Cold Open · Essay · sep 18, 2025

Make Chick Flicks Great Again…or Not?

To celebrate the 30th anniversary of Clueless — now back at LAB111 — Kiriko Mechanicus and Tom Ooms revisit the chick flick in all its fizzy, complicated, often underestimated glory. What is a chick flick, exactly? Who decides? And was the genre's disappearance a loss to cinema or a liberation from a label designed to diminish it? Moving through Clueless, Legally Blonde, and a range of cult favourites, they argue about what the genre was really doing when it was at its best — and why it refuses to stay gone.

By Kiriko Mechanicus

Film Journalist · Celebrating Cinema

What ever happened to the chick flick? At the turn of the millennium, this fizzy, unabashedly feminine genre ruled the box office and sleepovers alike, but somewhere along the way, it slipped out of fashion.

To celebrate the 30th anniversary of Clueless, now screening at LAB111, Kiriko Mechanicus and Tom Ooms revisit their favorite titles and try to define what a chick flick really is. From iconic gems to forgotten cult favorites, they explore the pleasures, pitfalls, and cultural baggage of the genre, asking whether we still need chick flicks today, or if they’re better left in the early 2000s with flip phones and frosted lip gloss.

Get tickets to ⁠Clueless⁠ @ LAB111

Subscribe to our podcast