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| Open Theism Discussion Board > Public Forums > Questions about Christianity > Secular Critique of Sex in the City | Forum Quick Jump
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DLW
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Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457
| Posted 9/5/2003 7:14 AM (GMT -6) |   | What Carrie Could Learn From Mary
By CATHERINE ORENSTEIN
hanks to HBO's "Sex and the City," now wrapping up its sixth and final season, female sensibility has a new face. Four faces, to be precise: prim Charlotte, no-nonsense Miranda, slutty Samantha and every-girl Carrie, the sex columnist played by Sarah Jessica Parker who is the show's thematic center. Perched on Jimmy Choos and wrapped in Gucci, sipping pink cosmopolitans with an assortment of handsome suitors, the women are witty, glamorous, independent and sexually liberated — in short, who wouldn't want to be them?
Me, for one. The show may deserve a nod for spotlighting women's conversation, for treating sexuality frankly and for rendering the traditionally stigmatized state of being a single woman more acceptable — indeed, chic. But under the guise of being salaciously liberating and radically feminist, the vision of modern femininity in "Sex and the City" is in fact surprisingly retrograde. The heroines spend most of their time on shopping, cocktails and one-night stands. Charlotte dreams of bridesmaids' dresses. Miranda frigidly "dates" her TiVo, while nymphomaniac Samantha — a blond bimbo who combines old-fashioned objectification with postmodern "do me" feminism — plows through the Kama Sutra. And in one episode Carrie discovers that she has only $957 in savings — but $40,000 in designer shoes in her closet.
More dated still, especially for a show that supposedly celebrates the joys of single life and female friendship, is its preoccupation with snagging a man. The characters are a walking compendium of modern female angst — the quest for a relationship, the ticking of the biological clock, the fear of aging out of the marriage market. Not that these aren't sometimes true and even potentially funny themes of single life. But when did haute couture fashion and prêt-à-porter men come to eclipse all the other elements of independent womanhood?
As a single writer living in New York City, I can't help but compare "Sex and the City" to yesteryear's "Mary Tyler Moore Show," whose heroine — like Carrie, a 30-something single journalist — had cool clothes and plenty of suitors, but also story deadlines, a grouchy boss and male friends (not just "gay boyfriends" as on "Sex"). The show, which had its debut in 1970, was infused with the optimism and vigor of second-wave feminism. It opened with Mary leaving a boyfriend for the big city — Minneapolis — and landing a job as a television producer. She tackled substantial issues like freedom of the press and sexism in the workplace. Sure, there were also jokes about her single status. And she and sidekick Rhoda were once so desperate for dates that they joined a club for divorcées even though neither of them had ever been married. But the jokes came with a light-hearted confidence in Mary's future. Whether or not she married, her theme song promised, she would "make it after all."
Other single heroines of the past seem comparatively forward thinking today as well, including Murphy Brown, the reporter and single mom played by Candace Bergen, and even Helen Gurley Brown, whose 1962 best seller "Sex and the Single Girl" was the titular and thematic foremother to "Sex and the City." While Ms. Gurley Brown's flirt-to-get-what-you-want brand of feminism seems quaint today, she never confused her means with her ends. She didn't sit around sipping cosmopolitans, she became editor in chief of Cosmopolitan magazine.
It's no coincidence that these icons of single femininity are all journalists. In the early 20th century, journalism was one of the few careers open to women, and the expanding ranks of "girl reporters" inspired stereotype-defying single heroines: Rosalind Russell as an ace reporter in 1940's "His Girl Friday," Katharine Hepburn as a foreign correspondent in 1942's "Woman of the Year," not to mention that famed comic-strip journalist Brenda Starr.
By contrast, the heroines of "Sex and the City" are vapid, materialistic and hysterical. The show makes short shrift of their intellect, they have no causes, no families — with the exception of Miranda, who has a son — and their jobs (what little we see of them) seem to exist to enable office trysts. Like Candace Bushnell's columns in The New York Observer upon which the show was based, their lives are flattened backdrops for their dates, and their dates, like their shoes, are accessories — nice looking, often uncomfortable, and seasonal.
