Sex in the City

[rm]

Last night I stayed up way too late watching the Sex in the City movie, which is a bit weird, because I hate Sex in the City down to the marrow of my bones, because I am unable to view it as a fantasy. It always struck me, instead, as quietly (loudly?) insisting that this is how life should be. (isn't everything made for women secretly instructional or cautionary?)

And any one who lives in New York knows it can't be. Those apartments? With those jobs? Seriously?

But it's not just that.

It's the long, long sequence about the horror of the redhead's (I've forgotten her name) pubic hair. We all have our preferences and that's fine. And there's what looks neat in a bathing suit. But really? Get the fuck over it, people. Maybe it's because I'm Italian, and maybe it's because I'm lazy but is this really something we need to be having anxiety and mortification about?

And let's not even start about the thing with Samantha's weight. 15lbs?!?!?! The horror. And she hasn't, of course, they just put her in really tight awful clothes in an attempt to make the point. It was eyerolling.

And then of course there's Big and Carrie, which is inevitably how I wind up tuning in. And it's the clue too, that this is a fantasy and not a slice of life picture. I dated Big. I dated Big for a long goddamn time. And the issue for me isn't that my story there ended differently -- believe me, RELIEF RELIEF RELIEF, and a bit of sadness at how I squandered my twenties.

The issue is that even in their happy ending, she's a little girl and they're both using each other for status and it creeps me out. It's very human, but the fucked part is never acknowledged, again because it's a fantasy, and I can't seem to access it that way. Good pretty girls grow up to be good pretty girls and boys like them. *Yawn* and *hulk smash*.

What strikes me now, particularly when watching the old episodes (flipping channels, it happens), is how young Carrie is during the run of the show. And how batshit insane.

My mother watches it in reruns and I wonder if she gets it, that that was her daughter, just poor and queer and arguing in bars all the time and trying to be the perfect girl so that she could look just right with the tallest guy in the room and be miserable but high fucking status, prom queen at last! Which is, you know, more or less how your twenties are here in the big city.

*sigh* Yeah, she's probably missing that. Probably good.

When I raise my simpler objections about the show (the pubic hair, the weight, the neat little lessons on life at the end of every episode, and people having those apartments with those jobs), everyone, my mother included, says "but it's a fantasy, it's fun!"

Now, fantasy is complex. I get that. I know my own mind, and lord, I spend a lot of time on the Internet. There's lots of stuff we all fantasize about that we'd never do in real life even if we could.

And I get that how applies to the storybook romance that is secretly (or not so secretly) toxic, and I get how that applies to the beautiful apartments. But really, do we need to include being mortified about ourselves (the weight, the pubic hair) in with that too?

Maybe it's like the Matrix, and the fantasy is only appealing, not just with obstacles, but with random indignities as well.

See, I just explained it all to myself. And I still don't get it.

Comments

[stardragonca.livejournal.com]

I've never even seen it, and I think I despise it.
Shallow people are not more interesting or entertaining than I am.

[redstapler.livejournal.com]

I found that, at moments, that show had a profound view on life in New York. At other times, it made me want to throw things at my television.

The movie made me cry (a woman with cancer and her friends rallying around her made me cry? shock and awe, I'm sure), but there were plenty of wtf moments as well.

I also think because I knew I'd never have that life, I have the necessary distance.

[rm.livejournal.com]

There were some good moments, including "You just compared your relationship to chemo."

[stardragonca.livejournal.com]

Seven days!
Hang in there!

[angstzeit.livejournal.com]

Seems to me a basic problem with art/entertainment. That fuzzy realm between reflecting what's out there and causing what's out there. Is it educating or endorsing?

[fmanalyst.livejournal.com]

I never got into Sex and the City, though I watched it occasionally. For me, it was at least partially the city aspect. I'm from the rural midwest/south, and I've always lived in small towns. But it was also the stupidity, a feeling of "these are the things important to you"? These shallow, frivolous things? And the whole being with someone for the status of it always bugged me too.

Right now, I'm trying to make sense of the "dumb men" films and series, from the Seth Rogan movies to various sitcoms. And it's not limited to young men either. I'm currently visiting my dad, who is 82, and two of his favorite shows are "The Red Green Show" and "Last of the Summer Wine." The former features dumb middle-aged men in rural Canada and the latter features dumb senior citizens in Yorkshire, with the women a good thirty years more mature than their men of the same age.

And both kinds of shows, the female version and the male version, are apparently funny. Go figure.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

And both kinds of shows, the female version and the male version, are apparently funny. Go figure.

