The Movie Sex and the City and the Lives of Four Middle-Aged Women - Essay Example

?Critically consider Feminist theories of desire which ones) in relation to Sex and the first movie. How useful are these theories? Introduction Historically, women have always been the disadvantaged gender until feminist movements sprouted and pushed for the rights of women to vote, to own property and do a lot of other things reserved only for men. Even media helped in subduing the image of women by portraying them as the weaker sex, whose primary function in life is to be faithful wives and wonderful mothers. Gone are those days, however – well, almost. Not all women can be presidents of nations, but on a smaller scale women have invaded areas used to be dominated by men in politics, sports and various professions. Women have even invaded the silver screen as primary actors, where they are portrayed not as mere decorative support to men to underscore the men’s masculinity onscreen, such as illustrated in James Bond movies, under the paradox of phallocentrism espoused by one school of philosophical thought, but as powerful, strong and independent women emphatically illustrated in the Kill Bill series. Other movies with more realistic approach feature women as central characters showing their femininity, desires and strength. This paper tackles one such movie – Sex and the City. The movie was a spin-off of the very popular television series of the same title aired sometime in the 1990s. It deals with the lives of four women friends and their search for career, romance and fulfillment in the city of New York. Summary: Sex and the City, the 2008 Movie In 2008, HBO films released the movie Sex and the City, a spin-off of the very popular television series of the same title, which aired sometime between 1994 and 2004. Largely perceived as an illustration of post-feminism because its lead characters are successful women, who are past the concern of proving themselves as equal to men, Sex and the City is about the desires of four women in their 40s who had make it big in the Big Apple and are now in the last stretch searching for the ultimate happiness in the arms of the ideal man. Cast as the lead stars are Sarah Jessica Parker as Carrie Bradshaw, Kim Cattrall as Samantha Jones, Kristin Davis as Charlotte York and Cynthia Nixon as Miranda Hobbes. These four women, who form the crux of a close-knit friendship, are frank, open and almost raucous in their love for life and good fun and desires for love, marriage and sex. The movie opens with Carrie, a successful New York Star columnist who writes a column entitled Sex and the City, and her boyfriend Big searching for the ideal apartment to move into as a couple and finds a beautiful penthouse suite, whose price is more than what they had on mind. Big buys it nonetheless declaring that it belongs to both Carrie and him, but Carrie, who fell in love with it, is concerned that their living arrangement will not permit her to really be part-owner of the apartment. Big suggests a solution to the problem: get married. Overwhelmed with joy, Carrie spends the next few weeks with her friends planning for the perfect wedding. However, Big suddenly loses at the last hour and does not make an appearance at the wedding. 1 Carrie’s three friends are also presently mired in their own domestic dilemmas. Miranda, the lawyer and the official feminist of the group, finds out that her husband Steve confesses he had committed the ultimate sin: slept with another woman. Miranda, whose hectic schedule has not permitted her to have sex with her husband for six months, is furious and turns Steve out of the house. On the other hand, Samantha, a public relations executive who manages the television acting career of her live-in boyfriend Smith in LA, finds herself getting lonelier as Steve’s rising career keeps him out of the house most of the time. She struggles to keep herself from being tempted to sleep with her gorgeous next-door neighbor who she sees having sex with various women every night. Finally, Charlotte, the odd man out of the group because of her rather conservative ways although it has not kept her from sleeping with men, now lives a blissful domestic life with Harry and their adopted child from China. Charlotte becomes ecstatic when she finds out that she is pregnant with a child long after living with the knowledge that she cannot conceive one. 2 3 After struggling with their respective dilemmas, the women end happy with their problems resolved and their domestic lives flourishing. Miranda finally reconciles with Smith after going through marriage counseling, Samantha gives up Smith and left LA and Charlotte gives birth to a baby girl. Carrie reunites with Big and the two gets married quietly, and hold a reception in an ordinary restaurant with only Carrie’s friends and their families in attendance. 4 Feminism in Sex and the City With it story centered around four successful women in New York, it is inevitable that Sex and the City is being perceived as a highly feminist movie. The women in this movie are all empowered with the prerogative to do what they like with their lives, having attained a status in life that makes them equal to men. Except for Charlotte, whose art gallery work is more of a hobby, all the women in this movie are financially dependent from men and have established careers in their respective fields. Unlike the paradox of phallocentrism in Laura Mulvey’s essay (1999), where women are used as passive images to highlight the superiority of men in a highly patriarchal society,5 the women in Sex and the City are not merely image-bearers but image-makers. The world revolves around them, with their desires and their passions in the center of scheme of things while those of the men are relegated in the background. Unlike in a James Bond movie where sexy and beautiful women abound on the screen to highlight the masculinity of the male protagonist, the Sex and the City women are simply gorgeous and luscious for their own sake and powerful and successful in the same breath. Moreover, the women in this movie run counter to the usual image of women in mass media that are used mainly as symbolic annihilation, or diminished “child-like adornments who need to be protected”6 because these women are capable on their own without shedding their feminine charms. Nonetheless, the movie does not show the women as totally self-absorbed and cherishing a subconscious desire to be superior to men. As earlier stated, the movie is seen as an illustration of post-feminism, a feminist movement that gained prominence in the 1970s and 1980s. Post-feminism is seen as a dismantling of the conservative feminism where women desired on gaining equality with men in the centralized power block such as the State, patriarchy and the law to more diffused sites of everyday discourse where they can show their power as well.7 In Sex and the City, for example, the women’s successes are not hinged on professions that are necessarily dominated by men as in politics, law enforcement other areas highly associated with them. The movie shows the women as successful not as much in their chosen professions and careers, but in their ability to be open and frank about their desires and needs in a society that reserve such