“I want the fairytale”: A Marxist Interpretation of Narcissistic Representation in Chick-Media

Abstract

“I couldn’t understand a word she was saying, but I felt I had in my possession all the
Italian I’d ever need to know: Dolce, Dolce, Dolce.” - (Sex and the City)
Chick-media, a typically twenty-first century genre is dominated by material obsession and commodity fetishism. Every woman today is exposed to this pop-cultural world of celebrated attachment towards branded goods and destination weddings. The mass-mediated social landscape identifies women based on the worth of their dress and focuses primarily on the amount they spend in beauty parlours and cosmetic surgeries. There is a market that promises Disney-princess life and “Happily ever after” future.
The image of achieved female self is portrayed to be achieved in acquiring a Louis Vuitton and Gucci in this materialistic world. In this chase for Harry Winston does media let women think about Marxism anymore? Is it really late capitalism? Or in this
contemporary realm of self-obsession and narcissism, does Marxism hold water anymore? This paper would try to explore the boundaries set to Marxism by Chickmedia by providing a sweep over Discourses focusing on Devil wears Prada, P.S I love
You and Princess Diaries; television series like Sex and the City and other chick flicks and romantic comedie