In part this is what makes them popular. They're a caricature of a complicated generation of women — myself included — now coming into our 30's: the daughters of women's lib. Born in the years that the Ivy Leagues went co-ed and abortion became legal, we've been raised on promises of equality, we've been blessed with opportunities and we've delayed marriage and motherhood longer than any other generation. We have the luxury, or so we may think, of taking feminism's gains for granted.
"Sex and the City" glamorizes this condition — but to what end? Lacking substance and dimension, defined by sex appeal and revolving around men, Carrie and her friends are stuck in a surprisingly old-fashioned, Jane Austenian trap: having failed to leverage youth and beauty into something more substantial, they are now in danger of becoming spinsters. Indeed, they are already there, according to a recent New York Times article that compared them to the sexagenarians of "The Golden Girls."
Before the series comes to an end, it would be gratifying to see Carrie and her friends grow up into something more than restless partyers, man-hunters and shoe-shoppers, and find something more enduring to glamorize: a cause, a family, a career that is more than a backdrop for sex, or even just a story worthy of the girl reporter's legacy. Something that broadens our idea of what makes a woman sexy. Something worthy of the feminism our mothers bequeathed us.
Catherine Orenstein is author of "Little Red Riding Hood: Uncloaked Sex, Morality and the Evolution of a Fairy Tale."
Niebuhr thought that sustained moral energy in politics depended on religion's power to mobilize reason along with self-transcending love. The prophetic tradition, meanwhile, gave Jews and Christians some protection against the temptation to identify their social causes with God's will. Lincoln's second inaugural address expressed the prophetic insight, "The almighty has His own purposes." | | Back to Top | | |
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Tigress
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| Posted 9/5/2003 12:12 PM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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DLW
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Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457
| Posted 9/5/2003 12:16 PM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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Tigress
Registered Member
Date Joined Feb 2003
Total Posts : 1252
| Posted 9/5/2003 12:17 PM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by DLW
quote:
Originally posted by Tigress
quote:
Originally posted by DLW
The Full Monty is a real movie about real people. It really isn't lewd and doesn't have that much nudity.
Your going to have to refine your tastes in cinema Tigress if you expect to make a good catch...
dlw
Oh, and what would YOU suggest? Let me guess...porn movies!
The full monty is by no stretch of the imagination a porn film.
Though, lots of good films do have some nudity. Try watching Farinelli, Abre los Ojos, Jungle Fever, La Reine Margot, Do the Right Thing sometime!
dlw
I already told you that nudity is a problem for me in regards to physical turn-ons. (Remember my post on that one thread about homosexuality?) So, I really need to try to avoid movies like that for my own spiritual health. If I do happen to see a movie with nudity, I don't sweat it, but if it's apparent before I see the movie that nudity will be a huge part of the plot, then I'll usually pass on it - unless the movie appears to be epic like "Titanic", "Braveheart" or something like that.
Tigress 
"Name a shrub after me. Preferably one that's prickly and difficult to eradicate."
-Captain Jack Aubrey
"Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World" | | Back to Top | | |
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DLW
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Total Posts : 2457
| Posted 9/5/2003 12:22 PM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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Tigress
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Date Joined Feb 2003
Total Posts : 1252
| Posted 9/5/2003 12:27 PM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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DLW
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Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457
| Posted 9/5/2003 12:34 PM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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Tigress
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Date Joined Feb 2003
Total Posts : 1252
| Posted 9/5/2003 12:41 PM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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DLW
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457
| Posted 9/5/2003 12:49 PM (GMT -6) | | Ah, but the point is that, while the nudity doesn't make the film a good film, many good films do have some nudity and wouldn't be as good of a film without it.
dlw | | Back to Top | | |
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Tigress
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Total Posts : 1252
| Posted 9/8/2003 4:48 AM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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Tigress
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Date Joined Feb 2003
Total Posts : 1252
| Posted 9/8/2003 5:05 AM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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