Even before Annaliese Griffin at the Vulture blog detailed why Sex and the City is the female equivalent of superhero movies, a genre mostly appealing to men, a female friend of mine noted the same. It’s apparently an obvious parallel, despite the fact that earlier this summer the supposed gender battle between Iron Man and Made of Honor resulted in the awareness that many women are in fact fond of some superheroes.

Nevertheless, Griffin’s post made me think of the conversation in Sleepless in Seattle in which real-wife married couple Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson discover the connection between An Affair to Remember and The Dirty Dozen. Of course, Hanks’ character was probably joking about crying at the end of the latter film, but he still had a point. There are certain equivalents between specifically female film genres and specifically male film genres, as you can see from the following list:

1. Melodrama (female) = War Film (male) - Already touched on with the aforementioned Sleepless in Seattle scene, there is a correspondence between tearjerking melodramas and gutwrenching war films. Maybe it’s because of the similar focus on death and/or other crippling tragedy. Maybe it’s because the female spectator weeps for her ego ideal, who is often the terminally ill or wronged woman character, and the male character weeps for his ego ideal, who is often the hero that lives yet suffers the experience of viewing the demise of his brothers in arms.
   
2. Dance Film (female) = Martial Arts Film (male) - Much has been written about the connections between dance and martial arts, and it’s an obvious enough equivalence that I don’t need to point to examples. The fact that choreography is a word associated with both should sum it up nicely. Plus, a number of martial artists, such as Jackie Chan, had training in ballet. Just don’t tell any macho guys about all the scholarship written on the homoerotic subtexts of Kung Fu films.
3. Romantic Comedy (female) = Buddy Films (male) - Another parallel that might suggest too much homoerotic subtext. I guess the genre preferences are because women are more interested in finding a mate, while men are more interested in finding a mate (as in Australian for buddy). Just notice how in the 1980s the screwball comedy convention of two people who initially hate each other who eventually fall in love became the structure for male-male buddy cop films. Or just watch His Girl Friday and Wilder’s remake of The Front Page back to back.
4. Musicals (female) = Science Fiction (male) - This one is less obvious and even less valid, but I notice parallels, beginning with the idea that musicals may be associated with opera and a number of science fiction films are called space operas. On top of that, we have the idea of spectacle. For women, it’s the costumes and the set design and the dance numbers. For men, it’s also the costumes (as in alien costumes rather than dresses and such) and special effects.
5. Crime Thrillers (female) = Slasher Films (male) - What may seem too similar to be compared as equivalents, there is a distinct difference that makes one a more female-geared genre and the other a more male-geared genre. Both of them typically feature a female protagonist (at least of late — the thriller genre seemed to become synonymous with Ashley Judd in the ’90s), but thrillers are often centered on her as the main character, while slasher films are more concentrated on the male antagonist (aka the killer or monster). Women are more likely to find enjoyment in the empowerment of the female protagonist in thrillers, while men are more likely to find enjoyment in the sado-masochistic idea of punishing the whore figure while being punished by the virgin figure.