Daniel Holloway said on Huffington Post last week:
"...I now look forward to Carrie Bradshaw's big screen debut about as much as I look forward to the day when I arrive in hell and am told David Spade is my roommate."
I have to admit that I share some of his sentiments, especially as regards to the intertwined areas of the aesthetics and economic practices the show seemed to extol on a regular basis. As we are within spitting distance of a recession -- and the price of a gallon a milk is quickly approaching that of a pair of my Payless shoes -- how relevant is a "Sex In The City" movie right now?
I think "Sex In The City" fostered an unrealistic portrait for women working in NYC to aspire to, especially if they weren't pulling over $70,000 a year. I think "Sex In The City" is responsible for a fair amount of credit card debt run by women who felt that, like Carrie Bradshaw, they should be wearing expensive designer shoes on their bullshit salaries -- because they have to enjoy life, dammit!
I blew $100 on a purse a few months ago, though I could ill-afford it. And to the "Sex In The City" aesthetic, that's still a cheap bag. Carrie Bradshaw wouldn't wipe her ass with a $100 handbag.
And then there are all the episodes where Carrie learns that "it's better to be alone." Oh, those fun episodes!
"Table for two, madam?"
"No. For one. I'm treating myself this time."
Of course, maybe the real thing that consoled Carrie Bradshaw about being alone and unmarried was that it reduced the danger of her getting pregnant and having to share all the money she was spending on those Manolo Blahniks on a friggin' baby. Because once you have another mouth to feed, even on that magical columnist's salary she was apparently pulling down, things change.
But isn't this always the way with TV shows? Take "Friends," for example. Another show I couldn't stand. Once again we have the magical salaries that allow the protagonists to have perfectly designed wardrobes and apartments. Sure, they had to take in roommates. But they were rooming with Courtney Cox & Matt LeBlanc. Wouldn't you take on a share with Courtney or Matt? Where's the sacrifice? I mean, if your roomie was a bi-polar piano teacher on disability who smelt like cat pee, that's a sacrifice.
Where were all the common, everyday hells for Carrie or Rachel or Joey? The shitty packed subway ride in from Brooklyn, filled with downtrodden angry people who will throw their heads back and emit primal yells of discontentment as you accidentally jostle them with your shitty $100 handbag that you could ill afford?
That's the television show I'd like to see be turned into a movie. My daily train ride.
Well, in Friends' case, Joey and Phoebe were always strapped for cash, and so wqas nature initially. All of the expensive clothes they ended up with later on were actually justified on camera as being through Rachel's connections in the fashion industry.
ReplyDeleteWhat? Reality portrayed on TV? Insanity, I say!
ReplyDeleteI very much agree on a lot of your points (although I'll admit I did enjoy friends before the last few seasons...but I don't watch reruns!). I've seen some Sex, and I hafta wonder what the big appeal is? Or how women, of all people, could like this show. Especially my feminist sister who surprised the HELL out of me when she said she watched it religiously. I dunno, just doesn't seem to click with the feminist views I've been exposed to.
But TV is what it is; pretty people with petty problems that can be solved over the course of a half hour. It wasn't always like that, though. Take a show like BARNEY MILLER. Sure, they stereotyped the hell out of their characters, but it was a show of average men wearing for the most part shoddy clothing working in a set that looks like you could've gotten some kind of infection on. And, incidentally, was probably one of the most realistic depictions of NYPD life on TV (minus the laughtrack, of course).
Of course, shows like that don't exist anymore. Now it's all about eye candy and reality TV. Or eye candy ON reality TV.
I have to say that I really enjoyed the SatC TV show, but that only means that I was all the more disappointed when the film turned out to be a vacuous, label-dropping mess.
ReplyDeleteTo be fair to the TV series, the Miranda character was usually the one living the more realistic lifestyle that you seem to want from your TV shows. Her arcs, involving balancing a job, a kid, and an alzheimers-affected mother-in-law, amongst other things, stood in alarming contrast to the Blahniks-obsessed Bradshaw and her ilk. She was certainly the biggest draw of the show for me (and the wonder that is Cynthia Nixon was a big help too).
"That's the television show I'd like to see be turned into a movie. My daily train ride."
ReplyDeleteWell, there *was* the episode of Seinfeld with Elaine on her way to the lesbian wedding...
Re: Friend's NY Fantasy Life;
ReplyDeleteI got a fair bit of enjoyment over Liz Lemon's poetic ode to the greatness of New York near the end of 30 Rock's first season that was abruptly cut short when a passing homeless man spit in her mouth.
Although I'm sure this movie is pure torture and should probably be shown to terrorists in the interrogation room...
ReplyDelete...I can't help but feel that women oddly enough deserve this movie. And not in the "women are dumb and deserve garbage like this" way. Guys get to watch comedies about fat dorks who somehow charm the hot girl through his amazing wit, and she accepts him who he is, warts and all. Shouldn't women get to see a movie where a bunch of self absorbed, high maintenance hens get to be themselves and still get the guy at the end?
So does it portray a completely impossible standard of living? Sure, but movies like this should be fantasy. If it brings about a certain amount of glee to the viewer then so be it. If that viewer is unable to discern what they are watching and is influenced by the rampant consumerism then so be that as well. I don't think Sex and the City has any sort of social responsibility to be anything more than 2 and a half hours of bad puns for a bunch of cuckolds to chortle over.
As for me? This is the first time in a while that I'm very happy to be single. Means I get to skip this one.
"Where were all the common, everyday hells for Carrie or Rachel or Joey? The shitty packed subway ride in from Brooklyn, filled with downtrodden angry people who will throw their heads back and emit primal yells of discontentment as you accidentally jostle them with your shitty $100 handbag that you could ill afford?