*nods* There's a truly vast amount of alleged comedy that either makes me want to throw things at the tv, or at which I simply blink at in a somewhat baffled fashion. "The Red Green Show" is most definitely on that list.

[stardragonca.livejournal.com]

Hair on a mammal:that's just gotta be wrong.

[darthhellokitty.livejournal.com]

You made me LOL.

[p-zeitgeist.livejournal.com]

I hated the show and found it essentially unwatchable, so that I've never seen more than a few minutes of it at a stretch. (The gender issues. The comedy of embarrassment. The degree to which really, no one had a job, when my experience of New York in the high-income tranche is that everyone tends to have nothing but a job. Et cetera.)

But those of my friends who like it have given me a reasonable explanation. It's not the fantasy, they say; it's the friendship. The four central characters like each other and rely on each other in a way that's normal for women's lives, but almost never shows up in the media. The rest, they tell me, is merely window dressing.

I still can't bear to watch it, but if that's the draw I have to respect it a bit more than I otherwise would have.

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

Self-hatred is the new black! Or the new Manolo Blahnik, or something.

[stardragonca.livejournal.com]

Self-hatred is the new chlorophyll.
(See, once upon a time, a long time ago, merchants used to put chlorophyll in everything, as a marketing ploy.)
It's how you move product.

[argentla.livejournal.com]

I feel the same way about Sex in the City, for very similar reasons.

Have you ever seen the first movie version of The Women? Not the recent remake (which I haven't seen), but the 1939 George Cukor movie, with an all-star, all-female cast? I have a similar reaction to that. For about 40 minutes, it's kind of fun, in all its dated, sexist, catty glory. The cast is good, it's witty, and it's lavishly produced. Beyond that point, though, it becomes suffocating. The story's operating ethos is deeply misogynistic, and because all the characters are women, there's no relief from it. It becomes No Exit.

The problem with the "but it's a fantasy!" argument is that for fantasy to be pleasurable, there has to be a space where you, the viewer/reader, can reside within the story that's bearable. That space doesn't necessarily have to be like you, or even likable (millions of people watched J.R. Ewing eagerly for years, and it wasn't because he was a sympathetic character), but it has to be endurable. With Sex in the City, or The Women, there really isn't that space. Just being in the world they create is identity-negating.

Not the kind of thing I want to do for fun, let me tell you.

[smirnoffmule.livejournal.com]

I absolutely detest Sex in the City. Amongst the many things I hate about it is that it presents itself as risque when at its core it's very conservative. It brings up subjects for shock value that just really shouldn't be shocking.

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

Really, this...makes me super glad I didn't move to New York. :D

[rm.livejournal.com]

What, Sex in the City or my ranting about it?

[imaginarycircus.livejournal.com]

I think a cameo by the Hulk smashing the sets would be about the only thing that could compel me to watch Sex and the City.

[newsbean.livejournal.com]

This.

[gairid.livejournal.com]

My daughter lives in Queens--her antipathy toward that particular show knows no bounds (I have never watched it.) and one of the pettest (?!?) of her peeves is the apartments the characters live in. It infuriates her. The frivolity and the angst over ridicluous things bother her, too; she is a fierce girl, but OMG, don't bring up the apartments.

[onemildrat.livejournal.com]

The thing about a lot of these 'fantasies' is that they also want to be commended for their candid, brash talk. It's what bugs me about the Judd Apatow films which are as much economic fantasies as Sex and the City.

My rule is this -- if you're going to present a fantasy of urban, upper-class life, then you better know how to sing and dance (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYHZh-xnqhE).

[rm.livejournal.com]

You know, it's funny, I had a similar experience for a different reason. I just sort of had no one around me. I didn't have a crush until girls mocked me for not having one. I didn't shave my legs until I was mocked for not doing it. There were all these things I was supposed to do to be a girl that no one told me about (which sometimes I think was an attempt to raise me sanely, and sometimes was just the sort of weird "we don't want to deal with the reality of having a daughter" thing my parents did) so that I had to go seek out educational materials, that were sadly limited to the stuff you cite and the Brady Bunch (seriously, that's why I was a pageant competitor -- TV told me that's what normal girls did).

[dsmoen.livejournal.com]

I hadn't seen SatC, except that I tend to collect Matthew McConaughey appearances on shows, and he happened to be in one ep of SatC. During that episode ("Escape from New York" from season 3), MmcC plays himself as someone who's going to be doing a movie about Carrie's writing, and he's talking to her about it, and says, "My only question is, what the f-- is Carrie's problem?"

Later in the scene, he reveals that he was going to play Mr. Big.

