**Contains Spoilers** as if there was actually a plot.
As the lights dimmed and the opening credits started for the first Sex & The City movie, my silenced cell phone lit up. I saw my sister’s name and knew the news wasn’t good. In her no BS way, she simply reported, in true Fischer fashion, “Our mother is dead.” My 76-year-old mother had a stroke earlier that day, and I was a thousand miles away. I already had a ticket to fly to Chicago in a few days, and after some debate, we decided she would get through this one as she had the other scares, and I should come in as scheduled. She didn’t. At 8:30pm on Saturday, June 7th, 2008, I was faced with a choice. A silly choice, but a choice. Do I sit through Carrie & Company or do I leave? Leave and do what, exactly? It was date night. My girlfriend at the time had gotten a sitter for her 8-year-old. Our relationship was in trouble and the strain of my mother’s declining health was pushing us to our emotional limits. I had made my way into the lobby of the Harvard Square theatre to finish the call and sat there, alone, staring into space. I could hear that the movie had started. I thought about my mother. How she worked for years in designer sportswear at Bonwit Teller and then in couture handbags at Marshall Fields. I thought, who better to spend time with than four ladies who love beautiful clothes as much as she did? I went back into the theatre and slumped into my chair. I really wanted to get lost in the fantasy of Carrie’s wedding to Big, but the distraction of the day’s events made for a more compelling movie in my head. I sat there in a daze, thankful to not have to interact with anybody. I remember thinking, “this movie isn’t very good,” but chalked it up to circumstance. Girlfriend was little comfort, and less than two days later, on the night before I was to leave for Chicago for my mother’s funeral, we broke up.
A few months later, when the movie showed up on HBO, I tuned in and realized that even through my crazy grief filter, I was right. It wasn’t very good. It wasn’t terrible, but it was too long, and Carrie and Big didn’t seem like a plausible couple to me. Their whole wedding debacle made me question the viability of a love that could turn so quickly. Still smarting from my own love gone wrong, I was far more interested in Miranda and Steve. Could they overcome true betrayal? But as a fan of the show (I own all 6 seasons), I know that in Carrie’s heightened world, the emotional hard work comes in third behind Girl Power and Fashion Week. Carrie seemed shrill and shallow in contrast to her friends who had moved from party-girl-ville to hot-mom-land. Even Samantha’s story – that she couldn’t commit to Smith – seemed to be coming from a place of truth. A sweet city hall ceremony and brunch with the gang was a fitting end to these ladies and their stories.
Bringing Carrie to the big screen proved once again that there are women who will spend money to see movies. It’s no secret that the over 40 (30?) female demographic is considered non existent by Hollywood standards, but there are a lot of us out there the same age as Carrie, who want more than just a chick flick. And while the S&TC franchise doesn’t ask a lot from its fans, it seems to appreciate how invested we are in the characters.
And so, upon the success of the first movie, a second was commissioned.
It’s been said that the women of S&TC behave like gay men. If this is true, then the characters who showed up for the sequel were four tired old queens. What a bunch of miserable, shallow, shrill, unlikeable group they’ve become. Miranda and Charlotte being the least offensive, I think because they were allowed to mature a wee bit. Their relationships with their husbands and children are complicated and messy in spite of being portrayed as one dimensional. As fans who’ve “known” them for so many years, we can accept the conceit of Charlotte baking cupcakes in vintage Valentino, and Miranda suddenly in a position where she’s being treated misogynistically , because of the knowledge we bring with us when we enter their world. Women in their 40s can relate to them on some level, even those without nannies.
But Carrie and Samantha remained stuck, selfish and immature. Their disrespect to the culture they were visiting was probably intended as high camp, but instead came across as lowbrow. I am not easily offended, but really, Samantha? Flipping off an entire crowd of Arab men? Using menopause as an excuse for such loutish behavior? And Carrie, a few nights at home on the couch and suddenly your life is over? You run into Aiden 6,000 miles from home and can’t manage to behave like an adult? I never liked Carrie and Aiden together. They never had any energy as a couple. They had nothing in common, they shared no mutual interests, and they had conflicting lifestyles. I could accept that ridiculous kiss if there was an iota of chemistry between them.
And yet, the most egregious offense of Sex & The City 2, was not Stanford and Anthony’s big gay wedding, the lack of a real plot, or the bloated running time, it was the fact that the City wasn’t New York. I’ve seen interviews where the setting is rationalized as a backdrop for an escapist fantasy. Er, the entire series was an escapist fantasy. But what made it real, was four modern archetypes finding themselves in a city where it’s easy to get lost. By taking away the character of New York City, and replacing it with Abu Dhabi, we are left with a sophomoric at best, and at worst, an insulting “fish out of water” story. The ladies deserve better than that. And so does the audience.
Somewhere between Samantha giving a blow job to a hookah pipe, and Carrie’s “race” to find her passport (exactly where she left it…big wow), I found myself hoping my phone would ring.
