Red Tent Sisters

Sex and the City

A review of the movie and [some of] the boundaries it doesn't push ...

[beware: spoilers below!]

Despite my interest in talking about all things sexual and my friends' assurance that Sex and the City was a TV show I would love, I never became a regular viewer. I saw a few episodes here and there when housemates had the show on and I have a general idea of what the show was about, but that's all. I'm now living in South Korea and opportunities to experience a taste of home are not everyday occurrences. Thus when THE Sex and the City movie came out, I went to see it with a friend.

The movie had the feel of one REALLY long TV episode and I had the feeling that if one had followed the show and was experiencing the re-birth and reunion of the characters whose lives they had followed over several years, one would have enjoyed the movie more than I did. That said, I did enjoy the movie - it just wasn't amazing.

What I want to focus on in this blog post is how the movie script developed in such a way that opportunities opened up for the movie to push some normative social boundaries. Unfortunately the script followed the road more traveled and concluded with a stereotypical fairytale ending for the main character - marriage to her prince charming.

The TV show and movie feature four, now adult girl friends whose friendship is based in New York city. In the movie Charlotte is happily married and after adopting a daughter she becomes pregnant - a life-long dream for her. Her life in the movie pretty much follows the normative path of marriage and children. Since this "path" is a reality for many individuals her presence in the show/movie is useful as she provides one "type" of character for women to relate to. What interested me and what I really want to address today are the the other three characters' relationship woes and how their stories progress.

First of all, Miranda. Near the beginning of the movie her husband has a one night stand with another woman and for most of the movie Miranda finds herself unable to forgive him - perhaps partly because she is unable to forgive herself. She struggles with the feeling that others blame her for the infidelity - that she made it happen because she "let the sex go out of the marriage". Miranda grapples with the fact that the demands of marriage and motherhood and work made a satisfying and regular sex life fall to the bottom of the priority list - and how this change of priorities affected her relationship with her life partner.

In this way the movie does deal with the reality of many women's lives and perhaps also men's lives. At least this is the line of thought that popular literature would have us believe with its frequent commentary on ways to to "keep the flame alive". As a sidenote, I'm not married or a working mother AND I haven't focused my studies in this area so I'm not sure how accurate this representation is. I just know it is a concern that is commonly addressed in pop culture. Also as a sidenote [and getting somewhat off track!] I'm not sure I'm convinced that all this attention should be paid to maintaining a "fabulous" sex life that is the focus of so many pop culture items [I'm thinking in particular here of mainstream magazines].

Getting back to the movie. In the end Miranda and Steve get back together. Although the theme of "reunion because of love despite all the odds" follows a fairytale plot line, the idea of reunion after an affair challenges the idea that couples break up after infidelity. This IS something I read about in a report somewhere at some point :) and I know that a surprisingly high number of couples stay together after infidelity, contrary to the popularized notion that an affair means the end of a relationship.

Moving on. Samantha finds herself unable to stay in a monogamous relationship and breaks up with her common-law partner. In her words she chooses a relationship with herself over a relationship with a guy. This is somewhat boundary challenging as Samantha is a character that, while heading towards her 50th birthday chooses to be single and respectful of her own needs rather than stay in a more normative heterosexual couple. I think the movie could have been even MORE progressive had it introduced the idea of long term "open" relationships and/or the idea of being polyamorous. Why did Samantha have to leave her wonderful relationship just so she could "satisfy" another part of her - the part that likes to have sex with a variety of partners?

Last but definitely not least, is Carrie - the main character. Happily in a long term relationship, her and partner decide to get married for financial security reasons. The marriage becomes a lot bigger than the civil ceremony Mr. Big [her partner] had in mind. Scared by all the pomp and circumstance, he jilts Carrie on their wedding day. They spend most of the rest of the movie separated with Carrie attempting to mend her broken heart. In the final scenes of the movie they are reunited and almost manage to push boundaries - they question why they ever wanted to get married in the first place when they were so happy being life partners without the married label. Unfortunately Mr. Big pops the question, in a romantic way this time, and they end up getting married at the city hall.

Importantly the movie reinforces the idea of getting married for oneself instead of to enjoy "the wedding experience/dream". This is a significant message in today's increasingly materialistic society where many weddings have become consumerist experiences to the extreme. However, I think the movie could have been more "revolutionary" had Carrie and Mr. Big decided that they could have their happily ever after ending without Carrie changing her last name and without the official wedding ceremony.

There are many other "things", such as agism, beauty norms, and classism especially, that could be addressed when reviewing this movie, however, it was the above observations about relationships that really jumped out at me. I'll end this post here, hopefully I've given you something to think about ... and not ruined the movie for you should you decide to see it!