintour (who couldn’t possibly be as sadistic as her fictional counterpart, could she?). Since they don’t have bosses, teenagers presumably turn their sights on peers instead.

The teen books have in common with their big sisters some element of wish-fulfillment — being and/or mingling with the rich and beautiful; being or meeting someone famous; getting the guy; getting revenge. Bridget Jones likewise gets her man, but she also has a sweet earnestness lacking in the others, and Fielding’s salute to Jane Austen punches up the commentary on modern social rituals. While we may feel sorry for the naïve narrators of adult books Nanny and Devil as their personal lives are demolished by the jobs from hell, they are not made real enough to earn our empathy; nor is Georgia or any of her teen series peers. Any angst they experience boils down to melodrama, not the thick, gritty stuff of YA realism. But given the sales figures, this serial escapism may be what readers are looking for.

Every one of these titles touches on body image at some point: with humor in Bridget, as she obsesses over pounds and calories but remains virtually the same healthy size; with wicked aim in Devil, as the size 0 fashionistas at Runway magazine dare one another to consume more than a Diet Coke in a fourteen-hour day; with cruel indifference in Gossip Girl, where Blair’s bulimia is just another accessory. Georgia Nicolson worries over a too-large nose but has no pity for an overweight teacher: “Imagine the size of her knickers...you could probably get two duvets out of them.” None of these books takes the issue seriously; readers understand that all the main characters are mostly attractive people despite their superficial complaints. The Botox Diaries, a middle-age lament, takes self-improvement to a new level when suburban divorcee Jess is nearly assaulted by a dermatologist with a collagen needle; but Botox, after all, is only skin deep. “Goddammit, we’ll never be able to replace men. One good kiss from the right guy still makes you more radiant than a year of dermabrasion,” observes Jess’s best friend Lucy (in a voice that could easily belong to the teenage Blair or Anna).

Sexuality is flaunted in many of the books for older teens, but more through innuendo than action. Georgia, the youngest of the bunch, is always in heat but never gets past “snogging” (making out). A-List’s Anna nearly joins the mile-high club after meeting Ben on the plane — but they’re interrupted just in time. One of the characters in Traveling Pants loses her virginity offstage, then immediately regrets it. While sexual posturing is common, the teenage protagonists have yet to see the same action as the tantrically talented women on Sex and the City et al. (though the proudly promiscuous Gossip Girls may be getting close).

The Flicks
The stars are rising for the three young actresses — Anne Hathaway, Lindsay Lohan, and Hilary Duff — who lead most of the recent teen films. Each appears on the cover of at least one major teen magazine this summer, and all are included in Teen People’s “25 Hottest Stars under 25,” where Lohan is dubbed “the next big thing” and Hathaway “the princess next door.” The brief write-ups affirm their success, as well as the aura of youthful innocence that surrounds most of their projects and publicity.

Of the new films based on books (and fairy tales), most are geared to a younger audience and are so squeaky clean we might think filmmakers themselves added a P before the G-rating so that twelve- and thirteen-year-olds wouldn’t be put off. Kissing is the only form of sexual activity, and fathers, on average, are as beloved as first boyfriends. An attempt to analyze a formula for these stories might yield an element of royalty (whether literal or high school variety), a romance with the good guy (and/or father), a notable lack of realism, and the occasional dash of Colin Firth.

In this summer’s A Cinderella Story, the father-daughter romance is the most poignant, showcased in a series of blissful vignettes. Despite his death by earthquake ten minutes into the film, Dad’s doting in the first years of her life helps Sam become the sensible straight-A student she is at eighteen. Long hours busing tables for passive-aggressive stepmother Fiona (played with perfect pitch by Jennifer Coolidge) won’t keep Sam from either Princeton or her prince—once she remembers Dad’s inspirational words. Hilary Duff’s pleasant Valley Cinderella, Sam, will please Lizzie McGuire fans—as well as their younger sibs and parents.

Disney’s 2001 sleeper hit The Princess Diaries (the only one here with a pure G rating) does away with Mia’s father before the movie even begins. In the book, Prince Phillipe of Genovia is a major presence, arriving in New York to announce Mia’s royal birthright and woo her to the crown. The movie Mia, played by Anne Hathaway, has never met her recently deceased dad. Director Garry Marshall takes numerous other liberties as well—New York City becomes San Francisco; the tough, controlling Queen becomes a graciously royal matriarch played by Julie Andrews (we can’t have Mary Poppins playing a bitchy granny). The California setting allows for a fab teen beach party (replacing the Cultural Diversity Dance); and, in a quintessential Disney climax, Mia’s decision to ascend the throne saves her tiny country from the clutches of a couple of Boris-and-Natasha types.

The filmmakers of Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen stick much more closely to the book by Dyan Sheldon. Though clearly a minority opinion on this largely forgotten release, I found this a more enjoyable and better acted film than the successful Princess. Let Garry Marshall pronounce the affable Anne Hathaway the next Julia Roberts; Lindsay Lohan is the better actress for my money. Words that seemed toooo melodramatic on the page of Sheldon’s novel come to life in Lohan’s characterization; she makes this “drama queen” a believably adolescent girl striving for originality. The biggest changes in the film are the addition of musical numbers to showcase Lohan’s singing and dancing talents (not so bad either) and, natch, a slightly more Hollywood ending in which Lola outdoes her witchy high school nemesis. As with Marshall’s transformation of the queen’s character, the filmmakers clean up bits of unpleasantness here, too. In the novel’s centerpiece, Lola and best friend meet their superstar crush Stu Wolff—by following him through New York’s back streets as he pukes up a class-A drinking binge. The movie, too, shows Stu drunk but skips the alleys and vomit; and, in another nod to parental concerns, Lola’s dad follows the girls, assuring their safety in the city at night.

