Communication Studies Television - Sex and the City - Case Study Example

Communication studies television analysis: sex and the critical analysis There is an on-going trend in television today which rides on the premise of the so-called “quality television”. In what industry insiders promote as must see programming, “quality” in this phrase came to be partly defined, specifically for marketing purposes, in terms of its consumer relevance or more specifically those which are set in the backdrop where culture industries are heightened. (Fiske 1988, p. 93) The upshot of this is that television materials are increasingly catering to niche audience, such as women or a specific age group. The deviation of recent famous shows from the mainstream themes and the popularity of consumer brands used in, equated with, or even blatantly endorsed by it underscores this fact. In the process, new cultural artifacts are continually being institutionalized due to its repeated exposure to a community. In this research, we will be analyzing the widely popular Sex and the City series. The television program was chosen primarily because of its social function, specifically its investment in the idea of “post feminism” – the supposedly cultural catchphrase expressing the idea that feminism is no longer viable or desirable. (Hollows, p. 193) The interactions within are therefore expectedly linked to socio-cultural features, which would be proven to be easily captured by the series’ setting, the characters, their goals, as well as their relations. We will be addressing the question on how the television program discussed the concept of post feminist culture in the characterization of its four protagonists particularly the symbolism of the wedding in their respective perspectives. The main thesis of this study is that Sex and the City is a material that combines soap opera genre that could be identified by a series of generic features, such as the dramatic processes associated with Aaron Spelling as well as an emergent television trend which explores the changes in production and consumption brought about by the competition for audience share. (Strinati 2001, p. 210) Specifically, the series attempts to illustrate the pathologization of thirtysomething single women in the increasingly misogynist leanings of the American pop culture. Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Sex and the City is one of the television programs commissioned by the cable TV giant HBO. This drama was an adaptation of the book of the same title written by Candice Bushnell. It positions itself as one program that promotes a cultural paradigm by tackling issues that confront a single woman in a post-feminist urban backdrop. The series which started in 1998 ran until the year 2004 spanning six seasons in all. Sarah Jessica Parker, Kristin Davies, Cynthia Nixon and Kim Catrall lead the ensemble playing Carrie Bradshaw, Charlotte York, Miranda Hobbes and Samantha Jones respectively. They are a group of thirty-something friends living in the upscale New York, pursuing careers in different fields. Bradshaw is a sex columnist who works for the fictitious New York Star and is the handle of the four subplots, as her narrative tells of their four individual lives, weaving a story that makes Sex and the City. York, meanwhile, is an art dealer who hailed from a conservative blue-blooded upbringing in Connecticut. Hobbes is lawyer who places her career over relationships with men, which she views with intense cynicism. Finally, Samantha Jones is the quintessential seductress, juggling a successful PR practice with her equally successful sexual escapades. Episode 42, the subject of this analysis, is entitled “Don’t Ask, Don’t tell” and is set in Charlotte’s wedding with Trey. We quote the series own synopsis so as to underscore the texts the writer and the director wish to convey and highlight: “Frustrated with being single and only being hit on by talking sandwiches, Miranda tries out multi-dating where she learns being a corporate lawyer isnt doing any favors for her sex appeal. When she pretends to be an airline stewardess though, she catches a date with Harris, an emergency room doctor… Meanwhile, the girls go out on the eve of the Charlottes wedding, for her last night as a single woman. Everyone is totally stunned by Charlottes admission that she and Trey havent had sex yet. But after more drinks than she can handle, Charlotte shows up at Treys place ready to get busy. Unfortunately though, things dont work out in bed for Trey, and Charlotte gets a little nervous. Carries nerves are also getting the best of her as she considers whether to tell Aidan about her affair with Big. Just minutes before Charlottes wedding, Carrie drops the bomb. Aidan is devastated and walks off. At the wedding, Charlotte gets last minute jitters about Treys sexual under-performance, but Carrie calms her down with a white lie, and Charlotte walks down the aisle.” Method The misogynist turn of Sex and the City’s theme required the rudiments of the genre analysis method in order to comprehensively analyze the interaction among the participants