My commitment to Sex and The City endured longer than my marriage.
So when my imaginary boyfriend, Jay-Z (did you see him on Oprah? He giggles. The Hova giggles. Mad love, baby) raps,
Only time we don’t speak is during “Sex and the City”
She gets Carrie fever, but soon as the show is over
She’s right back to being my soldier
I think, now that’s a wise man.
That was how it when down in my house, too. My love, I’m here for you, any time, except Saturdays at nine. Then you must fuck right off. Quietly.
I’m not married any more. I went to Sex and The City 2.
I’m going to straight up admit it: I did not love the first movie.
And the second one was worse.
Here’s what I LOVE about the series: the female archetypes, the friendship, the social relevance, the working through the same romantic and career conundrums that the rest of us non-Laboutin wearers do, too.
(oh, those red soles. One day, baby, one day)
I relate to every single character.
Sometimes I’m Carrie: eternal romantic; writing and making a career at writing through my confusion at how what I think ought to happen and real life don’t line up; fascinated by all things men; shoes.
(The Facebook quiz: Which Sex and the City Character are You? confirms that I am Carrie.)
Sometimes I’m Miranda (one of my guy friends says I’m Miranda): fiercely ambitious and fragile. (In the first seasons of SATC, Patricia Field dressed her in colours that look like “a bruise”.)
Sometimes I’m Samantha: a lot of the time, I’m Samantha. But then I go all Charlotte and cry about it the next day. Or, like Carrie, I write about it the next day.
(Often, I do both.)
Sometimes I’m Charlotte: oh yeah, I’m Charlotte. She named her dog Elizabeth Taylor. She wears pin-up, vintage style clothes. She believes in the fairy tale. She wants to be married and have babies. I am Charlotte.
So that’s the appeal. I know all of these characters, intimately. I see them in my friends. I see them in myself.
So that’s why a Big Feminist Writer writes about Sex and the City and takes it seriously even though I’m sure she knew she’d be crucified for it.
Sex and the City is a window into The Lives of Women.
The series just makes it sexier. The four characters – female archetypes, I argue – do all the same things “ordinary” women do, they just do it in New York (sigh), in terrific and sometimes terrifying clothing (sigh), in much better clubs and restaurants with way better looking people (sigh), and with way more witty banter (orgasm).
So, LOVE.
But the most compelling parts of the series – the friendship, the social relevance – are dialled down in the movie, while the fashion and the glamour and the Not Your Life, Sucka are amped way up.
And then there’s the caricatured exotic locale and Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte in burqas.
I hate that stuff.
But.
One scene made the whole movie worthwhile.
Miranda and Charlotte are having a martini or six. Miranda tells Charlotte – and I’m paraphrasing wildly – “we’re 6,700 miles from home. We’re both mothers. You can tell me the things you’re don’t think you can say.”
Miranda starts.
“As much as I love Brady…and I do…being a mother is not enough. I miss my job.”
And Charlotte lets it out. All she ever wanted was to have children, and now that she has them, she loves them, and they drive her crazy. The baby cries All. The. Time. Sometimes she puts her in another room and walks away, and what kind of mother is that?
There’s more. Lots more. Lots more real. More confessions, more martinis, more tears, more life.
Because that’s the truth about being a parent: it is a joy and a nightmare, a privilege and a burden, a divine calling and a life sentence. Ambivalence, thy name is mother.
There’s more.
Charlotte sobs, “And I have full-time help! How do other women do it?”
Miranda says, grimly, “I have no fucking idea. Here’s to them.”
And they drink.
And those are my girls, saluting their girls. Us. All of us.
Your insight gives me goosebumps, and I adore you for it. I swear, you could write about a freaking rock and make it into the most profound thing ever. Now THAT’S a writer. Keep it up, Diels!
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Kelly Diels
replied:
on May 31st, 2010 at 8:46 am
@Ash, with that kind of encouragement, Ambirge, how could I not? mwah.
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Bravo. A guru told me once that my spiritual name was to mean “the all.” I’m sure he meant all of the women from SATC.
And here’s to us mamas who do it without full-time help.
Lisa
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Kelly Diels
replied:
on May 31st, 2010 at 8:46 am
@doorways traveler, of course it does!
tipping my glass to you.
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I’ve never watched Sex and the city..the name just always rubbed me wrong. Now I think I will have to look around for dvd’s of the show. I wonder which one I would be..probably the eternal romantic LOL sucks sometimes to not be able to give up on wanting the fairy tale.
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Kelly Diels
replied:
on May 31st, 2010 at 8:55 am
@Gurl, I go back and forth about the fairy tale.
I think we all know that for women the fairy tale can be a prison, or it can be a measuring stick that ensures that real life always falls short.
But it is still powerful stuff.
Even for men.
I had an illuminating conversation with a man who told me that the fairy tale is just as confining for men as it is for women. Several of his friends wanted that fairy tale so badly that they silenced their sexualities (they’re gay) to have it.
We *must* find new archetypes and new stories to tell ourselves about love ‘n marriage.
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Gurl
replied:
on May 31st, 2010 at 9:06 am
@Kelly Diels, We really do need new ways to measure success and happiness in romance. I mostly look for the ability to talk to each other, and the feeling that I am one of the most important people in my love’s life. With that, and some good chemistry in bed, I can be a very happy camper. if any of it is missing, seems like it just doesn’t work out for me.
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Would you believe . . . I’m with Gurl, having never watched more than a snippet-second of the series. Maybe the prude in me worried that it was only about, um, sex? In any case, after reading your reflections, I’ll have to open my mind and check it out.
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Kelly Diels
replied:
on May 31st, 2010 at 8:52 am
@ami | 40daystochange, oh there’s lotsa sex. But there are also pithy insights into modern life. And that’s worthwhile.
