Premature Anticipation: Whatever Happened to Sex and the City?

Now that the dust has settled a bit and the mass hysteria seems to have calmed, I'd like to pass comment on the Sex and the City movie. In a nutshell: it was a non-event.

Everything that made Sex and the City so important and challenging and exciting and controversial when the television series started has fizzled away and despite the promise and PR, this film does nothing to reignite it. It is not a bad film by any means; it's entertaining, it's beautiful to watch, and there are even moments when these actresses who seemed to no longer need to 'act' actually do provide some strong and moving performances. But these are the exact same things that could be said about the television series as a whole. Would we not have been just as well served to have a 'best of' night in a privately hired cinema?

What was important about the Sex and the City phenomenon originally was that females finally had their very own Fonzie (or Joey Tribbiani or Christian Troy or Dr. Doug Ross or pick a name from any number of television series featuring a cheeky and oh-so-sensual male character with varying levels of intelligence/substance). It was avant-garde to have women not only living independently and successfully but navigating the realms of dating and sex with as much (if not more) savvy, manipulation, mistakes, and heart as any male or female character before them.

These women were not 'new' characters but for the first time we were being introduced to the woman who could be the femme fatale, the madonna, the spinster, the romantic, the sister, the realist, the career woman, and so much more, all within 24 hours if they liked depending on how they felt, what happened in their schedule, who they were with or what they were wearing at any given time. It is this fluidity which was most inspiring, empowering, frightening, and controversial for viewers who had not been met with such openness and truth in female representations for so long. This is why I watched and enjoyed it. In one episode I felt like Charlotte, the next maybe Miranda; and while I may not have learnt anything new (except for a few fashion ideas - and I am not saying that to be funny, I genuinely mean that ) the main point is that there was always at least one story line I empathised with and enjoyed seeing on my TV screen.

Article Author: Tania Patti

Tania studied Cinema Studies and English at the University of Melbourne, Australia and Queens University Canada, completing her Honours in Cinema. Since graduating she has worked in various areas of film and television in London and Australia and since …

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