relative to the series’ generic activities. To confirm that the series belongs to a genre, which is dynamic and emergent, we are required to examine the context – its features – which have generated it. The genre analysis method, according to James Potter, focuses on what makes certain types of messages similar. Texts are examined for their form of composition in order to find out conventions that unify certain texts while distinguishing them from other types. Hence, in employing the genre analysis in critiquing the 42nd episode of the Sex and the City series, we will be following what Vande Berg & Wenner described as its method (Potter, p. 141): constructing our analysis through the following: 1. identifying and describing basic structural similarities (such as dialogue, settings, themes, tone, point of view, characters, etc. among group of texts; 2. looking at the evolution of genres in terms of historical, technological, ideological, and aesthetic factors. Potter stressed that there are approaches in constructing genres as well as in justifying the classification of examples into genre – the aesthetic, ritualistic and the ideological. We will employ the ideological approach in consonance with the series’ creators’ self-proclaimed attempt at depicting and explaining the cultural script behind the “post-feminist culture”. Potter describes ideological approach as one which uses genre as an instrument of control and that it builds certain types of audiences, which then assure certain advertisers of a quality audience. Ideological approach was chosen since the aesthetic dwell on the artistic front while the ritualistic approach includes the audience in defining a culture. Analysis From the title, Sex and the City, one can immediately perceive the sensationalist influence of tabloid-like drama identified with Aaron Spelling and his protégé Darren Starr. One of the characteristics of these dramas is the pathologization of women with regards to issues marriage and domesticity. This the reason why in this text, we could immediately see the connection between Bradshaw and her gang to the characters in the television show Ally McBeal or the British film, the Bridget Jones Diary of its take on singlehood. Carrie Bradshaw is portrayed as a journalist who is a member of the New York glitterati. Of all the four girls in the series, she is closest to the quintessential post feminist ideal. Hence, it is interesting to see her point of view in the whole of this wedding episode. For instance, it will be observed that of all the excitement for Charlotte and Trey’s wedding, there was no dialogue or introspection on her own marriage prospects. Although, happy for friend she does not seem bothered that she is single and no wedding is coming in the immediate future. This is in consonance with the definition of women in a post-feminist culture as deviant. So far, the message the audience was able to extract from her is the attitude of consumerism placed above concepts such as love or relationship. Let us cite an example: On the newly discovered sexual limitations of Trey: Carrie: (to Charlotte) You are 34, single, and standing in a $14,000 wedding dress. You are getting married. (“Getting married” is getting married to a prince charming – someone who saves the damsel and distress and one who has more than stable source of income.) The two other protagonists, Miranda and Samantha, almost share the same sentiments while may differ to some extent. Thus, we finally go to the characterization of Charlotte in relation to the pathology on marriage and domesticity. Charlotte is unarguably the compromise the creator had on its audience. The all too strong libertine values of the show is hoped to be balanced by Charlotte’s traditionalist attitude. In fact, she is closest to what others would call “anti post feminist” character, not unlike the heroines of typical romance. Nonetheless, we can surmise that Charlotte was conceptualized partly to provide some conflict as well as provide a differing point of view, thereby enriching the storyline. On the 42nd episode, Charlotte has long been established to scoff at the lewdness of the shows thematic path. Hence, it was not surprising when she confessed to her friends that she is getting married without having prior sexual contact with her future husband. She was willing to give up her career in favor of domesticity. This text is typical in idealized female role in our culture which can be seen in most films like Sweet Home Alabama, Someone Like You, Kate and Leopold among others, where the positive ending presents the heroine opting a tempering in her career in exchange for love and marriage bliss. Life or Something Like It, is a film which offer an in-depth study of this character. Lanie Kerigan (Angelina Jolie), after facing the realization that professional life is crowding out progress in her personal life is forced to forego her ambition in order to marry and have a family. The point was “real life” is not permitted to successful professional women as illustrated in the character of Kerigan’s idol, Deborah Connors, a celebrated journalist but totally