From The Straits Times    |

Spoiler alert: Do not read further if you don’t want to know more about the second Sex and the City movie.

I think some are going to consider my next statement sacriligious, but I’m going to say it anyway.

Sex and the City isn’t that great. And yes, I’ve watched the series and both the movies.

The power it holds over women amazes me sometimes. Sure, I can see how a story about single, older and very fashionable women set a new standard of entertainmemt in TV land. But to me, the women are in the end, tied to materialism, exchanging their freedom from relationships for bondage to clothes, shoes and bags – changing your outfit 3 times when you’re in the desert, who does that?

I do love myself some nice shoes sometimes and I can appreciate fashion. But I just cannot relate to something that places so much importance on clothes. These women have full lives – 2 of them are mothers while all of them have great careers going for them. But somehow, the focus is always on their clothes. Reducing women to what they wear is far too stereotypical. Or is that the whole point? Or maybe I’m just bitter that I can’t afford about 3/4 of the clothes on the show.

And in SATC2, the producers and scriptwriters seize the opportunity to comment on the conservative dressing of women in Abu Dhabi. Face it, there’s always 2 points of view to everything and imposing their own narrow-minded view of how women should dress just shows what little understanding they have of the complex culture of another society.

Aside from this very minor detail that marred my experience of the movie, I concede that the series has indeed shown women around the world how to enjoy sex and singlehood. And I cannot imagine what modern pop culture would be like without our constant references to the exploits of Carrie Bradshaw, Miranda, Charlotte and the very sexual Samantha Jones – there’s a scene with Samantha near the end of the movie that makes sitting through it very worthwhile.

But in the end, SATC is less about female empowerment and more about the clothes, shoes and bags. So I hope Michael Patrick King, the director of the movies, will just stick to that in the next installments.

 

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