That one-scene cameo is two and a half minutes, but it's enough to let me know that I never want to see the rest of the show. Carrie's broken up with Mr. Big at that point in the narrative, so I never have seen their on-screen dynamics, but she plays enough of a chicken that I just simply wouldn't find her interesting.

I much preferred her role, also opposite MmcC, in Failure to Launch.

[herself_nyc]

I'm nodding along with everything you say, and yet, and yet. I watched all of S&TC. Once. I'm very very fond of it, but at this point I'm not sure I can ever watch it again, and I haven't seen the movie. But much as I was outraged by the frequent betrayals of the show's female characters, its absurd gender politics, its celebration of inane frivolities, and on and on, there were moments with it that just lit me up, and most of those moments were those where the show kind of made love to New York City. I'm STUPIDLY sentimental about some things, and this city is one of them; there were some eps of S&TC that made me cry because of how it portrayed NY.

I wished it was better, but when it was good, it hit my sweet spot.

[sykii.livejournal.com]

Not my twenties, thank everything that is holy. But I do get what you're saying. I remember watching it with you somewhat religiously (on before Our Gay Soap!), back in the day, at the apartment of boy-with-HBO (who was always talking shit about Miranda- hello, CLUE!) and watching you react to it, too.
Made it all the funnier when, years later, I smacked into Mr. Big filming L&O in our lobby.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Wow, I had totally forgotten that.

[santousha.livejournal.com]

meh, I only watched it for teh sex.

But srsly though, I never watched the series as I was too young, so when the movie came out(I was old enough to watch) I decided to see what all the fuss was about.
It was weird, like a "grown up" version of Clueless. A coming of age story for women who probably should have grown up a long time ago.
There were a lot of things I hated but as it never stopped being fantasy for me I just said, meh.

[sykii.livejournal.com]

A coming of age story for women who probably should have grown up a long time ago.
That thing you said there? Precise, true, and perfect.

[woogledesigns.livejournal.com]

It's not fantasy, it's what people want to be a social reality. It's the ideal they want to substitute into their lives. It's what they don't question, just want
Want
WANT

It says 'Be perfect' be pretty and straight and your will GET your fairy tale. Aspire to this and you will be closer, just so slightly closer to being belle of the ball.

It forgets. It forgets that Belle of the Ball is Bullshit. It forgets that a prom-crown is worthless.

Fantasy. No. Fantasy is brave enough to dream of something better. With dragons and spaceships and parallel dimensions and god knows what else we can find way to say 'No. I am NOT pink and froo froo and needy. And nor do I HAVE to be.'

[modpixie.livejournal.com]

Have you read this? You might find it interesting.

[thatwordgrrl.livejournal.com]

I utterly despise that show. I got through about half of only one episode that came on while I was flipping channels in a hotel room (We don't have cable at home) and I almost threw the suitcase I was unpacking at the time square at the TV set.

It portrays that horridly pernicious brand of New Feminism that says that women are equal to guys if they indulge in the same asshole behavior as the guys, right? RIGHT?

No, it just means that assholes are without gender preference.

[pantryslut.livejournal.com]

For a while, right after the twins were born, I watched SATC re-runs at, like, 1 am, when I was punchy from lack of sleep and all of that. At that point, I got the appeal of the show, sort of -- it was just a Mary Sue with lots of shoes! I can laugh at how silly it is! Oh!

I still didn't get why it was such an important show, apparently.

And I was still annoyed at Carrie's job -- hey, I was a freelancer, too, and I certainly couldn't afford one pair of those shoes. Plus, I write better than that voiceover claptrap. Hmf.

And she was still appallingly neurotic and self-defeating, but yes, with Mary Sue, those indignities are important because they are eventually overcome.

[capulet-rose.livejournal.com]

Shave off your pubic hair!

Because nothing says "sexy" like razor rash!

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

I just mainly thought the show was dull. My ex-boyfriend used to like it, so I had to sit through it from time to time, and the thing is? It's not that it's a fantasy, it's that it doesn't have enough in common with my fantasies to hold my wish fulfillment attention.

I used to want to be the prom queen, or rather the cheerleader, the princess in democracy drag. I used to want it real bad. But the whole point, for me, was that it didn't come with constant anxiety and second-guessing and thinking about status and shoes. The point of being the princess is that whatever you wear is automatically the right thing; if you have to try, you already failed. I did that in junior high. Anyway, for me this fantasy came with a sell-by date. One of the attractions of growing up is that the moment has definitively passed and I don't have to care about being the prom queen any more.

I think the random indignities are supposed to be the parts that we can relate to, so everything is not too easy and perfect and they're all aliens we could never be in a million years. But the part I don't get is the other part -- if it's a fantasy, when does the fantastic start?