The third characteristic of the backlash theory is a desire for traditional femininities which are reviled by feminism. These femininities include domesticity and consumerism.
Ineptitude in the kitchen and homemaking can be considered as a topos of chick lit. A chick lit protagonist typically is a bad cook. Bridget is unable to manage a dinner party for five people. She ends up serving her guests blue soup, fondant potatoes “as hard as a rock”, an omelette which Mark helped make, and a very sticky marmalade (217). In the beginning pages of The Undomestic Goddess Samantha, likewise, does not really know her way around the kitchen. Her first attempt at cooking involves exploding eggs in a microwave, “lumpy brown water” that is being passed off as gravy, and burnt chick peas that look more like “rabbit droppings” than vegetables (122, 124). In the end, Samantha becomes an actual domestic goddess, something which she very much enjoys.
Bridget fantasizes about becoming a domestic goddess and marrying a doctor for whom she cooks soufflés (43). For her dinner party she chooses a difficult menu in order to become known as “a brilliant cook and hostess” (82). According to Smith, it is not the act of cooking per se that is …show more content…
All chick lit protagonists feel the need to buy expensive clothes they often cannot afford, or as Bridget explains: “[they are] obsessed by shopping in a shallow, materialistic way”. Throughout Bridget Jones’s Diary, it is made clear that Bridget desires to go shopping in designer clothing stores such as “Nicole Farhi, Whistles, and Joseph”, which she cannot afford (122). Eventually she ends up buying some items in Marks & Spencer, “all them unsuitable and unflattering”, but “at least [she has] bought something” (122-123). Lisa in Sushi for Beginners, who is on the verge of a depression, which she considers to be a curable weakness since “there was no need to feel bad”, if “you had enough nice shoes”
Ineptitude in the kitchen and homemaking can be considered as a topos of chick lit. A chick lit protagonist typically is a bad cook. Bridget is unable to manage a dinner party for five people. She ends up serving her guests blue soup, fondant potatoes “as hard as a rock”, an omelette which Mark helped make, and a very sticky marmalade (217). In the beginning pages of The Undomestic Goddess Samantha, likewise, does not really know her way around the kitchen. Her first attempt at cooking involves exploding eggs in a microwave, “lumpy brown water” that is being passed off as gravy, and burnt chick peas that look more like “rabbit droppings” than vegetables (122, 124). In the end, Samantha becomes an actual domestic goddess, something which she very much enjoys.
Bridget fantasizes about becoming a domestic goddess and marrying a doctor for whom she cooks soufflés (43). For her dinner party she chooses a difficult menu in order to become known as “a brilliant cook and hostess” (82). According to Smith, it is not the act of cooking per se that is …show more content…
All chick lit protagonists feel the need to buy expensive clothes they often cannot afford, or as Bridget explains: “[they are] obsessed by shopping in a shallow, materialistic way”. Throughout Bridget Jones’s Diary, it is made clear that Bridget desires to go shopping in designer clothing stores such as “Nicole Farhi, Whistles, and Joseph”, which she cannot afford (122). Eventually she ends up buying some items in Marks & Spencer, “all them unsuitable and unflattering”, but “at least [she has] bought something” (122-123). Lisa in Sushi for Beginners, who is on the verge of a depression, which she considers to be a curable weakness since “there was no need to feel bad”, if “you had enough nice shoes”