What's Up with all the Hostility Toward SEX AND THE CITY?

Over the past few days, I've been reading a few posts on this weekend's blockbuster top grossing SEX AND THE CITY movie.  And for the life of me, I don't understand the rage in the writing that I've been seeing.

I wouldn't say a word if this were reserved for the likes of Jeffrey Wells, who has almost cornered the market on creepy in the film blogosphere (and make no mistake, he goes after SATC with pure unadulterated crazy - "a cultural snapshot showing everyone in the world how utterly shallow and culturally nowhere mainstream American women have become"), but even some of my favorite writers (and peeps for that matter) have joined in.  It's become de rigeur to hate SATC sight unseen, and to do so with a bizarre double standard that I thought was reserved for the Clinton campaign.

Karina Longworth even posted a handy guide to the 5 Ways to Dismiss the SEX AND THE CITY Movie, which was proffered as help for those looking to articulate their "semi-rational hatred" for the film.  Number one on the list?  "The women aren't attractive!" 

Karina even points to the illustration at left that accompanied a nasty New Yorker review from professional film crapper Anthony Lane (it's really useless to call him a critic at this point, since he only serves to write outrageously about films he despises these days).  Says Karina, "A masterpiece of grotesque caricature, it’s the only piece of critique of the film that this self-professed third (or is it fourth?) wave feminist considers to be truly, maliciously misogynist."

Karina's post even merits a love letter from "Stephen" in the comments section, who writes:

"I LOVE YOU!!!!

There, finally a sane woman speaks out! Phew… good to see there are STILL some alive and well...

You’re right, people moan about these women as if they are so hot. But the truth is, that they’re just old, and pathetic. Shallow and materialistic oh and horny.

Sadly a lot of young women and troubled women find this show amazing… I guess it’s because they’re simply disillusioned and have a very distorted view on reality."

Yes, thank God that Karina has provided a buffer for Stephen from the mass of people who have been proclaiming how "hot" the SATC ladies are.  (Update: This morning Karina expands on that "somewhat tongue-in-cheek post" and wonders what the film's success might mean.)

I was alerted to Karina's breakdown of reasons to hate SATC by another good pal, Mark Rabinowitz, who offered the following in a post titled "Thank God I Don't Have to Watch This Dreck....":

"Personally, I never had even a nanosecond's thought of seeing this culturally, politically, emotionally and cinematically bereft film. Save yourself the pain and re-watch season one of BSG or a Tracy-Hepburn movie. At least you'll be getting a full dose of strong, well-rounded and developed female characters and not four nauseating ersatz women."

Add to this the stories about how men would avoid the film as some sort of macho coding ritual.  Said Variety before the film was released:

"(T)here's no escaping the fact that the movie is a chick flick with strong appeal among an older femme demo but questionable interest among others. All the magazine coverage in the world -- 63 pages in the May 23 edition of Entertainment Weekly alone -- and "Sex and the City" TV marathons haven't really moved the needle among men, many of whom suggest they'd rather be shot than sit through the movie."

The LA Times was even more direct:

"It's easier to find $2-a-gallon gas than a straight man eager to see the movie."

Now I haven't seen the film (of course not, did I mention that I'm a MAN - all caps to underline the manliness of my manhood), but isn't this a TV series that was pretty much accepted by most right thinking people as a fine piece of entertainment?  I don't remember the gnashing of teeth and the rending of garments when it aired every week on HBO after the Sopranos.  In fact, I seem to remember people watching it and thinking it to be kind of great.  And Sarah Jessica Parker was a nice little actress that we had all grown up with and wasn't she cute when she was on Square Pegs.

Now all of a sudden were offended that they like fancy shoes?  Really?  Why?  Because gas is $4 a gallon and because we're at war?  Did we suddenly get religion (or are we shamed by all the times we've secretly watched THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA on HBO)?  Did we get collective amnesia all of a sudden?

And now four perfectly respectable actresses (at least one who was considered a few years ago to be quite fetching) are too ugly to front a movie and SJP is the anti-Christ and has a horse face?

And if I'm wrong, why isn't everybody up in arms about Entourage?

Sight unseen, I'm gonna side with my pal Kim Voynar on this, who posts a fine riposte to Jeffrey Wells (along with Anne Thompson and Manohla Dargis) after his crazy-making post:

"I totally disagree with Thompson and Dargis on this one. I'm a fan of the series, loved the movie, and gave it a positive review. And while I understand the need of smart, intellectual women to bash this film (it's superficial! it's about fashion!), a lot of them are judging the movie in a way that's every bit as superficial as they assert the film and characters are.

