I admit it. I love the whole Sex in the City franchise. I love the television show on HBO. I love the re-runs on the WB. I love the glitz and the NY glamour. I love the fantasy/sort of reality aspect of their combined lifestyles and of course, I love all of those amazing clothes.
And the shoes. Oh…the shoes. Every time someone watches SATC, Manalo Blahnik gets his wings.
SATC 2 premiered this weekend and the reviews have not been good. The box office however, was number one which tells me that like the first one, groups of women made an event of this film. I saw it last night, a Wednesday night, at a theater in which it was playing on four screens, and the one I was in was packed. I imagine the girls all gathered together, got dressed to go out, sipped some cosmos, checked out the guys at the bar and then headed to the theater to worship at the altar of Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte and Samantha. I imagine a movie studio is quite happy.
But like all things that appeal to women, I see SATC being diminished and not valued. Even People asked when Samantha was going to stop dropping her panties and sleeping with every man she sees. Besides the inherent sexism in that comment, it seems that SATC gets to be pooh poohed and deemed not worthy because it’s something that women enjoy. It’s a story that is directed at, about, and appeals to, women. Not only is much of the buzz about the fashions presented and worn, but in the same way that fashion is a multi-billion dollar industry but gets dismissed as frilly and frivolous largely because it appeals to women (Read Robin Givhen’s amazing editorial in the Washington Post on this subject.)
SATC 2 is a total fantasy based on over the top fashion and a lifestyle that very few of us will ever realize and perhaps, very few of us even want to realize. But we still love it and think of those four women like our own sisters. SATC isn’t even a chick flick. It’s a chick flick squared. It’s a clit flick.
A clit flick celebrates women without making it about men. It’s not the sort of movie most men will go to, like a chick flick they might be dragged to on a date. I have a male friend who will only go to movies he deems “chick flicks” if he’s on a date.
Chick flicks are like foreplay to men. Clit flicks, on the other hand, are like a cold shower.
Why don’t we call movies like “Iron Man” or the upcoming release “The A Team” guy flicks? Those sorts of movies are total, undiluted fantasy, yet they are held up as worthy action-adventure that will break all box office records as men and their buddies flock to them. But they do not get labeled according to the gender they attract and they are not easily dismissed in such a derogatory way as “chick flick”. There’s another type of movie as typified by the upcoming “Killers”, coming out with Katherine Heigel and Ashton Kutcher. Yet another tale of a beautiful woman married to a gorgeous man who happens to have kept from his wife that he leads a secret life separate from her yet she will get pulled into it and together they go on an action-adventure with the wife sprouting womanly-reactions the entire time. “I can’t carry this gun in my waistband..it’s way too big.” Or the new Tom Cruise/Cameron Diaz flick that appears to be full of big car crashes, explosions and lots of gun (fore) play. We love the women to be either non-existent..or just beautiful and unaware and needing to be saved from the bad guys.
Perhaps that’s the definition of a true clit flick. “Thelma and Louise” was a clit flick. So was “Out of Africa”. Those female leads did not need to be rescued and in fact, if they did, they saved themselves. The SATC girls save themselves and as stated in SATC 2, know that ultimately it’s the girls themselves who know the real and right answers. Oh sure, Big came to Paris and swept Carrie away from Alexandre Petrovsky..but she was reaching that point on her own as well. At the end of the first SATC movie, Samantha actually left the guy in order to rescue herself. Could this be part of the reason why we flock so dramatically and loyally to them? How many of us, in living our day to day lives, feel we need to be rescued? Things can get bad from time to time but that’s typical of everyone. Do we ever really think we want someone else to rescue us from our own lives? Are any of us truly waiting for the proverbial prince on a white horse to fix our lives and make it all ok? Do we need to be rescued? We are TOLD that we need to be rescued constantly. Rescued from our big thighs and flabby bellies. Rescued from being single, from how we take care of our children, from our dry and unshiny hair and wrinkles. Women are supposed to need and want to be rescued and the SATC ladies manage to skirt the issue (pun intended) with flair, humor and a bit of panache. And in today’s world, panache is a welcome commodity.
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