What is a chick flick?

It's a film where nothing is held back. The emotions are big and bold, the plots outrageously twisted.

To put it another way, let's imagine the following question turning up on “Family Feud”: Name something you'd find in a chick flick — tears, makeover, romance, tragedy, quirky best friend.

But the crucial requirement is that somewhere in the movie is a woman who rides an emotional roller coaster, careening from misery to ecstasy and often back again. Along the way, someone will recognize her true worth as a human being.

The diagram that follows is an attempt to chart the origins and evolution of the chick flick by seeing how the classics of the genre stack up. There are obvious omissions, either because a movie fit more snugly in a different cinematic camp, we have a hard time buying J.Lo as a winsome spinster, or our notes were obscured by heart-shaped blotches of mascara and tears.