unhappy due to regrets in her personal life. This brings us to another area - professional life – which we are offered in the subplot where Miranda pretends to be a stewardess in order to get a date. She had discovered that being lawyer intimidates men and pretending made her successful in her goal. We are reminded with an episode in 60 minutes that women who study in Harvard do not normally name drop their school in socializing and instead mentions that they study in a school in Boston or Cambridge. Sylvia Ann Hewlett, in her book, Creating a Life, is one of those credited for starting a debate on this premise. According to her study powerful women would always have palpable regret over their sense of personal loss due to career constraints. (p. 3) Hewlett pointed out that various studies as much as 50% of successful career women are childless and that around 31% are unmarried. (p. 91) Also, the episode brings us back to the obsession of the American media culture to the bridal mythology. No image was more powerful in support of this than the heartbroken Carrie forcing herself to smile when the time came to join her friends in the customary wedding picture taking. Charlotte’s attitude towards it perhaps is identified with the values of almost all women in America. She is willing to overlook an impotency problem on the husband-to-be not primarily because of love but a little more because she was presently the center of a ritual which is idealized and celebrated in our society. Bridal scenario is the common epiphany in most romantic films and TV dramas. Proof of this is the booming bridal industry that naturally has all out support for this kind of events. While there are generic features in the series identified with the ongoing trend, Sex and the City managed to introduce innovations to the chick-flick or chick-tv genre that permeates the mainstream. This maybe is partly because it could afford to do so being a material produced by pay TV. Nonetheless, this is genre in action whose characteristic of deviating from the fluid or fixed is evident since it is dynamic. (Devitt, p. 165) Sex and the City managed to achieve a degree of honesty in its depiction of its characters since it does not bother itself with following the mold of the typical heroine, which is a feminist champion who usually learns the insights of feminism at the end of the narrative. Hence, the text is much more socially relevant as the series is willing to do away with popular demand so as to portray some semblance to reality. The protagonists, for instance, in keeping with its post-feminist leanings, avoid taking decisions that places their careers second to relationships. These are portrayed in most of the Sex and the City’s ending where no closure or definitive resolution takes place as opposed to what a normally would be happy ending demanded by ideological conservatism. In episode 42, for instance, the lesson of “honesty is the best policy” was learned in a series situations which allowed for bitter closing: Carrie on finally telling Aidan of her affair with Mr. Big and suffering a break-up in turn. The failure of Miranda’s date as her lie backfired when her date also admitted to lying being a physician. It turned out he was an assistant manager in a shoe store. The uncertainty of Charlotte’s future since she finally went on with her wedding with Trey amid the given odds. Sex and City, hence, can claim a degree of independence that allows it to explore and depict the objective it has committed to with a remarkable amount of success. Of course, this is not the only appeal it has on its audience. The audio-visual technique, structure and messages of the text as well as those patterns actors used as orientations enabled the show to control its audience in the manner expected. The social relevance lies in the fact that every episode or text or message is positively received by the receptor, hence there is an opportunity for the institutionalization of the artifacts that the show offered. Ernst Von Kardoff et al. reminded us that this communicative phenomenon has a social function which is consisted of the alleviation of the burden of subordinate action problems and that it reveals the basic structures of social actions that is characterized by reciprocity and the use of signs. (2004, p. 306) This is enlightening on how Sex and the City served as an orientation framework for the production and reception of communicative actions and, yes, society’s cultural artifacts. Bibliography Devitt, Amy J. Writing Genres. Southern Illinois University Press, 2004 Fiske, John. Television Culture. UK: Routledge, 1988 Hewlett, Sylvia Ann. Creating a Life. Hyperion, 2004 Hollows, Joanne. Feminism, Femininity and Popular Culture. Manchester University Press, 2000. Potter, James. An Analysis of Thinking and Research About Qualitative Methods. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1996 Strinati, Dominic. An Introduction to Studying Popular Culture. UK: Routledge, 2000. von Kardoff, Ernst, Jenner, Bryan, Flick, Uwe, and Steinke, Ines. A Companion to Qualitative Research. Sage Publications Inc, 2004 Read More