Sarah Churchwell: Why won't Hollywood take a chance on me?

The unforeseen success of the Sex And The City film has apparently left Hollywood geniuses dumbfounded by the possibility that women might actually pay money to see films. Now they're rubbing their hands together at the prospect that women will propel Mamma Mia! to similar success.

Their bafflement about what women want (hint: it's not What Women Want) would be funny if it weren't so infuriating for those of us left paying to see Iron Man for lack of anything more appealing – and at least it has Robert Downey, Jr. We have to suffer the fact that it also has Gwyneth Paltrow, whose only superpower is her ability to run in seven-inch heels, and whose first line establishes her character's sneering misogyny; but hey, beggars and choosers.

Supposedly only 18- to 24-year-old boys are hit-makers, which is why so many films are targeted at them. But this is, of course, a self-fulfilling prophecy. Adolescent boys make films hits because hit films are made for them. If Hollywood actually made films for women, it might find that the niche, special-interest group that comprises more than 50 per cent of the population might be potential consumers. The only thing surprising about Sex And The City's success was that Hollywood moguls found it surprising. Mamma Mia!, which opens at the end of next week, looks set to strike them dumb again.

It benefits from some extremely shrewd casting, all of which is nicely calculated to lend a touch of class to the cheesy nostalgia: James Bond, Mr Darcy, and Meryl Streep, generously ensuring that no woman need feel embarrassed again at singing into a hair-dryer. Streep has been cheerfully and enthusiastically promoting Mamma Mia! with a story of having so loved the musical that she wrote the producers a fan letter. When they asked her to star in the film, she jumped (into the splits, apparently). Now she is selling the film as something she knew was "valuable for the culture," because of its resonance for real women, and for its ability to make audiences happy.

As one of the estimated 30 million other people who saw the musical on stage, I must say that although I also left the show feeling cheery and light-headed, happily humming a tune, I get the same feeling from drinking too much rum and coke, which also inspires me to dance on chairs, singing "Take A Chance on Me" (and would be why I don't drink rum and coke anymore). It also left me with a similar, slightly sticky queasiness.

The story, such as it is, as presumably most people now know, revolves around a daughter's attempt to invite her father to her wedding. The only problem is that even her mother doesn't know who her father is; an ex-hippy living on a Greek island, she had her own private summer of love, and now 20 years later three potential fathers have turned up, ready to walk her daughter down the aisle.

No one with a brain thinks that Mamma Mia! is a hit because of its plot, but it is also true that if its story weren't appealing to 30m people, it would not have been a hit. So I find myself wondering what, precisely, Streep feels is "valuable to the culture" about the show, beyond its undeniable feel-good factor.

Mamma Mia! is, it seems to me, yet another example of what has become an all-too-familiar model for romantic comedy today: take an old story, wrap it up in post-feminist clothes, and sell it as new. On the plus side, it's a story that takes for granted the idea that a woman could have been sexually active enough to be unsure even of her daughter's paternity, and yet neither judge nor punish her.

The story remains sympathetic to Donna, and to her choices, and I am surely not the only woman who finds that a refreshing change. That said, however, it is also a story which presents her choices as outdated, belonging to the 1970s as surely as her clothes, her hippie-lifestyle, and, of course, the music.

At the risk of spoiling the plot for the 10 people who've missed the musical or never seen a romantic comedy, I will go out on a limb and say that Donna does end up reunited with one of the three men, and that the story culminates in myriad couplings.

In the last 12 months, films that were clearly targeted to women include Sex And The City, What Happens In Vegas, 27 Dresses, Made Of Honour, Juno, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and Knocked Up. And now comes Mamma Mia! All of these films are about weddings, unplanned pregnancies, or both.

What do women want? How about a story that suggests women might be interested in something other than being a wife or mother? Beggars can't be choosers; but it would be nice to be spoiled for choice, for a change.

The writer is a senior lecturer in American literature and culture at the University of East Anglia