Sex & the City: The Movie. (I)

I know, I know. At this point it’s like, at the risk of conjuring the nasty mental image, flogging a dead horse. But I’ll add my 2 cents to the cacophony anyway, because I’ve been reading reviews and such on the matter and no one really seems to have mentioned a few things that have gnawed away to the depths of my soul ever since I saw them on the big screen. But let the formalities not go unobserved – I’ll first do the whole stating my stance on the overall series thing and talk a little about the things I did actually like.

I never really saw the TV series. Well, I have watched the occasional episode here and there and also, I have not resided beneath a rock anytime these last 10 years. So I kind of get the general idea – Four different caricatures of women coming together in a flashy, if unrealistic, vision of an inordinately white New York City (a fairly grave sin for a show that purports to be at least 50% City). So as far as I can tell, we have Miranda as the brainy one, Charlotte’s the dopey romantic, Samantha luurves the sexy times and Carrie, oh Carrie – a pseudo intellectual who incorporates all the aforementioned caricatures into her own.

So the good: I do love the premise, even if perhaps only an ostensible one, of sexual liberation for women. I mean come on, it was (quite literally too), about fucking time. Women have always been made to feel awkward about our bodies, what with all the unpleasant connotations attached to female sexuality. Those of us from cultures which place an especially huge premium on something as meaningless as virginity, that supposed holy grail of virtues, will certainly attest to it. We’ve grown up told that it’s wrong to do it, talk about it or even think of it until we’re married and even after that, we know the closest we’re ever going to get to a discussion is hushed whispers and childish giggles at the mention of a penis.

So as a young Indian woman of suffocatingly conservative upbringing, it’s really refreshing, seeing confident, successful women unafraid to want or ask for sex, without necessarily attaching emotional strings to the man in question. I mean honestly, if you think about it, there is really no logical basis for being this averse to solely lust driven or out-of-wedlock sex. As long as it’s safe and consensual, what’s the problem? Why does culture ramble on in nauseating hypocritical fashion about loss of self-respect and dignity associated with promiscuity, when such a huge part of the world does not even have the decency to treat each other with kindness and common sense regardless of race, religious beliefs, social status or sexual orientation? I may be oversimplifying (and being quite cliche) here but the world would seriously be a far happier place if people got laid more. Who thinks of bombing stuff or being mean after a mind numbingly spectacular orgasm?

Ok, so I drifted off a bit there with my live and let live rant and it’s gotten kind of long. So I’m gonna break this up and put up the second part in the next post. Stay tuned.