What does Chick-Lit Symbolize?
... these rosy colored books is a sharp sense of humor that sheds light on the difficulties of life as a woman. Even though this industry has grossed 71 million dollars in the past year alone, and given birth to publishing houses like Pocket Books, Kensington, and Harlequin (that are dedicated solely to chick lit) not every woman is singing its praises. Ana Weinberg, contributor to Book Magazine, argues the danger of this new sub-genre, “Many of these titles really are trash: trash that imitates other, better books that could have ushered in a new wave of smart, post feminist writing, and trash that threatens to flood the market in women's reading.” Weinberg is quick to exclude Helen Fielding’s “Bridget Jones Diary” from this scathing critique, praising it as novel that, “navigates the terrain of the modern woman’s psyche with sassy aplomb.” It appears that critics are not pooh-poohing the genre all together, but rather wishing it had continued, with integrity, what Helen Fielding had begun. Instead critics lament the displays of glossy, hot pink hard covers, adorned with martini glasses and Manolo Blahniks. Each book shinier then the next, they look like puppies in a pound, hoping their bright colors and blurbs from Entertainment Weekly will draw in unsuspecting readers. Maybe they will even be picked up and turned into a feature film starring Rene Zelwegger or someone similar. Strolling through the aisles of Barnes and Noble, I often find myself in the center of this rainbow colored display. And what seems most unsettling, and what seems to irk so many critics, is the fact that it’s become impossible to tell the chick lit from what I affectionately call, chick literature. There appears to be a trend in publishing in which most books written by a woman for women are being placed in the chick lit category, making it difficult to separate the true works of contemporary women’s fiction from the over-produced, poorly written imposters. After all, how can we judge a book by its cover if they all have the same cover? Helen Fielding’s newest publication, “Olivia Joules and the Overactive Imagination” has a martini glass on its glossy cover, just like its chick-lit counterparts. She is considered the ‘crème of the crop’ in this literary category, but place her book on the shelves and it might get lost in the sea of its copycats. This could be problematic for talented female authors. Weinberg argues, "So what would happen if a young woman did write a sharp, brilliant new novel -- a portrait of the artist as a young woman in the city? Its publishers would wrap it in pink, slap a martini glass on the cover, and get Anna Maxted to blurb it." So what appears to be the problem is that the overwhelming economic success of chick-lit has provoked publishers to churn out as many of these books as possible, hoping they’ll score a best-seller, or even more appealing, a movie deal. This certainly was the case with “Bridget Jones Diary,” which spawned a feature film, a sequel, and several spin-off books. Cameron Diaz is said to star in chick lit author, Jennifer Weiner’s “In her Shoes,” and Lindsay Lohan is considering a script for the newly popular, “Berghadorf Brides.” So we can see that this genre is perhaps the most commercial category in publishing. It is no wonder that so many books are being pigeon-holed and marketed as chick-lit in hopes of benefiting from the economic boom. And it is no wonder that we...