Postmodern Chick Flicks provides the first extensive analysis of the return to the woman's film in the 1990s. Focusing on forms such as the melodrama, romantic comedy and costume and period drama, this timely study examines the way that new female-orientated filmic forms have been influenced by postmodern irony and generic self-consciousness. The book highlights the difference between classical and post-modernist women's forms, considering major shifts in themes and form, for example, the latter's focus on single professional women rather than family and the domestic realm. Postmodern Chick Flicks also draws links between the formal and thematic properties of new female genres and the expansion of popular women's literature - 'chick-lit' - and popular female-orientated television shows, such as Sex in the City and Desperate Housewives.