We Can't Wait #10 Sex and the City: The Movie

Directed by Michael Patrick King
Starring SJP and the girls
Synopsis The plot is secret -- as it should be
Brought to you by Darren Star Productions, HBO, New Line and the collective public inability to let go
Photos in this post from Just Jared and google searches
Expected Release Date May 30th, 2008

Nathaniel: Sex & The City: The Movie or as I like to call it Season Seven. In which Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker), Samantha (Kim Catrall), Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) and Charlotte (Kristin Davis) deal with their husbands, boyfriends, children and (presumably) Carrie's wedding.

Naturally they're guarding the plot details but it's never really about the story anyway. I often think that it should be Patricia Field's name above the title when it comes to Sex & The City rather than whoever is directing and starring. So, this post will be illustrated with costumes from the movie.

A strange thing happened when I asked my guests to choose costumes and play dress up. I thought they'd have fun with the assignment. Instead they ignored me, opting to renew the primary debate about the series: are these women for real ??? My blog buddies got so into the debate, ignoring my joy at the frivolous fashion eye candy that I eventually lost the thread of who was saying what to whom. But here's most of it...

MaryAnn: I can't freakin' stand Sex and the City. I hate those women, I don't know any women like them, and I desperately want to smack them all.

All of these photos (except 7/8 -- 7's kinda nice, and I could probably actually pull that off) prove that fashion is a scam pulled on women, a joke by men who hate women to make women look ridiculous. No. 9 is what I'd wear if I wanted to feel like an awkward, uncomfortable teenager again, like everyone's looking at me and laughing at me.

Gabriel: MaryAnn, you're under the mistaken impression that Sex & the City's four female characters are women. They are not...or at least, not women in any sense of reality; the world of the show and the movie is brilliantly and blatantly fabricated, a weaving of iconography and fantasy (and let's admit it, stereotype) into a big, gay, silly, romantic, fabulous comic confection.

And as an actual gay man -- albeit a sartorially-challenged one -- I I love S&tC's excesses, its totally rejection of reality, the mythic New York it barely conceals as a sugary fantasy playland for adults...like Oz or Middle Earth, but with great restaurants. The actresses are great, the clothes are jaw-droppingly out there (bad AND good), and the writers remember the all-important rule to avoid taking itself too seriously.

As for which outfit I want to wear, I'll take #3...I love flowers that are bigger than my head, that look more like physical defects than fashion accoutrements.

MaryAnn: Well, yes, I know that the women are actually gay men. But not everyone realizes that. You can't believe how many people think that my life -- because I'm a single woman in New York City -- *must* be like that of the characters on this show. Fairly or not, these characters have come to be symbolic of my generation, and I hate that.

Glenn: My email browser isn't allowing me to open the Sex and the City entry so I can't see the fabulous/hideous costumes that Nat prepared for us (seriously, why do I still use Yahoo? seriously, why does Carrie wear the things she does?) But I will say this - As a young gay Australian who has romanticised New York City to the point of exhaustion - even I can realise that the series was, for the better part, not exactly accurate. But there I think is where lies the charms of the show. Who wants to watch a show about four moderately interesting women who maybe go to a bar once a week and who - SHOCKHORROR! - wear the same outfit more than once? Not I! I approach the movie with trepidation because, let's face it, it's entirely unnecessary, but then I watch an episode of the show and it's like "THAT is how you write a comedy, folks" and get all excited. I'm so easily swayed.

Joe: Oh I don't think it was a very well-written show. So many groaning punchlines and Carrie's bizarre borscht belt tendencies and those endless goddamn puns. To the degree that I enjoyed the show (and I did) it was definitely a guilty pleasure.

Glenn: But a "guilty pleasure" implies that it isn't particularly good and the general consensus with Sex and the City seems to be that it was indeed very good. I guess I just like artificiality. Don't get me wrong, I like a gritty realistic drama as much as the next person, but if I wanted everything I watch to be a true reflection on real life then I'd pretty much have to stop watching films and TV altogether except for perhaps the occasional Alkinos Tsilimidos movie and documentaries, which is not something I particularly want.

MaryAnn: Is there no middle ground between absurd, outrageous fantasy and gritty reality?

Glenn: It reminds me of the people who have complained that the character of Juno doesn't sound like anybody in real life. Well, I can't imagine anyone saying something like "fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy night," but I don't see people complaining about that. I'm sure there could be a great show about NYC women who aren't Carrie Clones but would people watch it? I imagine Sex and the City without the ridiculous fashion and the barhopping would be like Law & Order without a murder. Not very interesting.

MaryAnn: I live in New York and I get tired of seeing it romanticized -- not that I don't love this town to bits, but, you know, not all of us live in 4000-square-foot apartments on the Upper West Side -- and I'd really like to see a show that's realistic about women's lives. I think real women can be more than just "moderately interesting" without being gay men in disguise.


Nathaniel: And the conversation continued from there with some good points made, splintering off into various e-mails not all of which I seem to have been copied on and trying to piece them together I became completely confused. Oh Carrie, you troublemaker!

Soooo, readers. Will you be Carried away this summer? Get out your deepest feeling about the divisive series in the comments or choose a costume to imagine wearing - Tell us which one (hence the numbers), how it makes you feel, and where you'd go when you're wearing it ~ You know you want to!

the countdown
#1 Synecdoche, New York / #2 Burn After Reading / #3 Australia / #4 Milk / #5 Blindness / # 6 Doubt / #7 The Curious Case of Benjamin Button / #8 Revolutionary Road / #9 The Dark Knight / #10 Sex & The City: The Movie / #11 The Lovely Bones / #12 Wall-E / #13 Stop-Loss / #14 The Women / #15 Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince / Introduction / Orphans
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