Food For Thought: Hedonism is the New Feminism

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Julia Roberts eats her way through Italy, prays in India, and finds love and wholeness in Bali – Elizabeth Gilbert's book on which the film is based, subtitled One Woman's Search for Everything, has sold nine million copies worldwide.

The Eat Pray Love franchise is now estimated to be worth US$350 million. Top sellers include yoga mats, kaftans, teas, holiday sheets, embroidered cushions, Lancombe Juicy Tubes lip gloss and White Lotus underarm deodorant.

As one American commentator suggested: Hedonism is the new feminism", and the search for true love in chick flicks has been replaced by the search for self-love in therapy cinema.

The mantra is warm, you expand your mind, strengthen your soul, and the effect is like squeezing a gap year into a two-hour popcorn movie.