The genre 'Romantic-Comedy' or 'chick flick' is made specifically by targeting the female audience. The codes and conventions used in this genre are particularly the kind that women relate to or are attracted to. Such codes and conventions do not appeal to the male audience, which is why movies of this genre do not have males as their target audience.
Since females are seen as sensitive and emotional, and often as believing in fantasies, the romantic-comedy genre explores the feelings of love, friendship, longing and dreams, compiled together through good-humored and cheerful stories which ultimately lead to a happy ending. This genre is meant to create a feel of joy and providing enjoyment at the same time. Such movies do not have stories of anguish and woe, as then the movie would become gloomy and dismal, which is not the purpose of this genre. The Romantic-comedy genre is also sometimes linked with the 'teen drama' genre, where the plot revolves around the lives of teenagers. In such films, the teenagers are shown going through problems such as, learning to grow up, being socially accepted, peer pressure, rebelling against parents and rules, feelings of estrangement and achieving self-actualization. These plot-lines have been made exclusively to be able to relate to the teen audience, since every teen goes through some problem or the other in this time of growing up and making mistakes in the process. However, teen films do not always have the same light-hearted plots that romantic-comedy films have.
My film can take shape of both these genres, discussing teen issues in a light and fun manner.
This genre will mostly always have a female as the protagonist. The codes and conventions of this genre are usually the same in every film. If the plot revolves around teenagers, then the setting will generally be a high school.
The setting of a high school will usually have the following elements: different social groups (nerds, popular crowd, outcasts, etc). If the protagonist is a teenager in school, they will probably be the social outcast, and will not be accepted into the 'popular' crowd because of being different, (and will have limited amount of friends) and the storyline would talk about how the protagonist tries to be socially accepted. In such a scenario, other codes and conventions would include the dashing male,(who the protagonist ends up with in the end) the rich, beautiful, popular and snobby girl who all the girls hated and all the boys liked, (usually the antagonist who tries to ruin the protagonist's life) and the climax where the protagonist realizes that material things don't matter in life, becoming a better person in the process.
However, sometimes the plot revolves around how the teenager uses lies to fit in with the 'popular' crowd, where they start to lose their sense of self, pretending to be something they're not.(similar to the plot in my film.) Other plots can include the protagonist travelling to a new place and discovering first love or going through an adventure. The protagonist will always be shown as shy, unconfident and unpopular, and will be the one who faces the problems in the beginning of the film. The protagonist will hardly ever be seen as the rich, beautiful and popular girl who gets everything she wants, because majority of the audience would not be able to relate to the character and would not enjoy the film. The protagonist will only have such a personality when they are shown to be cruel and stuck-up at the beginning, but then they are shown facing a problem, and eventually they turn into a better person by the end. A chick flick will always show that good defeats bad, and even after facing problems in the beginning, the protagonist will achieve victory, overcoming the antagonist in the process. The antagonist will usually be shown as being humiliated in front of everyone, or losing their previous state of popularity. Romance would be a small part in such films. The maximum level of romance would be shown as the protagonist experiencing their first 'crush' and ending up with them in the end, or, as finding a male lead who is not the stereotyped 'crush' and realizing that the male likes the protagonist for the person they truly are. The purpose for showing such an ending would be to emphasize on the fact that sometimes dreams come true, or they change into something better.
The background music of a chick flick revolving around teenagers would usually be the kind of music or the songs of an artist that most youngsters listen to and are familiar with, allowing them to take pleasure in the scene as they sing along to their favourite songs. In most chick flicks, the chosen songs are frequently those of a female artist, since the protagonist is also female. Male artist's songs are also used, but usually of those who have a larger female fan-following. The music style is mostly pop-rock, using the guitar more often, but still giving a pop feel. This music is not very loud and has light lyrics, made accordingly to the appeal of the target audience.
Typically girlie elements in a chick flick are mandatory. Without these elements, the target audience will find the movie boring and will not enjoy the plot. Such elements can include: make-overs, dressing up, shopping, parties, the colour pink, stylish clothes, well-made hair, arguments between girls, (often deemed as 'cat fights') a good-looking make, romantic scenes, etc. Sometimes the protagonist is also shown as the 'nerd', in which it becomes necessary to show a make-over, because girls who can relate to the character will want the same thing to happen to them, and other girls will not be able to relate to the character if it weren't similar to them in some way. Since this genre of film attracts mainly female audiences, the mise-en-sen being used in a chick flick needs to be done accordingly. For example, when showing the bedroom of a teenage girl, it needs to seen with alot of attention that every detail is as realistic as possible. Taking the example of the movie, "Mean Girls", when we see the bedroom, we can instantly recognize that it is a typical, girlie room. Objects representing the female gender and living standards in a film would be things like wardrobes, accessories, magazines, stuffed animals, cell phones, etc.
However realistic the film would have been made (to make the audience relate to the characters), there always needs to be a touch of fantasy. Such fantasies will obviously include making the end, as mentioned before, always as happy and the protagonist will overcome their problems. The antagonists will be overshadowed and the protagonist will get everything they wished for. Such endings are made because the targeted audience of females is stereotyped as 'dreamers' and as people who 'fantasize'. The audience wants a fairytale ending just like in the movies. Without this crucial element, the film will fail to meet up with the codes and conventions of the genre. 
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