The film translation of Ella Enchanted is easily the most disappointing — because the book is just so good. This time there is more to miss from the original: Ella’s sparkling personality and linguistic skills; her loving, maternal fairy godmother; her gentle friendship and romance with the prince. Anne Hathaway’s generic teen wipes the character blank (I had to wonder if she’d stumbled off the set of Diaries by mistake). The cursed gift of obedience is played for comedy rather than Ella’s pain; each command is followed by a musical “zing” and Hathaway’s ludicrous robotic movements. The true magic of Gail Carson Levine’s book is replaced by slick computer-generated imagery and a watered-down plot; subtlety of characterization gives way to a heartthrob prince — complete with screaming fans — and evil incarnate (the addition of a throne-stealing murderous uncle). The appallingly dated musical finale is almost too much to bear.

Another suddenly-princess film, What a Girl Wants, came and went more quietly but gained a second life on video/DVD. All-American Daphne (played by Nickelodeon’s Amanda Bynes) decides to track down her absent father, English Lord Henry Dashwood. His advisors try to tame the girl’s free-spirit style (yet another royal makeover) as Dashwood struggles between political objectives and personal feelings. Every one of these girls gets what she wants, however, so Dad naturally tosses his illustrious career to be with Daphne in America. Here again the cute boy is a secondary romance; Daphne clearly has yet to transfer her affections from her handsome father, played by . . . Colin Firth. Did filmmakers take cues from Bridget and Georgia to determine the perfect Freudian love object?

The producers of Bridget Jones’s Diary apparently took Fielding’s cue in casting Firth as “top-notch barrister” Mark Darcy, layering the Austen references once further. The film is a charming romantic comedy (with Hugh Grant’s dastardly sex object Cleaver a perfect foil to the upright Darcy) and very funny at times, but lacking the bite of the book. Slapstick replaces wordplay, and Bridget becomes a total nincompoop. She messes up so badly and so often that we begin to wonder why Darcy, or any of us, should even like her. By no means an intellectual giant in the novel, she usually has a witty comeback and at least a mind of her own. Solidarity among women (and one gay man) also features more prominently in the book, where Bridget’s devoted friends further convince us she is lovable; apparently Renée Zellweger’s mere presence is enough to convince moviegoers.

Is dumbing-down the girl a key to a film’s success? Lots of falling seems to be one central ingredient: Bridget off a rowboat; Sam on rollerskates; Mia just about everywhere (I stopped counting after a dozen crashes in the first half hour). Mia’s personal ambitions are also diminished. In the book, her father bribes her into “princess lessons” with large donations to Greenpeace; on screen, grandma (Andrews) lures the girl with a cool convertible. While The Princess Diaries paperback was a New York Times children’s bestseller, Garry Marshall apparently knows that film-viewers want something different — beautiful but klutzy heroines, for one. Big- and small-screen star Hilary Duff works the same formula. In the August Seventeen she says of her audition for “Lizzie McGuire”: “I identified with Lizzie. Lizzie McGuire was me — I was awkward, kind of clumsy.” “But,” adds her big sister Haylie, “hip and happening.” Bingo.

The purity of the princesses is never in doubt — the kisses are sometimes their first. No sexual awakening for these young women, though they are often surrounded by nasty, jealous
bimbos. “A modern ‘tweener-girl movie . . . can’t exist without a bitchy cheerleader,” says a Boston Globe review of A Cinderella Story. But slutty behavior is only suggested, and the bad girls get their comeuppance without inflicting too much damage.

Even Mean Girls (based on Rosalind Wiseman’s adult book Queen Bees and Wannabes: Helping Your Daughter Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boyfriends, and Other Realities of Adolescence), aimed at an older teen audience, is not all that mean. Lindsay Lohan gives another strong performance as new girl Cady, who (following her share of comedic falls) is convinced by two nerdy outsiders to infiltrate the ruling elite. She becomes a somewhat confused double (or triple?) agent when she helps destroy the queen bitch but manages to take her place. Once again, virtue rears its lily-white head: Cady learns an important lesson about friendship from a respected teacher, and she only gets the guy after proving her inner worth. We’ve seen more unapologetic cruelty in teen films in the past (Heathers, Cruel Intentions). Is the wholesome trend a reflection of a conservative climate, or maybe just a need for more niceness?

With sex all over the mainstream media for teens, it’s surprising that mass market books, and even purportedly edgy movies like Mean Girls, have been so hesitant to cross the line. Teen queens in the current popular culture are destined for social success, but they are less empowered in intellectual — and other more primal — pursuits. Perhaps the promising Lohan, growing well beyond her child roles in Parent Trap and Freaky Friday, will bring some new zest to the upcoming film version of Gossip Girl. But will any other girl-book heroine rise to the standard set by Fielding’s Jones? Immersed in the current crop, I find myself pining for Bridget’s fresh flair. Today’s brand of chick lit has its burst of sweetness, but the flavor’s running out.

Lauren Adams teaches children’s and young adult literature at Simmons College and is a Horn Book Magazine reviewer.

From the November/December 2004 issue of The Horn Book Magazine