and Caroline Herrerra... and Christian LaCroix... and DIOR [pictured] ... and Oscar de la Renta... and, finally, Vivienne Westwood.Carrie Bradshaw, enduring pop culture clotheshorse and television's favorite neurotic single gal, enunciates each name carefully, as if not to wrinkle the dresses by blurting them out too forcefully or ripping a seam whilst stumbling over a jutting syllable.
<--- She's about to bust out that doubled-over / elbows out pose that's so popular on reality show modeling competitions. A pose that judges will invariably call "editorial" or "high fashion" and never once "derivative" even though people have been doing it since at least the days of Kristin McNemany and Linda Evangelista (and probably well before that)Designers are namechecked a lot in the world of Sex & the City but in this particular scene it's appropriate since it is a fashion shoot. Our Carrie Bradshaw (the ever divisive Sarah Jessica Parker) is Vogue's bridal cover girl. Quite a coup. Unbeknownst to Carrie, this cover spectacle will ... well, it will cause P-L-O-T to happen. And it's about time since we're 20 minutes into the movie.
I kid. I love the movie... though I realize it's not so much a movie as a chance to reconnect with the girls. After watching the very awkward remake of The Women (2008) I became even more convinced that Sex & the City for all it's "now" appeal, is actually a worthy homage to girlie movies of yore. It even breaks for fashion shows just like the old black and whites used to. Sex & the City gets dinged often for being materialistic and shallow. The former charge applies, the latter does not. Carrie especially has been confronted with her own materialism and other less-than-desirable traits throughout the series. The actress and scripts have never shied away from her complexities or from investigating the shallower or, to be more generous, the fluffier pockets of her personality.
Most economic porn movies -- which is to say most movies -- including The Women never look deeply at their character's finances. Shopping sprees are rarely seen as anything other than triumphant and nobody would ever be forced to confront that they were living way beyond their means (as Carrie was during the course of Sex and the City). Now, that's shallow and materialistic, to continually glorify consumer culture and never once have to foot the bill. Everybody in television and the movies has apartments and wardrobes that they could never afford in real life -- I was giggling just last night that I was supposed to find Ugly Betty's spacious new Manhattan apartment (with big windows!) a horror. If I didn't already love my apartment I would've taken over her lease in a heartbeat.
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those pics of SJP make me think of Frau Blucher....whinney, whinney.
I'll never quite figure out what it is about SJP that brings out such bile in people. People routinely blather on and on about how Hollywood only obsesses on young skinny blonde twigs yet somebody who's not typically glamourous - yet still thinks she is sexy, what a crime - comes along and... well. Yeah. Only Kristen Davis escapes unscathed, actually. Kim Cattrall is too old to be doing what she does!!!! Cynthia Nixon is too ugly and a lesbian!!!!! Ugh. And then they turn around and say whatever nameless bimbo from The Hills should go away and "make way for real women" etc. Not that these CHARACTERS (an important word that since they're not actually real people) are real in any way shape or form, but they don't have to be. They're characters in a sort of wish fulfillment series/movie. So I don't quite see the issue.
Again, maybe that's why women respond to it so much (of course, that's not to say it doesn't have female detractors). The sight of four women who aren't all plastic surgery clones, yet still embrace the fact that they're women and that they like clothes and sex and so on. etc.
The series dealt with quite a bit of heavy stuff (cancer, dimentia, divorce, unsafe sex, debt, etc) yet all people ever see are the shoes and the dresses. It's tired.
On the apartment thing, I remember watching 27 Dresses and thinking I need to become an assistant. If Heigl's assistant character could afford that giant apartment she had then I want one too!
Dude! The boyfriend forces me to watch Ugly Betty every week - although, shh, I secretly don't mind that much - and last night we were both going on and on about how that enormous apartment of Betty's that she wouldn't stop bitching about probably costs $5000 a month and how she needs to shut up, patch the drip, and revel in that amazing space. Huge! How dare she, ya know? And then we had this entire conversation - it's a show that's easy to talk over sometimes - about how often that sort of thing is shown in movies. To anyone whose lived in or dealt with a real estate market like NYC's, a place like that is a dream, not a nightmare. SO MUCH SPACE.
And the night before I made him watch the Sex and the City movie and we were discussing its similarities to The Women. So really, this entire post just proves that we've been sharing a brain this week and not realizing it. Huh!
Getting the "Sex and the City" DVD today! Can't wait!
I dig the poofy dresses!
Agreed-I'd kill for that apartment in Manhattan. It's like all of those shows such as Friends that had people who were earning minimum wage or slightly better living in Central Park lofts.
The former charge applies, the latter does not. Carrie especially has been confronted with her own materialism and other less-than-desirable traits throughout the series. The actress and scripts have never shied away from her complexities or from investigating the shallower or, to be more generous, the fluffier pockets of her personality.
How so? Because I remember the opposite (see when Aidan and Carrie break-up).
There was that episode about how Carrie has spent "forty thousand dollars on shoes and can't even pay the rent" (/paraphrase) to name just one moment.
there was also a lot of soul searching about being bailed out by others
I'm not trying 2b contentious but I really don't understand how people can watch that show & not see how fully Carrie's flaws are documented
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