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| Sex in the City |
Intro ...
The final episodes of Sex and the City are going to air in Australia. Now that it is all said and done, what is it? feminist or anti-women?
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Quotes ...
"Sex and the City changed huge amounts for women. Women now have a language with which to talk about their experiences and their friendships. It's almost given them permission to have female friendships that are more important than anything else." -Kim Akass (lecturer in film studies, London Metropolitan University)
"On the one hand, Sex and the City reinforces the idea that you have to be thin and white and beautiful to be successful, but on the other it's really about the strength of friendship. It was maybe the first show to cover women talking about their relationships. It doesn't take itself seriously, it recognises the fun in those relationships." - Catherine Redfern (Editor of the feminist webzine, the F-word)
"But the programme is at odds with how women's lives have gone since feminism - their working lives have got longer, their opportunities to have children have got harder. All that disappears from the soft-focus post-feminism that Sex and the City embodies. The show reflects those issues that feminists discuss that in no way threaten the easy-going surface issues: increased liberalism, more tolerance from more people to allow a space for people to do what they want - for example breastfeeding or lesbian relationships, so long as everyone's rich and happy and enjoying themselves. It's soft-vanilla feminism." - Lynne Segal (Professor of psychology and gender studies at Birkbeck College)
"I didn't watch Sex and the City until it was halfway through. It sounded crude and awful. But once I did, I loved it. The scripts are so tight, and it's funny and cliched and rubbish all at once." - Ali Smith (Writer)
"Even though the show is so funny and slick, it doesn't fall into the trap of most comedy series - it doesn't patronise its protagonists. And so it expresses the level of sexual confidence that independent women have now without ever suggesting that they are heartless or slutty or out of control. When so much art and commentary still presents women as victims, of men's desire or of their own self-consciousness about their bodies or of their own need to be loved, there is something so refreshing about a show that gives this sort of self-belief to single women. The show grew from pretty unpromising beginnings to become a classic for our times. I don't think anyone in the future will be able to write about the status of women in the US at the turn of the century without running through some old Sex and the City videos, and appreciating how single women bestrode Manhattan." - Natasha Walter (Author of The New Feminism)
"To me, the characters just come across as the same sort of air-brushed, be-make-upped, bland women, no different to all the women on TV before. Not particularly feminist or empowered at all. The level of their empowerment seems to be whether they can book a table at a particular restaurant or snag a certain man. Surely feminism can deliver more than that? " - Noreena Hertz (Writer and academic)
"Of course Cosmo talked about sex and orgasms, but it was almost if you weren't having 10 orgasms a night there was something wrong. Ann Summers was already selling something like over half a million sex toys, but still no one talked about them - they were seen to be sad and desperate. I think it changed women's attitudes to spending money on these things. The pearl thong episode evidently made a huge impact for us. We sold thousands. It was just fun, and there's nothing wrong with fun. Sex and the City taught women that." - Charlotte Semler (Co-founder of Myla, the luxury sex brand for women)
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Articles ...
The stories focus on women's lives and the things that women talk about - relationships, friendships, contraception, childbirth, motherhood, illness, ageing, death, money, marriage, divorce and employment. It could be argued, therefore, that Sex and the City is articulating feminist concerns of giving a voice to women experiences, but using narrative techniques that are accessible to mainstream audiences. The series also provides escapism for the female spectator. While the characters' stories may be recognisable and provide points of identification, the series includes features that mean their lives remain unattainable - The setting in Manhattan, New York - emphasising the otherworldliness of America, a place that embodies excitement, adventure, diversity for the young upwardly mobile.An idealised lifestyle of literally having your cake and eating it - while representing cultural ideals of the slim, well-honed female body, women are also shown in restaurants and cafés, eating food. In terms of feminist 'issues of the body', this is double-edged - it can be seen to be positive in terms of showing (thin) women enjoying food, but the reality for many women is that they would not be able to maintain a thin body and eat out in cafés and restaurants a lot. Male students have complained about the lack of positive representations of heterosexual masculinityin Sex and the City. Only the gay men are represented positively. Are men unfairly represented and stereotyped? This can provide another way of exploring how women are represented in most mainstream texts. http://www.bfi.org.uk/education/resources/teaching/fms/tfms/women/casestudy.php
For years now, Sex and the City has balanced romantic comedy (the thematic stories that run over many episodes) with low-budget talk-show lewdness (the snappy girls-only interludes that separate the more "serious" scenes in each episode). This past season, these mini-talk shows are as inventive as ever. They're much faster and funnier than "real" talk tv, and they provide pitch-perfect sensationalism for the emotionally starved and psychically bruised. While Carrie and Co. may not talk like most women over thirty talk, they do articulate what many women over (or under) thirty think, fulfilling talk show culture's cathartic contribution to contemporary life: "Hey, other people out there are just as weird/baffled/perverted/perturbed/wicked as me. And they're enjoying it!" http://www.popmatters.com/tv/reviews/s/sex-and-the-city.html
From the outset, the series provoked as much discussion about its social messages as it did its trendsetting fashion. Was it pre-feminist, post-feminist or anti-feminist? And why did the New York of Sex and the City look so unfailingly white despite the real city's ethnic diversity? http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/01/06/1073268020209.html?from=storyrhs
Not all girls (want to) go to Fendi paradise: Reviewing a review* of Sex and the City * Naomi Wolf, 'Sex and the Sisters', The Sunday Times New Review, 20 July 2003. http://www.thefword.org.uk/reviews/tv/sexandthecity.live
Dear Amy, I am currently researching my third year dissertation on 'How is Feminism portrayed in HBO's Sex and the City?' Do you agree with many writers on the subject that this show is lessening feminism and not really showing the lives of real women? http://www.feminist.com/askamy/media/202_media1.html
For Sex and the City, it seemed the formula was to write gay male and cast straight female. Its (gay) creator, Darren Star (pictured), devised one of the gayest hit series featuring straight characters in television history. The lives of the glamorous central characters - and apologies here to gay readers who dislike the stereotyping as much as anyone - revolve around sex, shopping, gossip and bawdy humour. http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/02/09/1076175068807.html?from=storyrhs
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