Most guys out there probably think that Sex in the City is all about sex.
Most guys are wrong. (I know, it’s a shocking revelation).
Sex and the City is about relationships.
The HBO series definitely had heaps of humping, scorching hot love affairs and brunch conversations about randy nights spent with multitude of men, no doubt about it. Like the Mary Tyler Moore show before it, Sex in the City stared in the face the prevailing stereotypes and conceptions about single women and what they want, although the Paris-studded finale did end up with all four of the ladies happily attached to their man of the moment. Sure, Sex in the City is about sex. But the most important theme of the movie is also the most important part of a female’s life, and that is the story of relationships, the undulating aspects of our connections with other human beings, be they children or mothers or friends or sweaty lovers.
I went to the Sunday matinee at the Guild 45th Landmark Theatre along with a crowd that was over 95% females from about their 20’s to 50’s; a few were accompanied by men hoping to earn points with the female and catch a glimpse of T & A (it’s a win-win, boys). A few cheers went down as the curtain went up, and as soon as the story began we were wrapped in attention, right back in New York City with Carrie, Samantha, Miranda, and Charlotte. Judging from the estrogen-fueled crowd’s sighs, belly laughs, chuckles, gasps, and tears, I know that women will love this movie. We may not all buy $525 shoes and have assistants and strut like peacocks down 5th avenue, but we have lived the same relationship themes as these women. We have loved wildly and unreasonably. We have been hurt tortuously. We have found good friends and have lost them. You might think that women are loud as hell in big groups (true) and can never be quiet, but you could hear a pin drop in the theatre when one of the character’s men admitted an affair with another woman.
“It didn’t mean anything,” he pleaded. “I never meant to hurt you.” Dead silence. These women in the theatre had heard it before, perhaps even the exact same words. You could taste the deep silence, broken only in several moments by sniffles. Women were crying; not because of the made-up characters but for the true stories those characters were living.
Although parts of Sex in the City are tear-provoking, it is also a very funny movie, and there was peals of high-pitched laughter to offset those sniffles. One particular scene proves that women think toilet humor is absolutely hilarious, just as we all know men do. And yes, there’s lots of sex and raunchy talk and gratuitous scenes of male anatomy.
But the main point of the movie, the reason the TV series was so popular, and the dominant theme of our female lives is that of relationships: building them, nurturing them, living them, and being rendered to absolute, flat-line silence when those relationships are destroyed. For 99% of human existence, broken human relationships could mean death for a female and her offspring. That is why we go to the bathroom in groups, chat loudly with our friends in the ticket line, obsess about minor details of our relationships and look over often to make sure we are being accepted and loved by our peers. We have Stone Age female brains, even if our feet are wearing Manolos and our head is wearing a bird. And those female brains are as different from male brains as are our bodies and our taste in movies.
Sex in the City is a total chick flick. Do you have two X chromosomes? You will love it, just as sure as you wish you could be as ballsy as Samantha, as quick-witted as Miranda, as persistently optimistic as Charlotte and as good of a friend as Carrie. Bring some girlfriends and do what you do best: nurture your relationships.
Stuck with a Y chromosome along with a male brain? You just might enjoy the movie anyway- after all, it’s all about sex.
Find theaters and show times for Sex and the City here.
What if Sex and the City was set in Seattle? It might be a little like this.
If you’ve checked out home page of the site, you’ll notice that the “Recent Comments” section has been replaced with the “News Feed.” Now you can not only see the comments and reviews people have about events, but also see what events people have created and saved (but only with user permission, of course). And if you want to catch up with what people have been doing in the area, we’ve got a page exclusively for that.
Bloggers! Add your events to your blog! I’ve been waiting for this feature for a while. With this feature, you can create a calendar for artists, venues, and personal events and control the display for images, descriptions, showtimes, and the location; just click on the “Get Widget” link on these pages. For the fancy web-devs out there, you can even customize your CSS to have full stylistic control over the content. This is great for artists and venues who are looking for an easy way to automatically post their events to their calendar. Check out an example of my personal events in the sidebar of my personal blog.