Sex And The City.. reviews ( for those of us that like to read them)

Sex and the City fandom is a curious, powerful thing: there are women for whom the show was not just a show, but an articulation of a kind of post-post feminism in which conspicuous consumption and low-level self-destruction become a kind of political statement, where concerns about independence and empowerment have become so moot that something as seemingly provincial and outdated as “marrying well” has come back around as a reasonable goal for working women. In other words, it allows well-heeled, probably intelligent but politically unconscious women to do what they would have done anyway, and feel really, really good about it.

http://blog.spout.com/2008/05/05/sex-and-the-city-scent-and-sentimentality/

All the way through the interview, whether it be mocking Bush or canonising Hynde, Bernhard has underlined her concern about the status of women. It's ironic, then, that filming for the "post-feminist" Sex and the City movie is going on around the corner: Bernhard is flatly disapproving of the city's most famous female quartet.

"Any time that you are not going as deep as you can as a human being, if you are not taking it out of the realm of the superficial, it's not a good thing. I have managed to have as much, or more, fun as many people ever get to have in their life but I never forget the deeper levels of being a woman. You can't live your life twisting yourself into a pretzel in this perpetual, 'ooh, have I got the right dress, shoes, purse?' That message to me is very damaging to the psyche."

Reclining on the restaurant banquette, Bernhard embellishes her argument by reminding me of an oft-forgotten fact: "I was supposed to play the role of Miranda originally. I can't imagine that showing up every week to play a character who is bitter, bitchy, eating cake out of trash cans, could have been in any way satisfying. I've never seen women relate to each other the way these four women talk to each other. It's absurd and the number one problem is that those ladies are all too old to be running around doing what they are doing."

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/sandra-bernhard-bisexuality-and-savage-wit-397472.html


As a fan of the show, I'm curious to hear what other fans think about those quotes.

From reading a lot of blog posts about the movie lately, I'm starting to wonder if shows and movies that are targeted at women are examined more closely or held to a higher standard than ones marketed to a predominately male audience.

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"they had the premiere in London, turning their back on Manhattan which is a fifth character in the movie."

And much was made of this incongruity in the TV coverage of the premiere over here. I saw Sarah Jessica Parker dismiss it as something complicated to do with numbers that she didn't want to explain.

The TV show established its audience and ran its full term over here but was not top of the ratings, nor was it one of those US shows that seemed to establish a large cult following in the way others have done. Nor would I have though Kim Catrall's recent appearances on the West End stage were enough to justify a UK premiere. So I can't offer any personal guess as to why it premiered over here either.

There is a tendency in the UK media to assume that if an American film premieres in the UK it must be bad (there was something forgetable with Hugh Grant a few months ago that did the same thing), which doesn't bode well.

mateo,
Why don't you wait till you see the movie before categorizing the reviews like that?

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this film is critic proof for me. Even the worst episode of this show made me laugh.

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I want to see Julie Halston and my pal Lynn Cohen who plays Magda.

I will do the dance of joy on May 30th. PS It takes a lot for me to go to a 10 am movie.

I'm in. I love SEX AND THE CITY! Don't forget, Nathan Lane is in it and Mario Cantone. Go, Julie Halston. Mrs Muffling.

That's true.

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