The International Writers Magazine :Review

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This Means War: Sex and the City and the Assault on Modern Man • Kennedy Heather Being that I inhabit the western hemisphere and am either (a) a female or (b) a gay man, one of my central leisure pursuits is, of course watching Sex and the City. The show is definite in its demographic; this is part of its appeal. You wouldn’t invite your dentist bra shopping and by the same token you don’t expect your straight male pals to cosy up for a full-on SATC sesh. Such are the unspoken codes of civil society.

But since that fateful day of on the 28th May when the Sex and the City: The Movie was released to a grasping UK fan base, dark clouds have been brewing. Distant mumblings have swollen and gathered into a deafening chorus of outrage and distain. The male detractors have spoken.

With the bristling panache of Charlie Brooker, razor sharp critiques have been launched. Shrewd strategies of attack have been outlined. My two male housemates plotted to stick it to us stupid women by descending on the cinema mid-showing and running amok, cat amongst the pigeons style. They were bravely unperturbed by my assurance that they’d be beaten to death in a hale storm of heels and handbags.

Peter Travers of Rolling Stone words the disaffection elegantly when he muses "Some dudes would rather light their dicks on fire than endure this movie version of the ultimate TV chickcoms". What have the New York glam clan done to incite such wanton acts of penile incineration? Feeling under siege, have the Gods of Testosterone called upon their minions to set aflame their prized jewels in a sacrificial offering? If only the more ambitious cult leaders could somehow harness this mystery ingredient, they’d be laughing. And why has Peter Travers chosen such a bold opening statement? As if to fend off the shameful emasculation threatened by the film’s diamante glare. You can bet it was a tense day in the Rolling Stone office the day this assignment was dished out. ("Oy, Travers! When you’re done scraping the gum off the underside of my swivel chair you can get cracking on the Sex and The City review!").I would hazard a guess that the number of hecklers who, unlike poor old Peter Travers, have actually done any hard SATC time could be rounded up a New York minute. Don’t get me wrong; if they were to sit through a couple of episodes I’m pretty sure they’d still hate it. But it does take the sheen off their critical credentials somewhat when they’ve failed to do even the most rudimentary research.

Take a casual glance at the online discussions surrounding SATC and you’ll stumble across the kind of vitriolic pillaring usually reserved for Muslim extremists, paedophiles and Heather Mills:
Movie Review: Sex and The City movie satisfies fans: 31st May 2008
The relief I feel is this garbage is something only American women can relate to or have to tolerate around them. There's a growing epidemic of femifascism in the U.S. and movies like this only worsen it.

Splash Says: May 15th 2008
I’d rather be captured by the Taliban and forced to make my escape in a battle suit built of my own faeces than sit through 150 minutes of this

Contact Music, Sex and the City: 17th June
Kim Cattrall's Samantha… she's a 50-year-old whore who would be derided by feminists if she were a guy. Imagine, a subplot centred on a sexually-unhinged himbo who can't settle down and commit to one partner because he's too focused on himself and his below-the-belt needs.
(A middle aged egotistical lothario? Christ, yeah, audiences would never go for that.)So, I couldn’t help but wonder: What are the chaps getting their knickers in such a knot about? Unbeknownst to most of us, the arrival of SATC on the silver screen seems to have been interpreted as a declaration of war; a large gleaming pair of pink scissors poised threateningly beneath the collective ball sack. Who knew?

And SATC fans have looked on with a casual bemusement at the flaming gauntlet that has been unexpectedly tossed in their path. Only the most die-hard (and deluded) devotees amongst us would try, in earnest to make the case for SATC as a feminist manifesto. Yes, the depictions of female relationships are often accurate and poignantly rendered. (This is partly what sets teeth a-clatter. Most women have been privy to the paranoid shiftiness that female solidarity can muster in their men folk). There are also some genuinely funny moments and an occasional biting cynicism which cuts through a lot of the drippy sentiment. But for the most part, its pretty silly, and we know it.

For one, it sloppily equates feminist empowerment with capitalist hedonism, spawning the dubious myth that happiness is a pair of Milano Blahnik strappy sandals. But the political pitfalls of SATC have been documented to death. And yes, Carrie is intensely irritating, Samantha as an erotic trailblazer trots a smug and implausible path and Charlotte…well, Charlotte should never have been allowed to wander outside her Sylvanian Families Dream House. (That’s right, no mention of Miranda, who is of course, beyond reproach and as a female role model, on a par with Michaela Strachan).
Yes, it’s a guilty pleasure. But glance a moment at the male televisual hit list and it makes SATC look like a BBC2 season of Russian performance art. Gladiators? Police, Camera Action? Nuts TV? But are men harangued from every quarter, cajoled up onto their soapboxes to defend these visual vices? (Well, in fact Gladiators is a legitimate showcase of physical excellence and Nuts TV…). Can you imagine? And where cinema is concerned, the catalogue of crimes becomes deeply deplorable. But still this dedication to the time honoured melange of tits, fists and explosions escapes scrutiny.