openness, in desire for sex, for example, to the masculine gender. Neither are these women shown as products of third-wave feminism, where the desire to achieve so much in life is underpinned by the desire to put one over the men. Although these women have clashes with their male counterparts, it is not about because “personal is political”8 but to get as much as they can from men to fulfill primarily their sexual desires. Perhaps, this is because Sex and the City is more about sexual empowerment of women rather than political empowerment. As a matter of fact, third wave feminists like Camille Paglia does not believe that women can be voraciously aggressive in sex as the women in the movie are. Paglia believes that the absence of testosterone in women makes them less susceptible to fantasies of sexual violence.9 Yet, the women in Sex and the City, exemplified by Samantha, are as sexually driven as their male counterparts, and openly so. Samantha struggles to be faithful to Smith, who she hardly sees anymore, by reining her sexual desires for the gorgeous man next door who she sees engages in passionate sex with different women every night. Sex and the City neither espouse radical feminism that highlights women’s struggle to elevate themselves from a debased and inferior position to men by separating themselves from men and rise above the patriarchal society dominated by men.10 The desire of the women in this movie is not projected in that direction or of the social feminists who seek the transformation of the entire society, but rather the full expression of their inner desires with the right mate while at the same time fulfilling their roles as career women. The post-feminist nature of Sex and City can also be gleaned by recasting women as being able to put one over another, primarily the opposite sex.11 Again, the character that illustrates this most is Samantha, whose sexual aggression and desires and inability to be faithful is often seen only seen in men. The stereotypical characteristic of women as reserve in their sexual desires and faithful to her mate is successfully transposed to her mate Smith. On the other hand, in Miranda’s case, she emerges to be the stronger woman in the family with a flourishing career as a lawyer, whose sexual desires need to be relegated to the background. The postfeminist angle here is that her husband is on the waiting end for her to find time to fulfill his sexual needs, an image typically attached to women. Sex and the City also illustrates the postfeminist women’s desire to be “young forever” by keeping their bodies fit as exemplified by Charlotte who is so into fitness that when she stopped running for a while after she got pregnant, her husband begins to worry about it. Postfeminism, according to Angela McRobbie suggests that there is a perceived movement to disempower feminism by deleting what once pre-occupied the desires of women such as emphasis in appearance, age and makeover.12 In a sense, that is true in Sex and the City, as it reflects the lives of glamorous and beautiful women in their 40s to 50s, who are not concerned, superficially at least, with aging, except for Charlotte, who is neurotically careful with everything including her health. Definitely, the movie Sex and the City is about romance and the desire of the women to find their ideal mates. Unlike traditional romance where women are portrayed as intelligent and strong-willed and seek empowerment through an alliance with a romantic partner, post-feminist romance is characterized by career-driven women who are torn between their careers and love.13 This is exemplified by Samantha, Miranda and Carrie who have all succeeded in their careers, but whose lovelife still remain unsettled even at their ages. Carrie, for example, is in her forties when she considers marriage with Big, but this is purportedly to seal her legal right to the apartment the two are buying. Her wedding is perceived as a kind of ‘dinosaurish’ that her editor is compelled to feature her, dressed in various glamorous wedding gowns, in the glossy magazine Vogue as the last bride in her forties. Similarly, Samantha tries to keep house for a while in LA for the sake of her love for Smith. Eventually, her love and ‘lust’ for the good and single life, however, wins out and she separates from Smith. On the other hand, Miranda, who was forced to marry Steve in the television series after expecting a child, is so into her career as a lawyer that she has relegated her sexual life to the background leaving Steve to the temptation of extra-marital sexual congress. Conclusion The movie Sex and the City reflects the lives of four middle-aged women and their travails in their search for career, fulfillment and romance in the Big Apple. The movie mirrors many of the feminist issues that have preoccupied various feminist theories, particularly the post-feminist ones. These feminist theories are reflected in the portrayal of these women as career-driven, intelligent and financially independent from men. The movie has also glorified women in their middle-age as glamorous, young-looking and fun and seems to modify previous impression of middle-age women with waning looks, sexual drives and desires. As a matter of fact, Sex and the City seems to promote the idea that women have the same drive as men, in all aspects and have the right to voice out such desires and drives as men do. The movie Sex and the City is seen as a post-feminist movie because it does not portray women in a political and social struggle with the different elements of society to establish equality with men and fight off repression to their sex. Rather the movie highlights women in conflict with their own desires and needs, rather than with external elements. The women being portrayed in the movie are already successful, independent and self-contained, but still missing the element of romance. What keep them from getting to their desired goal are their very own desires to sustain their independence and self-containment. Two of the women allow their inner desires to be defeated just to be with the men they love and take it all; one takes a happy compromise between independence and love while the other one decides to keep her independence over love. References: Cullen D, The Personal is Political: Third Wave Feminism and the Study of Gendered Organizations (2000). IMDB, Sex and the City (2008) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1000774/ Hammer R and Kellner D, Third Wave Feminism, Sexualities and the Adventures of the Posts (2009) accessed 8 April 2011. Gill R C, Gender and the Media (Polity, 2007). McRobbie A, The Aftermath of Feminism: Gender, Culture and Social Change (SAGE Publications Ltd, 2009). McRobbie A. ‘Post-Feminism and Popular Culture’ Feminist Media Studies, Vol 4, No 3, 2004 (Taylor & Francis Ltd) 255-256. Mulvey L, “ Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings. Eds. Leo Brody and Marshall Cohen. New York, Oxford UP, 1999: 833-44. Tasker Y and Negra D, Interrogating Postfeminism: Gender and the Politics of Popular Culture (Duke University Press, 2007). Thornham S, Women, Feminism and Media (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007). Weedon C, Feminist Practice and Poststructuralist Theory (Edition2, Wiley-Blackwell, 1997). Read More