Female emporwerment through Hollywood

Feeling a little down recently, I have been doing some soul-searching. I've decided that my real life is OK. I still have the same great friends, have made some new ones and have turned 21 and thereby have had more social opportunities than ever. Classes are easy and grades are good. So what's lacking (besides the easy answer: boyfriend)? Recently, at a particularly horrible movie, I figured it all out.\nAs reviews editor for IDS Weekend, I spend a good deal of my overall time figuring out what's playing, assigning movies to be reviewed, reading the reviews, making sure every "t" is crossed and every "i" is dotted. I even do reviews myself, which means I spend a lot of time trying to think up clever, interesting things to say about whatever movie I have just seen. I spend all this time making sure movies get their due, and what do I get in return from the movies?\nThis year, for whatever reason, the film industry has been putting out one huge disappointment after another. Films like "Wonder Boys," "Pay it Forward," "Autumn in New York" and "The Way of the Gun" have enticed me but ended up leaving me empty-handed. In my opinion, the only really good movies have been the mindlessly entertaining action fare like "X-Men," "The Perfect Storm" and "Charlie's Angels." If that is the most fulfilling thing I am getting at the movies, if that's as deep as movies are willing to go for me, then I am involved in a very unhealthy relationship.\nCase in point: where have all the beloved chick flicks of years past been hiding? The first time I ever really got interested in movies, the first time movies ever touched me, it was because I fell in love with chick flicks.\n"Dirty Dancing" was my first movie obsession, quickly followed by "Girls Just Want to Have Fun."\nThese coming-of-age sagas taught me the good stuff: what a real friend is all about, what first love feels like, what "Tune-In Tokyo" is, not to always accept that your parents are right and, most importantly, not to say dumb things like "I carried a watermelon" to the man of your dreams. Plus, these movies had action, adventure and intrigue brought out by the ultimate chick artform ... Dancing!\nLater, I got into chick flicks which have a little bit more to offer. I wore out my copy of "A League of Their Own." This film touched me deeply, not just because of its messages about feminism and female bonding, but also because it showed me I wasn't the only person in the world dealing with a sisterly inferiority complex.\nMy own sister, much like Geena Davis's character Dottie, was an overshadowing force in my life -- tall, beautiful, stylish and infinitely more popular than I ever was. Kit, the little sister to Geena Davis's bombshell, only came into her own when she stepped away from the shadow of her sickeningly perfect and benevolent oppressor. If I hadn't learned at the early age not to compare myself to my sister, to make my own way through life, I'm not sure I would be able to be her maid of honor in January without throwing up.\nThroughout junior high, I was infatuated with the movies "Fried Green Tomatoes" and "Thelma and Louise." Although the movies are very different indeed, both taught me just about everything I ever needed to know about female empowerment and the adult meaning of friendship. Geena Davis's character in "Thelma" and Kathy Bates and Mary Louise Parker's characters in "Tomatoes" all broke away from tight patriarchal constraints and became free in the most amazing sense of the word. It was the first time I ever realized sexism still exists.\nThe last chick flick, and as far as I'm concerned the best in the world, I was ever amazed by was actually made many years before these others. When I was in high school, I saw "Terms of Endearment," and I was ruined to movies forever. The James L. Brooks Oscar winner is witty, hilarious, destroyingly sad, stylish, timeless, hopelessly realistic and covers every inch of the spectrum including love, family, friendship, marriage, health and wealth. With Shirley MacLaine and Debra Winger at the center, it has two of the strongest and most three-dimensional female characters ever on screen battling it out for power and acceptance. I have seen the movie way more times than I can count, but I never, ever, finish it dry-eyed. This is a movie that treats me right.\nI think I still go to the movies because I have a small glimmer of hope that one day I will discover another movie that made me feel something. I painstakingly search the previews for a glint of some diamond-in-the-rough chick flick but haven't been satisfied for many years. Diane Keaton and Meg Ryan will probably never do it for me, though they will keep trying.\nI just want to put this in print: James L. Brooks, throw us a friggin' bone! Do it again, we like it, we like it! Baby, come back to me.\nIf I'm going to invest myself in movies to this degree, I really need to have a payday like "Terms of Endearment" more than once in a lifetime. But I guess that is what makes it so special. Geez, what a rip-off.