The Guardian from London, Greater London, England • 37

The Guardian Tuesday December 14 1999 7 Don't call Jennifer Saunders and Kerry Fox in the romantic comedy Fanny Elvis, which lasted only a week at many cinemas NICK WALL films. "There is a film coming out in the new year called Janice Beard 45wpm. It stars Patsy Kensit and it is a great girls' film, but it will be slated by the broadsheet critics," she predicts with something like resignation. Sarah Kennedy sees Janice Beard 45wpm, together with Fanny Elvis and the Kathy Lette adaptation Mad Cows, as cinema which the critics simply don't get. "These films are good entertainment, but are dismissed by older male critics.

They deal with a kind of humour that is often missed by men." way from film, such A ness deter critical audience. the does not "For young a shortsighted- seem female critic, to books like Bridget Jones are brilliant because they can pull them apart," says Suzanne Baboneau, editorial director of Macmillan, which publishes Helen Fielding and Kathy Lette. "They are not great literature, but' they are not purporting to be. The critical reaction to Bridget Jones has been what you would expect; women loved it and men said come on, not another one." According to Baboneau, young women are much more likely to ask what their friends think of a book than to trust professional critics. "There are plenty of books out there for women who want to read, and a lot are selling by word of mouth.

Publishers are also more aware of reading groups; people are rigorous about them, and the range of books they are reading is very interesting." According to Sarah Kennedy, a similar process occurs in the relationship women have with cinema. "Word of mouth has a big part to play. Although they may act on a review in a publication that they trust, they are more likely to listen to their friends." The problem is that if really could have babies and remain at work, but the absence of such images didn't stop them. The biggest movement of women into the workforce came at a time when snaps of pregnant celebrities were rare events in any newspaper. The behaviour of today's mothers won't be driven by newspaper images, either.

With any luck they will also ignore most of the socalled surveys the images are pinned to. According to the Maternity Alliance, who saw the Johnson's survey before it was launched, "We couldn't really understand their emphasis on negative findings; we thought it was rather a strange take on their figures. After all, if of women felt pressured to return to work, that means that the other are going back because they want to. Most other research shows that women regard work as important for lots of personal reasons not just for the moncy." The appearance on the front a film is only released for one week, there is precious little time for word of mouth to build up, and the movie is condemned from the off. Whilst the slow-burn build-up seems logical in the world of books, it does not apply when it comes to TV series such as Sex in the City and Ally McBeal, which were successful from the start.

There is another element at play here: the personal relationship young women develop with books and television programmes. Much has been made of the mustsee TV viewing concept, hot on the heels of the US comedy imports. Supposedly there are TV shows now that feel more like receiving a weekly visit from a friend than sitting in front of the box. Viewers do have a very personal reaction to these shows, partly because of the humour and partly because they are addressing tricky issues of modern life. What is common to both books and TV series is their indulgence in a covert modern romanticism a million miles away from the ageless and rather reactionary draw of Runaway Bride, 'the latest Julia Roberts vehicle.

Sarah Kennedy suggests it is this intimate relationship between young women and their entertainment which may be keeping them away from their local Odeon. "Watching a film is a very personal thing. Young women might feel less inclined to weep or laugh out loud than they would with a TV show or a video." However, having put the point to a number of Bridget McBeal addicts, it seems to be shame rather than reserve that keeps them away from chick flicks. "I would be really embarrassed if anybody caught me going to see anything unabashedly romantic," said one with a shudder. Yet on TV and the printed page it is precisely this kind of romantic material that currently succeeds.

Even if women dismiss formal critical reactions in their private pursuits, it seems that their message that entertainments which appeal to young women are somehow embarrassing and laughable still gets across. pages of an ecstatic Emma Thompson, exhausted and makeup free four days after the birth of her daughter, is an image to treasure of womanhood fulfilled. But I am sure she would be the first to emphasise that her life is her own. She doesn't live it as an example to others. Side ahe debate around the rights and wrongs of censoring pornography acquired another layer earlier this month when a women's group burnt headlines from porn magazines in Edinburgh.

The protest by members of Scottish Women Against Pornography was compared to "book burning in Berlin" by some commentators. Edinburgh City Council had given the group £1,500 to help fund several days of action against violence against women. But author lain Banks and historian Owen Dudley Edwards, among others, called the protest "an attack upon our freedom of speech and thought" and criticised the council for using public funds to "promote a torchlit political a five-page spread, Tatler, the drag for the rich, asks the question on the tips of all our tongues: "Where have all the playboys gone?" According to the writer of the piece, "veteran playboy" Taki Theodoracopulos, today's candidates are either gay or, heaven help us, work for a living. at used to be so a simple: pink was for girls and blue was for boys. But a book out next year gives us a new area of gender differ- ence to consider: dogs.

Why We Love the Dogs We Do looks at which breed of dog best suits your per- -r- sonality. The author, Professor Stanley Coren, how extroverted men will find companionship in the clever poodle and how shy women will embrace the steady bulldog, and how warm people of both sexes will thrive Women, celebrity or not, have always had babies; the promotion of pregnancy to front-page status is a more recent phenomenon. As working motherhood becomes a a a a a a a a a financial necessity, it suits New Labour to sugar the pill by making it fashionable. Cherie's pregnancy may be an accident, but what a happy one! The pictures of successful mothers that hit the front pages are a reflection of the change in the status of work but a distorted reflection. As Posh tries to fit herself back into the image she used to inhabit that of the skinny teen icon we are presented with a new impossibility.

No longer the immaculate conception, but the immaculate mother. Fashionable women seem to labour without ruffling the surface of their perfect lives: they reappear with a flat tummy, a clean baby cradled on the arm and a fine-chiselled Real Man by their side. But where are the images of what family life is really like that messy mixture of love, exhaustion and poverty? wonder the women in the these survey didn't so-called think role much models; of they know that their own lives are nothing like the images they see. Celebrity mums are, by definition, insulated from the real problems most women face. For of the pregnant women polled will have been able to take only 14 weeks' paid leave, and that at part pay.

Half the women who are entitled to 40 weeks return to work early pressured not by Posh Spice, but by their own employers or the simple matter of the mortgage. No wonder they are less than impressed by the examples of women who can buy in all the help they need, including the services of a personal trainer to get them back into their jeans. The generation of women who became mothers in the 80s were offered no evidence that women with the friendly golden What, Sidelines wonders, does this say about the shitzu lovers among us? Raekha Prasad BPAS Be prepared for the morning after Emergency Contraception before the Emergency Call the British Pregnancy Advisory Service on 08457 304030 a national number for a local appointment.