The Feminist Review

Once upon a time there was a single New Yorker in her 30s who had great friends, a few bad break-ups, no civic or community engagement other than chronic shopping, and a Mac. She goes through life surrounded by people who rarely stretch or challenge her, and makes a bunch of mistakes. Then she ends up with the guy that broke her heart a bunch of times, but also rescued her from the cold Russian. And they lived happily ever after, once she stopped making the wedding dress the highest priority of their union.

I’ve been avoiding this post for a while. One of my main guilts as an imperfect feminist is my love for the show Sex and the City. I love the camaraderie between these four friends. I love the novelty of their lives, the surprisingly large sums of free time and money. I love that I know just what to expect – not only because I’ve seen each episode at least twice, but because the series is predictable and formulaic.

But I have a dirty feeling watching a show that ignores or tramples pretty much every value I hold dear, and it’s time to come clean.

Jessica Groze of the blog Jezebel maintains, that the question is not “Can a feminist really love Sex and the City?” but “Is Carrie Bradshaw a proper feminist icon?”

This certainly is a dangerous question, since even earnest, intelligent feminists can’t be 100% consistent in their refusal to submit to patriarchy. But Carrie rarely tries, according to my standards. I could give a ridiculous number of examples (remember, I’ve seen every episode at least twice), but will be brief:

• Angry with Big, she kisses (and then has sex with) Big after he tracks her down to a hotel, follows her after she tells him to leave her alone, then physically restrains her and forces his body against hers. Pressing charges would have been appropriate – instead the scene reinforces the notion that “no means yes” and that women struggling against sexual aggression is a turn-on.
• Carrie continually communicates on an adolescent level, particularly with the men she dates. Instead of thoughtfully reflecting on her needs and wants, she gets drunk and/or angry and participates in ridiculous games. Arguing with Berger, he says, “When did you stop being on my side?” and she responds, “When did you stop being on my side?” which is not only unhelpful, but makes no sense in context. Instead of talking openly with Big about their sexual relationship, she obsesses and worries, talks to her friends, then shows up at his house with an unspoken demand and leaves in a huff when he doesn’t meet it (then doesn’t call, assuming they’re broken up, until he shows up at her apartment and they have sex.)

The show’s inspiration, writer Candace Bushnell says women weren’t allowed to talk about sex before Sex and the City. This is utterly ridiculous, though generally positive conversations about oral sex and orgasms for women have been one of the show’s best traits. Of course, women are only entitled to sexual pleasure if they keep their pubic hair carefully trimmed or shaved, explains both the show and the movie.

Miranda and Samantha portray some important aspects of feminism, but suffer for it. Miranda, the only character whose work and family really impact her life or time, and who tries (at least once) to get her friends to stop talking about men all the time, is given the ultimate “refeminizing” punishment – she gets pregnant. And even though she ends up with one of the shows most caring and thoughtful men, when she doesn’t orient her life around his needs and desires, he cheats on her.

Samantha is fiercely independent and confident, and pays dearly for it. First with breast cancer, then (perhaps worse) by gaining weight. I actually didn’t notice that she had gained weight in the movie until the other characters flipped out about her softened stomach instead of asking why she flew across the country spontaneously. She needed comfort and acceptance after breaking up with Smith, but instead got horror over her belly.

While the show began as a tribute to single women in their 30’s, it ends with all four women in relationships with men. The movie initially breaks two characters up from their male partners, and ends with one single woman, three married. Perhaps when Samantha flattens her stomach, she’ll get married too!

Sex and the City provides utterly ridiculous and offensive information about class and culture. Perhaps realizing the lack of reality around socio-economic status presented in the series, the episode “The Caste System” came along in season two and made everything worse. Carrie suddenly understands poverty when she’s forced to smoke outside at a party full of snobby rich people. Samantha’s brief boyfriend has a servant, but instead of using the episode to share some important and true information about human trafficking or domestic abuse, this woman is portrayed as a jealous and two-faced manipulator.

People of color are given very token roles in the series. The only character of color with an on-going role as subject (rather than object) is Miranda’s boyfriend Robert, and they still have no thoughtful conversations about ethnicity or culture. Other than Robert, people of color show up as Carrie’s limo driver or other stereotypical serving roles. Jennifer Huston, the only actor in the movie with an Oscar, plays Louise, Carrie’s personal assistant. Louise represents everything wholesome, midwest and working class in the movie, but her insight and uniqueness don’t touch Carrie. Instead, Carrie offers Louise glamor, experience, and one expensive louie vitton bag.

The series and movie also have token queer characters, consistently used for comic relief, and twice to shake up the plot for the main characters (when Samantha dates Maria, and when Miranda’s colleagues assume she’s lesbian because she isn’t in a relationship with a man). Stanford and Anthony are the most classic of gay urban men, never to surprise or unsettle the viewer with personality or real-life trials in a homophobic culture.

Once upon a time there was a single New Yorker in her 30s who never wears an outfit twice and whose life is recognizable to less than 0.1% of the world’s population. Sex and the City was the perfect TV show, convincing viewers that their lives were wrong but by buying the products advertised during commercial breaks, they too can have Sex and the City!

Filed under: movies, television on September 13th, 2008 by Anna Lisa