ReplyDeleteThat's the television show I'd like to see be turned into a movie. My daily train ride."
Why in the world would anyone want to watch that? :-)
Re: SatC and Friends - I'd watch those for the same reason I went to see Iron Man: I want to see completely made-up shit I don't see in everyday real life.
Sex and the City: hate the show with a fiery, fiery passion. It's just...it's quite possibly the biggest load of tripe ever committed to film.
ReplyDeleteFriends: loved it. It was never meant to be realistic, it's just a sitcom. Pure escapism.
I think that's why I liked Rosanne so much. No pretense of being well off, no cheery extraordinary lives, nothing shiny about it. Just an average dysfunctional family that you might actually live next to. I think Good Times did a decent job of portraying regular people with everyday problems like rent and such.
ReplyDeleteI don't understand why wealth and disposable are such fixtures in the sitcom genre. It's impossible to relate to characters who regularly blow hundreds of dollars on clothes while the rest of us have to save that kind of cash for gas or food. I guess there's an aspect of escapism in entertainment, but I've always found Sex, Friends, and most other sitcoms horribly dull and unrelatable.
Of course, I'm an old angry man now. meh.
also they are all racists & losers!
ReplyDeleteSUCK IT BRADSHAW!!!!
My wife made me watch a lot of Friends. But like Seinfeld it did not take place in a New York I was familar with. I do not rememeber seeing hardly anyone who was not white.
ReplyDeleteWhere the hell did these people live? KKK ave and 54th st? I think I saw one Black person walk down the street once.
I do not live in New York, but I have been there plenty of times and their world is not one I am familar with.
It's Sex AND The City, not Sex In The City...
ReplyDeleteI loves me some SatC.
Maybe its cause I am gay and gay men are bound by some kind of unwritten code to love it. I don't know.
But I will be there tomorrow night after work will all my other fellow gays.
My wife "loves" this show. Me, I like some episodes. We are watching the DVD's to get ready for the big screen release.
ReplyDeleteI don't know about the characters being racist? I saw an epsiode where Samantha dated a African American guy. Yes they don't have many friends of colour but they do have many gay friends. One of Carrie's best friends is gay. Also I don't think they love their life style. Even when they are having lots of sex and going out they are always searching for the elusive "something"...
As for owning expensive shoes bags etc. Carrie complains all the time about having "maxed out" her credit cards because of her addiction...
In the end it is just a "show" sometime entertaining, sometimes not. Just like comics ;)
Did it need a movie? Nope I think the actors just needed money...
ArrrOOOooo!
You really need to check out The Story of Stuff.
ReplyDeleteIt's a really shocking look at manufacturing and consumption. If you don't have the time for the whole thing, just watch it from "Consumption" on. It's really powerful. One of the pieces that I'd never thought of before is the idea of "Perceived Obsolescence"...this being the idea of deliberately changing the way things are made in order to tag them as belonging to certain time periods. In other words, fashion.
She quotes Retail Analyst Victor Lebow who, in a 1945 Harper's article said Our enormously productive economy...demands that we make consumption our way of life. That we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction, our ego satisfaction, in consumption...We need things consumed, burned up, replaced and discarded at an ever-accelerating rate.
Very disquieting.
Well, in Friends' case, Joey and Phoebe were always strapped for cash, and so wqas nature initially. All of the expensive clothes they ended up with later on were actually justified on camera as being through Rachel's connections in the fashion industry.
ReplyDeleteYeah, but it was always a "cute" strapped for cash, and someone always bailed them out. They made tons of jokes about how Chandler paid Joey's rent, but, come on. You know how much their apartment would cost in real life?
I have no idea, but I do know that a friend of mine who is a lawyer that works as in-house counsel at Goldman-Sachs can't afford to live in a place like that in Manhattan. She lives in Brooklyn.
I also know that, when she first moved there, she shared a place with 7 people, lived in a single room that she shared with someone else, and paid $800/month.
Their cute little problems never seemed to stop them from doing what they really wanted. At no point did they have to suffer for being broke. They moved from huge, well-furnished apartment to huge, well-furnished apartment, and always shopped at high-end, expensive stores. I remember they even had an entire episode that revolved around Pottery Barn.
Makes me shudder. It was like an entire episode as product placement.
Give me Star Trek any day. No Mahnolos or Pottery Barns in the Delta Quadrant. ;)
ReplyDeleteI loved SEX AND THE CITY until I realized it wasn't meant to be a satire. Viewed as a satire, it's rather brilliant and scathing. Once the horrible realization of truth sunk in, I could never go back.
ReplyDeleteTake two series of Spaced, three series of Black Books, wash down with four series of Peep Show and Ideal apiece, then rinse with Nighty Night, Gavin & Stacey and The Mighty Boosh.
ReplyDeleteThen relax.
"Shouldn't women get to see a movie where a bunch of self absorbed, high maintenance hens get to be themselves and still get the guy at the end?"
ReplyDeleteAdam--more like, shouldn't there be TV shows and movies where female geeks (NOT pretty girls stuffed into baggy clothes and forced to wear glasses until the big Cinderella moment) get the guys of their choice without having to sacrifice their geeky pleasures? Or tart up in ways that don't suit them? "High-maintenance hens" is pretty much the opposite of what I want to see onscreen, period.
And Valerie, GREAT entry.
Good, thought-provoking stuff here, Valerie. Creative-type folks like you (and, I'll warrant, like most of the people reading this) may see themselves in my own SATC-related blog post...
ReplyDeletehttp://inkville.typepad.com/blog/2008/05/cosmopolitan.html