So where is women’s equal right to luxuriate in morally bankrupt, sugar coated chicken feed? To indulge in hedonistic viewing that glitters on the retina and tugs cheaply on the heart strings? It seems we have none. Female trash culture is acceptable so long as it can be safely relegated to the lowly echelons of super market fiction or daytime TV. But the hype for SATC: The Movie has been like chlamydia in the under 25s; pretty much inescapable.

And it’s the status of the film as a blockbuster that seems to have ruffled feathers. (It speaks volumes that before I looked the word up, I had the vague notion it referred to a lucrative action flick staring someone of the Mel Gibson ilk). Hype is annoying. That’s a given. Like Fearne Cotton, it been sent by God to try us.

But do women moan about the endless parade of dick-flicks shoved in our apathetic faces? Indian Jones, Hancock and Transformers are some recent examples. No. For starters they’re too abundant, we’d do little else. Like the drunken solicitations from clammy faced louts, we’ve learnt to zone them out.

Men seem to sense that SATC is a sign, however an imperfect one, of women’s greater social capital. That a film which excludes straight men could stake itself so palpably in the media limelight has aroused a niggling unease. Whilst not offering us the most glistening examples, it does flag up ground won on the gender playing field. It wears the campaign T-shirt without really funding the cause.

At its best, SATC plays to a sexually and financially autonomous womanhood. For many lads this translates to 20ft man gobblers, waxed King Kongs in stilettos terrorizing the city. And maybe this fear is more than just the fictional Samantha lurking under the bed. Let’s be honest; SATC laughs in the face of the fake orgasm and asks men to veto their own semen before receiving head! I mean women’s new found erotic agenda is cool so long as it takes shape in a penchant for pole dancing or lesbian exhibitionism. But for a generation of men sold the myth of female sexual expression as the writhing compliance of a FHM High Street Honey? They were never going to take this lying down.

And so perhaps to the greatest crime of all: That the characters, failing to make the Babe grade, refuse to approach their sexuality like the buried body under the patio. Note the indignation expressed at the gang’s supposed crimes against sexiness:
Robert Ebert: 29th May 2008
Louise [Carrie’s young, demure assistant] is warm and vulnerable and womanly, which does not describe any of the others.

Buck Turgidson Says: 16th May 2008
Lesbianism is one thing, but a movie with unattractive geriatric lesbians would have you in the theatre all by yourself.

Dave of Scarborough: 10th June 2008
ha ha ha billy ray valentine.. so true. if i wanted to see 4 unattractive sad middle aged slappers i wouldn't need to pay for the 'privilege'.

Th_Ph Says: 15th May 2008
Sarah Jessica Parker - the fashion icon whose message is "ugly girls can be pretty, too."

Interests must be kept within the remit of Good Housekeeping magazine it seems. Some serious rules have been broken. You are allowed to be a cock hungry nympho so long as you’re under 30 and hot off the Hollyoaks production line. Why have these actresses not been ushered off into the homely pastures of family sitcom or gravy advert? In this refusal to shuffle into the milieu of the pastel twin set there exists a grain of courage that keeps many of us coming back for more.
What seems to elude the detractors above is that, for once, this is a visual buffet to which they were not invited. The colourful parade of flamboyant fashion and "sexy" men (the array of arrogant, tiny eyed creeps left many of us wanting) are designed to excite the female ocular palate. Carrie et al don’t care if you don’t want to fuck them. Their success isn’t predicated on this (and they probably don’t want to fuck you either). Is this such a difficult notion to grasp?

Could it be that for many men today, the eye candy imperative has spiralled out of all control? Their libidos have been pandered to to the degree that they won’t tolerate anything sexual that doesn’t have them reaching for the Kleenex. Put the champers on ice. The new horizons SATC is supposed to represent can’t be toasted just yet.

So unless the fellas are concerned that we’re selling our dreams of equality down the river, why can’t they butt out? SATC might not showcase the promised land of sexual empowerment. But in the shameful response it’s solicited, it certainly shows us the enduring obstacles standing in its way.

© Kennedy Heather Aug 7th 2008
heatherkennedy83 at yahoo.co.uk

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