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I love that Jay-Z line!
I watched SATC long after it was over (rented from my library, I’m so fabulous!) but loved it for the same reason: the archetypes, the honesty(not so much about sex, but about relationships and obsessions and making-the-not-best-decision), the sillyness.
But for me, their life didn’t seem *fabuloous* (said high falsetto)…it just seemed fascinatingly different from what I’ve ever known (or want to know).
It showed another kind of real-women’s experiences.
And it showed me that despite the city and Laboutins, their experiences were a heckava lot like mine in rural Appalachia.
Looking forward to seeing the second movie this week, on my birthday!
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Kelly Diels
replied:
on May 31st, 2010 at 8:50 am
@Tara, happy early birthday, baby!
“It showed another kind of real-women’s experiences. And it showed me that despite the city and the Laobutins, their experiences were a heckava lot like mine in rural Appalachia.”
Bingo. That’s why we love them and maybe even need them.
It reminds me of a love poem that Danielle LaPorte wrote:
I was looking for holes in you.
I found windows.
(http://whitehottruth.com/relationship-sex-articles/a-love-poem-for-scotty/)
That’s what SATC is, for me. Windows. Peeks into the lives of other women. I don’t care if they’re fictional because fiction is just an easier way to tell the truth.
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That was my favorite scene of the whole movie as well. I was desperately waiting the entire first 2/3 of the film for Miranda to pull Charlotte aside and say “just let it out.” Not to give away TOO much but my heart was also warmed during the last scene, hanging out in Carrie’s old apartment reading a magazine.
These fragile glimpses were the reasons I liked the second movie…the way that they approached the REALITY of being a woman. Bruises, cosmos and all.
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Cheers to them cheering us and Cheers to you for providing glorious context. And now, am feeling buzzed. You do have that way about you, Ms K.
XO
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I used to tell men (who asked me how I get away with what I do): “If you want to _really_ understand women, watch SATC.”
Deaf ears.
I don’t bother anymore.
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A divine calling and a life sentence.
Both.
Incidentally, I find myself wearing a lot of navy with black lately. It has occurred to me that I am dressing like a bruise. Hmmm.
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Huge fan of the series, even though I never watched it until it came out on DVD. The first movie – okay. The second – not so great. I did love the scene between Charlotte and Miranda. I also liked Carrie and Big watching TV. The exotic locale – nice to look at but not necessary. NYC is exotic enough.
Great thoughts!!!
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I’ve been relucatant to see the movie because while I loved the series I emphatically did not love the first movie (though I loved the experience of going to see it with girlfriends in LA and then going out for cocktails afterwards, trying on for a moment the glamourous lives of those SATC women).
This line nails it for me:
“the most compelling parts of the series – the friendship, the social relevance – are dialed down in the movie, while the fashion and the glamour and the Not Your Life, Sucka are amped way up.”
Also – I have zero tolerance for bullshit stereotypes about women from other cultures masquerading as feminism. I don’t know if this film falls into that trap, but I’m nervous about that possibility.
Still – I’ll go and see it with some of my favorite women and we’ll sit around with a martini afterwards and talk about our real lives and that is what makes it worthwhile.
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I’ve never watched it either. Maybe I’m too old!
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I love that you bring new ways of seeing things to me.
SATC? Yeah, I watched that show. *with* my man. Usually didn’t miss it. Laughed a little, but mostly I just didn’t get it. I didn’t understand the allure of the fashion – I didn’t follow the need for the fancy restaurants and the exotic nightclubs. But mostly, I didn’t believe that women actually have friendships like that, that they talk about those topics, that they hang out with other women who are so different from them, that they really think those clothes looked beautiful, that they could walk away from love over and over and over again. And my lack of belief often made me think disparagingly of the characters…
I thought it was fantasy from one end to the other.
I realize I may have been wrong.
Because even though I’ve never had those kinds of friendships with women, maybe they do exist. And maybe there is someone out there to talk with about the frivolous and the deep. And maybe I can have enough to talk about with a mom, even though I’m not, that we can be close friends. And maybe I can be a friend to a single woman (a single mom, even!) even though I’m happily married to my best friend.
You make me think. That’s a good thing. And you write so well it tastes like rhubarb pie! Yummy and just a bit tart, but you just know it’s good for you.
Moms kind of amaze me. Kind of like tall thin women and serious athletes. I won’t be those people, but I sure admire them. And even better when they are real and they are right here in my heart.
Hugs and butterflies,
~T~
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Cinderella. Pretty Woman. Sex and the City 2.
“We *must* find new archetypes and new stories to tell ourselves about love ‘n marriage.”
Even when Carrie is “designing” her life, she is being “saved” by a man. In the end, the men are still dominant and the women are still submissive.
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Well maybe I WILL go see it then.
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Just throwing my two cents in
I didn’t like the first and completely hated the second. The word “embarrassing” comes to mind. But I loved the show and wish it was still there. Not that you asked, but it’s been on my mind so I thought I’d share 
Hope you’re doing great!
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I’m a guy, I’ve never seen the show or the movies, I don’t have children, I’ve been happily married for 25 years, and I hate my name. What can I say about this post? Nothing.
Irv
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I loved the show, as it did reflect the truths and archetypes of women and relationships. I was disappointed in the 1st movie, but was willing to see the 2nd because my BFF was going to fly down so we could see it together. However, life and children got in the way of that, so she went with her sister. She was extremely disappointed and killed all desire for me to see it. It’s become a big paid advertisement with little plot or substance. Sad.
And your definition of parenting is so spot on. I wish more people, especially women, were honest about the ups AND downs of parenting instead of feeling guilty or inadequate when your child is making you want to lose your mind! Thanks for a great post.
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sex and the city is the sexiest tv show and nothing else could replace it .
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