Sex and the City – the clue’s in the title

Apparently Twitter and Blogsphere exploded yesterday as the film ‘Sex and the City Two’ premiered. Unfortunately I was too busy working, writing, thinking about my hot flushes and buying clothes for an impending grandchild to take part. In a twist of fate, my daughter produced a ticket for me to go to my local multiplex to see the film last night – so having seen none of the series and only a tiny bit of the first film, I am here to report as a SATC2 virgin.

The cinema was packed to the last seat with women of various ages (teens to 70+) and I counted three men in total in this large venue near Manchester. The pre booked tickets cost £9.00 and everyone was dressed up and loaded with snacks. I had previously read that the film was set partly in Abu Dhabi and, as my daughter lived there for four years and I visited her, it had an additional hook, other than the fact that it was just another film for a Friday night out with the girls.

The film starts with some backstory and the first glimpse of a pair of gold, sparkly stilettos drew gasps and applause from the audience (they were gorgeous) then the story launched into what was set to be the inevitable theme for the film, relationships and weddings. The image of Liza Minelli covering a Beyonce performance will stick in my mind for a long time, but fitted well with another theme for the film – older women.

I have been bleating on for a while now about older main characters, and now a piece of fiction has been produced where the 40+ characters are set up to portray exaggerations of women’s lives. One refreshing aspect of the film was the subplot of voice, where all the women experience a situation where they question if they are able to be heard. This is the nearest the film gets to anything other than frivolity and was handled fairly well. The film is not particularly cleverly written and the acting is sometimes painful, but there are some funny moments. The clothes and locations are stunning and do reflect the opulence of NYC and Abu Dhabi. So on a purely superficial level of watching a movie that is escapism from real life, it was entertaining.

However (there just had to be a however, didn’t there?)I did feel uncomfortable with a few aspects of the film. Many of the issues, such as whether women with children should work or not and if they should take ‘breaks’ from their kids, made me cringe a little. Most of the considerable amount of (mostly working class women) I have interviewed in various studies have stated that they have to work in order to help provide food and shelter for their family, and that parenting whilst working is excruciating but necessary. One of the film’s funniest moments for me was the braless nanny doing cartwheels. But, please, which working class woman can really afford, or would really want, a nanny?

I didn’t enjoy the contrast between the cultural aspects of Eastern and Western women, it was shallow and misinformed, and it was no real surprise to me that Muslim women in Abu Dhabi wear designer clothes. The ‘reveal’ didn’t work for me at the end of the film. There were several parts of the film where Samantha, in a bid to illustrate her continuing libido at the menopausal age of 52, openly flaunts the culture and law of the UAE. Again, this is a film that exaggerates issues, but if Samantha had actually had sex on the beach, grabbed a man’s erection in a bar or thrown condoms around a market half naked, she would be in prison for a considerable length of time. This, for me, was not so much a victory for the rights of women as a cringing, shallow attempt to mock the culture of a country that is not Western i.e. different. We are currently fighting a war in Afghanistan partly in order to moderate the oppression of women so I doubt that any thinking person would take Samantha’s single handed attempt to liberate the Middle East seriously. It’s a film. Fiction.

I gather from the small amount of information that has filtered to me that the main brunt of the critique of the film is Samantha’s sexual behaviour. Again. Actually, as I hurtle towards 50 myself and constantly field comments about how I should look and act that no one would have mentioned ten years ago, I’m hardly surprised that Samantha’s sex-loving life is denigrated. It seems that as women pass 40 and magically become perceived as weaker and pointless as their fertility falls they become targets for the ‘should’ brigade. Feminsm has become institutionalised and recently anyone who has an opinion about how another group of women act is hanging it on this convenient hook of ‘feminist thought’. The core values of feminism are that everyone (men and women) have choice, without oppression, and within personal responsibility. And that difference withing difference is valued. Whether or not I live in a postmodern relationship dynamic is none of your business as long as I am not harming another person.

This brings me to the subject of morals. Basic morality balances on the notion harm to others. Moral and ethical action is that which does not harm other people, word or deed. This includes setting up social construction for one’s own benefit that judges others in order to create and epistemological argument. Some forms of critique fall into this trap, where someones personal opinion, filtered through their own gender, sexuality, class, race, culture, belief or religion, is held up as knowledge generation that, if enough people agree with them, becomes theory. In the academic world this is evidenced rigorously thorough peer review and methodological systems. Academic researchers spend years working on reflexivity and train to be aware of this and filter it out. In the blogsphere and on Twitter it is merely biased opinion. Yet influential because of the accessibility and the way some bloggers and tweeters become, well, ‘influential’ through constant promotion and publication of their views. Everyone is entitled to their personal views, but please don’t dress them up in theory with words like ‘feminsm’.

Sex and the City is just a film, a piece of entertainment that I doubt made much real impact on the women in a cinema near Manchester last night. I seriously doubt that many of those women will suddenly begin to emulate Samantha and start having sex on the bonnet of their four wheel drive, or sit in their office with their knickers round their ankles. Unlike Carrie, I doubt that they will go straight home and tell their boyfriends/husbands that they are taking a two day a week break at their second home (who the fuck can afford a second home?). I would lay money on the phrase ‘We are living alone, just the two of us and we therefore have and opportunity to design our lives’ not being uttered in the lounges of Oldham tonight.

The women in the film are (upper) middle class women who can afford to do what they do, both culturally and financially (if they were real people, of course). The women who went to the cinema near Manchester are real working class women looking for a little escapism and maybe some fashion tips. Those who spent yesterday creating and defending a pseudo-feminism, where the only women who are allowed in are those who resort to name calling and bitching about those who are different (wait – isn’t that discrimination?), should have a break from their screens and trot down to the local domestic violence hostel. Maybe instead of telling us all what they think, they could do a couple of weeks on outreach? If they don’t fancy coming face to face with the real cuts and bruises of true feminist action, why don’t they accompany a woman, who is suffering from PTSD from beating every weekend for ten years, to court where she has finally found the courage to prosecute her abusive husband who will be there to call her a liar?

Maybe, instead of conveniently critiquing a work of fiction from the comfort of their own IPads, they could campaign on behalf of the burka wearing women who have been brought into the UK with no papers on the promise of a ‘better life’, thrown out by their abusive husbands with their children, had nowhere to go (not even a domestic violence refuge because they have no recourse to funding, that is, no money at all to live)? These women end up living on the streets with their children in care because of oppression, fear and abuse. Why not campaign for these real life people?

I don’t think this film has any more to answer for than ‘Forgetting Sarah Marshall’ or the forthcoming ‘Get him to the Greek’ with Russell Brand as a sex crazy bloke being inappropriate. I expect the differences in attitude lie somewhere around young(ish) men who are expected to behave in a sexually inhibited way and 50+ women who are blessed with other societal expectations. But you know what? I’m not going to worry about films. Of course the media is very important and lots of people are scrabbling to influence each other through it, but to be honest I am more interested in helping (that’s helping, not judging) a binge drinking fourteen year old girl who has learned alcohol dependency from her alcoholic parents live past thirty. Or the desperate teenage mum of two whose plan to escape her abusive stepfather by having children and getting a flat has left her depressed and in poverty. Or the teenager lured into the sex industry by promises of glamour work that never materialises so she ends up gradually offering sex services. I doubt if any of the above were at the cinema last night or on social networking yesterday being influenced.

Have a nice day.

Posted in: Sex

2 thoughts on “Sex and the City – the clue’s in the title”

  1. Jacqui – I love you!
    This is by far the most reasoned, rational review I’ve read. Brilliant – every word. I was punching the air throughout.

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