Thursday, May 22, 2008

Sex and the City: The Rant

Sex and the City is my Titanic (Titanic is one of my many movie analogies…it’s a good movie, starring arguably the best leading actors of my generation, which causes people (manly men) to roll their eyes in annoyance whenever it’s mentioned because it became bigger than life and many, many irritating women claim it’s the greatest thing ever). Same thing happened with Sex and the City. It was once a smart, hilarious, all too close to home look at single women and sex that only a few million people watched each week. It’s still all those things, but it’s become so mainstream, with the re-runs on TBS and people like Miley Cyrus claiming it’s their favorite TV show, that now people (mainly men) find it highly annoying. Now, to annoy the fellas even more, here comes the movie, which I am beyond excited to see (even if the trailer gives away more plot points than I’d like). However, I’m quite annoyed with on major thing…all this talk of marriage.

Carrie Bradshaw is the quintessential single gal. She dates inappropriate men, spends her disposable income on shoes and drinks with friends, and has a fabulous career. When we last left her, she had finally worked things out with Mr. Big...the long time love of her life (other than Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte, obvs)...and looked poised to settle down and kick off her single shoes. And that's cool. I don't need Carrie to remain single forever, but I take issue with her wedding to Mr. Big being the goal, the payoff. The trailer is basically pornography for wedding obsessed women. And the Vogue article promoting SATC this month (which contains some of the greatest photos of SJP and Chris Noth you could ever imagine) says, “When Michael Patrick King (MPK), writer-producer of the TV show SATC, wrote SATC: TM (which he is also directing), one thing he knew was that the desperate, SATC-starved audience of millions of women needed a wedding.” We do? I know I don’t need a wedding. In fact, I’d be quite happy if Carrie and Big just lived happily forever (or as long as their relationship warranted) in a big ol’ fancy apartment in NYC. Why is marriage still the entire story? Isn’t that kinda what SATC was all about? Breaking that notion that women need marriage and a man to be happy?

9 comments:

Falwless said...

I totally, 165986% agree. I was one of the early adopters of this beloved series and cried and laughed along with every episode.

And though I am looking forward to the film with great anticipation, a part of me is saddened to lose the single, screwed up ever-in-man-turmoil Carrie. She's the one I fell in love with, not some girl who thinks a ring on her finger makes her whole.

I dunno. Having the pièce de résistance being a big ol' wedding just seems out of character.

Sigh.

BeckEye said...

They keep dropping hints that they may not get married though. Maybe they'll call it off and wait for the sequel.

I don't need a wedding either but I tell you what. My ass would've married Aidan, ugly engagement ring or no.

doorknob_dan said...

If you want to make big $$$, make a movie about a wedding.

Because young ladies are socialized to be all about landing a man, the rest of us intelligent and independant thinking individuals must suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous wedding movies, over and over and over.

This is kind of a problem for me too, personally. Because I've been socialized as a young man to love explosions, and every dollar spent on making wedding movies takes away from the dollars available to make movies with explosions.

And explosions cost a lot of money to make whereas a wedding costs very little to make - in fact, probably far less than real people actually spend on their weddings. So therefore for every one explosion-based movie there are ten wedding movies, and at least one of those will star either Jennifer Aniston, Jennifer Lopez, or Cameron Diaz. Who all need to experience explosions of their own.

What is the world coming to?
Where am I going with this?
I have no idea.
But good morning!

Red said...

hahaha Dan. You are too funny.

Red said...

And Ladies, I'm glad ya feel me on this one. And I totally would have married Aiden, too. Yumm-o

feathers said...

maybe this is just the tragic part of my own single gal persona talking... but after all the heartache and back and forth with Big, i find it comforting to know that even the cool girls can end up with a cool guy!

I mean, come on! Doesn't it seem like only really awful girls end up married to the hot, interesting men... because men are, well, idiots and always pick a woman who's not going to be threatening to him. (AKA Natasha, just a pretty face and a rich daddy!)

But Carrie shows us all that we can be awesome, independent, interesting women and somewhere out there some man will be 'man enough' to be our man! (thanks for that great lyric, Sheryl!)

feathers said...

yes, Cameron Diaz seriously needs to be involved in an explosion! I'd go see THAT movie!

Red said...

Feathers: I don't mind Carrie and Big ending up together (in fact, I love it, too). I just take issue with the wedding hoopla.

paperback reader said...

Holy Sweet Christ, do I hate this series. It was the Limp Bizkit of its day, where you just wanted to tell everyone, "Really? Well, in ten years, pop culture history will not be kind to you."