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sammit. Fashion/Style ~ Fashion, beauty and shopping ideas from former Tribune style editor Sam Mittelsteadt.

No more ‘Sex’ - please!

May 22nd, 2008, 8:54 am · 3 Comments · posted by Sam Mittelsteadt

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I have absolutely no interest in “Sex and the City: The Movie.” Well, that’s technically incorrect, since that implies a neutral stance.

Let me rephrase that: I hate all things “Sex and the City” …charcar.jpg

… the only exception being the “Saturday Night Live” sketch in which Christina Aguilera portrayed Samantha as a transvestite. “I’m a dude! A plum smuggler! A weenie in a bottle!” (Above: Maya Rudolph as a particularly witless Charlotte ["Yay, puns!"] and Amy Poehler as quirk-heavy Carrie.)

“How can you not like ‘Sex and the City’?” one of my roommates asked incredulously. “It’s about shopping. And drinks. You love shopping and drinks.”

(Well, guilty. Although I would say I don’t truly enjoy shopping – I enjoy getting. To me, browsing through stores when you don’t have money to buy isn’t entertainment or “research,” it’s torture. And when I do go in, I don’t mess around: I have a definite idea what I’m looking for, be it a T-shirt at Old Navy, a pair of jeans at Last Chance or a gray business suit at Macy’s. But I digress.)

I tried to like “Sex and the City,” back in the early seasons. But so many things bothered me about the show, its format and, yes, even its characters that I gave up on it quickly.

I’m going to start with the main character, the sainted Carrie Bradshaw.

(Preface: When I say “hate” – and I’m about to say it a lot – I don’t mean it in the way I hate, say, genocide and cancer, but more like “I cannot believe the hype accorded to, the sheeplike acceptance of, the glorious praise heaped upon with no critical individual thinking,” etc.)

I hate the way this role elevated Sarah Jessica Parker into a “style icon” when she was, essentially, dressed by other people (aka: Patricia Field). Frequently in ludicrous or just plain bad outfits. (Two such ones from the movie below.)

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I hate the way women, suddenly desperate for a mass-market way to think they were “hip,” bought into horseshoe pendants and those godawful flower pins (which apparently have metastasized into the dress at above left).

I hate that her columns were always, “I couldn’t help but wonder” and allegedly were about themes like, “Is it smarter to follow your heart or your head?” while the episode itself was about a guy whose semen wasn’t tasty.

I hate that she was supposed to be a sympathetic character and our hearts were supposed to be with her even though she was flighty, irresponsible, unreliable and, for a professional woman living and working in New York, immature. Remember that time that Aiden screamed at her: “YOU BROKE MY HEART” because he was tired of her annoying should-I, shouldn’t-I games? It was written so that viewers were like, “Oh, geez, I never thought about that before.” Which is exactly how Carrie lived through pretty much the entire series. But viewers loved her because she wore a TUTU! On the street! Because she’s the kicky one!

Which leads me to: I hate how so many people loved how this show “represented women,” when week after week it pigeonholed them into the same rigid archetypes: The wide-eyed princess; the cynic professional; the idiot “free-spirited, creative” one; and the sassy slut.

And women would actually say: “Oh, I’m a Charlotte!” (or, if they were trying to be scandalous, “I’m a Samantha!”) like it was some badge of pride, effectively reducing themselves to a single trait. (If you’re too stupid to figure it out, there are online quizzes for you, too.) The women who said, “I’m a Miranda” were trying to label themselves as world-weary and jaded with just the right level of optimism underneath – but really they were labeling themselves with the one so brittle and pathetic she became addicted to chocolate, to the point of pulling it out of a garbage can. (“Tee hee! I did that too!” Really? Empty in your life, trying to replace affection with sugar, like she was? You must be so proud!)

“Oh, they weren’t stereotypes! I mean, Samantha went through breast cancer!” Yeah, less than two months before the show went off the air, and after EIGHTY-SEVEN EPISODES of winking and nudging and screwing everything from a priest to another woman, Kim Cattrell’s character got a single facet beyond “She’s the one who likes to have sex!” Which was: “She’s the one who likes to have sex, who also got breast cancer!” That’s female empowerment? No, that’s caricature in the guise of character. They might as well have been the cast of “Drawn Together,” where at least the writers aren’t putting on airs about their series.

(This writer sums it up: “Creating smart, sexy, realistic women isn’t impossible, but ‘Sex and the City’ relied instead on assigning each of its actresses to a bundle of nervous ticks [cq] and bad habits instead of a personality.”)

So, no, I was not sad when the show went off the air.

And now … the movie. It’s started up all over again – only worse. Entertainment Weekly put out a SIXTY-THREE PAGE SECTION in their latest issue – everything from every guy the women slept with to cringe-worthy essays on How Great Carrie Was. They even trotted out Camille Paglia from her decades-long exile from relevance. (And yet, only one parenthetical sentence about how EW happens to be owned by the same company as the movie’s distributor.) And this issue isn’t even for the week the movie will be released in theaters!

And the breathless hype is snowballing. This week I received a press release from someone who listed all of the designers who contributed something to the movie in exchange for credit, and suggested there might be a story there. There are more than 150 names. (So exclusive! It’s like being asked to be a member of Columbia House!) And yet still, they managed to dress Samantha in castoffs from the “Dynasty” wardrobe.

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(I want Alexis to show up and push her into a pool. I’d even settle for Dominique.)

There are going to be midnight showings of this movie. One of my co-workers wants to interview the women standing in line: “You know how they do that for like ‘Star Wars,’ and it’s all geeks? This is all going to be a line filled entirely with sad, sad women.” Because you know they’re going to think it’s sassy to dress up, maybe have some pre-mixed cosmos in a plastic cup. Our point: switch a light saber for Louboutins, and … voila!

Now, after all that: I am not so stupid as to believe that this will change anyone’s mind. “Sex and the City” has a built-in audience and I’m sure it will run roughshod over the contenders at the box office opening weekend, if not longer.

In fact – irony alert! – I will be there at one of the showings this weekend, because one of my friends is throwing a “Sex and the City” party at the hotel he works. (It starts with drinks at the bar, then walking down to the theater, where he’s reserved a block of seats. After the movie, back to the lounge.) But he knows I’m only going for the fellowship, not the film: “Think of the party,” he said. “And there will be free drinks! You love free drinks!”

You know what? There IS one thing about “Sex and the City” I do like: It’s way easier to order flavored martinis. (Although I prefer them on the rocks, in an Old Fashioned glass.)

Another thing I don’t like: The outfits below. Great job picking your “style icons,” folks. (Mitigating factor: Most of Charlotte’s outfits I’ve seen appear to be pretty cute.)

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3 Responses to “No more ‘Sex’ - please!”

  1. jan Says:

    I only watched it for Mr. Big-he was the cutest.

  2. Miachelle Says:

    While I agree with your sentiment about the characters, there are two things that make the show what it is: only in Hollywood could four such women be successful and end up with everything purported to be fashionable and desirable; and the shoes. Carrie’s wardrobe was attrocious, but take it from a shoe diva: the shoes ROCKED. Those two things make the show fun, and what it is: an absolute fantasy. Much like many shows that develop a cult following.

    AND…I saw something in a Swarovski store in Vegas from the movie that I really want: the Swarovski Nirvana ring, in the green color, size 55, thank you very much. If you manage to get your hands on one of those and are going to give it away, well, let’s just say I’ll be entering over and over.

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