the power of four

a benefit of being at home, having lots of free time and plenty of girls to hang out with has led to me watching this movie since it was doomed to never make it on justin's netflix queue. (along with the movie that i saw last night...when i told him we were going to see it, i got a slightly sarcastic, "oh, i'm sorry i'm missing that" response) watching it made me think about chick flicks, chick lit, chick sitcoms... i guess chicks in general, and their tendency to be placed in groups of four.

in case you've missed it, the sisterhood of the traveling pants follows four teenagers over a summer (the books stretch out over a few summers) and we all get to see or read about the coming-of-age stories of tibby, carmen, bridget and lena (my favorite character, played by the ever-gorgeous alexis bledel of gilmore girls fame). as i was musing after the movie and figuring out which character i related to most, i realized that the group of four girls also appears in several other of my favorite movies, tv shows or books. what girl doesn't watch "sex and the city" and try to figure out if she's more like carrie or miranda? and growing up, who could watch "now and then" without relating to teeny more than roberta (or vice versa)? "the baby-sitters' club" started out with kristy, maryanne, claudia and stacy before adding all the rest of the girls. and so it seems the grouping of four works for entertainment and girls. i won't even get into the fact that the myers-briggs personality typology divides your personality into four separate components (hence the four letter codes, i.e. my ENFJ-ness) and that most characters in the groups of four tend to have opposite personalities that complement one another.

and so there is my theory on the power of four. you want a successful book, movie, or tv show for women? give them four entertaining characters that play on those multi-faceted parts of our personalities and allow us, in a small ways, to relate to all of them...