SATC has never been about fashion or a credit card lifestyle if you look beneath its surface. It's about a group of smart, independent women who, successful as they are, still struggle with figuring out love and relationships and how to have and maintain a relationship with a man without losing who you are as an intelligent woman with a career and life of your own.

And frankly, I'm surprised that so many of these smart women don't seem to grasp that. I'd be willing to bet that most of the female film critics who bitch about SATC as being nothing more than a group of otherwise intelligent women who do nothing but talk about men do pretty much the exact same thing the SATC chicks do when they go out on girls' nights with their own friends.

The single hardest aspect of my own adult life has been figuring out how to be a wife and mother without losing myself in the process, and I know a lot of women who feel that way.

As for the male critics bashing the show -- (shrug) big surprise; why would anyone expect them to understand a movie that's not about them for a change?"

Besides, should anyone who yearns for something other than CGI-driven comic book action and post-adolescent targeted dick comedy be glad that a movie with four ugly (and don't forget old, bitterly, disgustingly old) women made a buttload of money this weekend?  Why isn't that cause for rejoicing?  And if the success of a HBO TV Show turned feature film means that someone this morning is gonna call for a Deadwood movie, well then someone buy Michael Patrick King a drink.

Comments

[Karina]

I thought it was obvious that my post was tongue-in-cheek. I'm not a SatC fan and I'm really tired of hearing about it, but so much of the criticism of it is paint-by-numbers stuff from critics who are too lazy to engage with it. "Stephen"'s, um, fan mail was not the kind of thing I was looking for.

[Mark Rabinowitz]

I was pretty clear on Karina's tongue-in-cheekness when I read it and I'd like to point out that my post was actually angry about what I perceive as the film's anti-woman aspects (well, I can't say the film exactly because I haven't seen it, but I do know the show). You even quoted my point for me, AJ. I think the franchise is anti-woman and offers if not a completely unrealistic portrayal of "life in the big city," than an unbelievably shallow one.

I completely disagree with Kim's POV but that's fine. Plenty of people have strong, differing opinions on issues, films, books, etc but to dismiss the male film critics who criticize the film in toto because we wouldn't understand a movie that's not about us? Talk about a hypocritical generalization.

There's more, but I posted it on my blog.

Continue reading here
:-)

[Annie]

Do the immature, vitriolic reviews of this movie offend me? Yep. Do I still hate the movie anyway? Most definitely.

I loved the series, but the movie was complete crap. It felt like a movie about Sex & the City written by people who had heard about but never seen Sex & the City. All the wit, the snark, the tongue-in-cheek that made the series great was totally absent in the movie.

http://shoesonwrong.livejournal.com/210217.html

[Arne]

Though we've confronted more head-scratching from male reviewers than vitriol, our film "Girls Rock!" (which is exclusively about girls and women) did get a few screeds like this one from Roger Moore of the Orlando Sentinel:

"Round up a hundred or so indulged, middle-class girls in the Portland, Ore., area. Give them guitars, drums and basses. Let them form bands and write a song that they can perform at the end of a week of Rock 'n' Roll Camp for girls....

This Arne Johnson-Shane King movie is packed with info-bites of the ways girls are held back, repressed by culture, kept from seeking the rock limelight by modesty, peers and the society they grew up in.

We get it.

Not sure how a bunch of spoiled and tone-deaf spawn of Portland-area hippies are supposed to strike a blow against that, but there you go."

I won't break down the review too far, but suffice it to say only some of the featured girls are from Portland, none are the children of hippies and only one qualifies as economically comfortable. I only point this out, because his review was more of the girls than the actual film (and painfully distorted at that), which we encountered all too often, even in some positive reviews. There's something about seeing women controlling space that drives some people into a frenzy of confusion and even anger. I haven't seen the SITC movie yet, but I've seen the show, and I'm not at all surprised by the reaction. It reminds me of the vitriol heaped on the Lilith Fair and that era of music...Meanwhile crap like OzFest somehow lives on without comment...

We've been fortunate to avoid the worst of the gnashing teeth (in fact, some of our most wonderful reviews have been from both men and women), and I imagine that has something to do with children being a less easy target for vitriol (though Roger Moore seems perfectly comfortable on the attack), but it's never been far from our awareness.

[Erin]

For the record, I loved Karina's round up post and thought it was fairly obviously tongue in cheek. "Stephen" comments are just an unfortunate byproduct of blogging.

And Arne, I suspect that reviewer didn't even watch your film. He couldn't be more wrong in characterizing the subjects of Girls Rock.