Reading Sex and the City Reading Sex and the City edited by Kim Akass & Janet McCabe Published in 2004 by I.B.Tauris & Co Ltd 6 Salem Road, London W2 4BU 175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010 www.ibtauris.com In the United States and Canada distributed by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010 Copyright © Kim Akass and Janet McCabe, 2004 The right of Kim Akass and Janet McCabe to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or any part thereof, may not be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. ISBN 1 85043 423 9 A full CIP record for this book is available from the British Library A full CIP record for this book is available from the Library of Congress Library of Congress catalog card: available Typeset in Goudy and Gill Sans by Dexter Haven Associates Ltd, London Printed and bound in Great Britain by MPG Books Ltd, Bodmin CONTENTS Acknowledgements vii Contributors ix Regular cast list (and the classic cosmopolitan) xiii Introduction:Welcome to the age of un-innocence 1 PART I SEX, SEXUALITY AND RELATIONSHIPS 1‘What’s the harm in believing?’: Mr Big, Mr Perfect, and the romantic quest for Sex and the City’s Mr Right 17 Joanna di Mattia 2 The museum of unnatural history: male freaks and Sex and the City 33 David Greven 3 Sexuality in the city 48 Mandy Merck PART II SOCIO-SEXUAL IDENTITIES AND THE SINGLE GIRL 4Orgasms and empowerment: Sex and the City and the third wave feminism 65 Astrid Henry 5 Sister Carrie meets Carrie Bradshaw: exploring progress, politics and the single woman in Sex and the City and beyond 83 Ashley Nelson 6 Sex and the citizen in Sex and the City’s New York 96 Susan Zieger PART III FASHION AND CULTURAL IDENTITIES 7 ‘Fashion is the fifth character’: fashion, costume and character in Sex and the City 115 Stella Bruzzi and Pamela Church Gibson 8 Sex and the City:a fashion editor’s dream? 130 Anna König 9‘My Manolos, my self’: Manolo Blahnik, shoes and desire 144 Sarah Niblock PART IV NARRATIVE, GENRE AND INTERTEXTUALITY 10 Neurotic in New York: the Woody Allen touches in Sex and the City 149 Tom Grochowski 11 Sex, confession and witness 161 Jonathan Bignell 12 Ms Parker and the Vicious Circle: female narrative and humour in Sex and the City 177 Kim Akass and Janet McCabe PART VFANDOM, FLÂNERIE AND DESIRING IDENTITY 13 In love with Sarah Jessica Parker: celebrating female fandom and friendship in Sex and the City 201 Deborah Jermyn FLÂNERIE, SEX AND THE CITY AND TOURING AROUND MANHATTAN Location guide with map 219 14 Through a glass, malarkey 228 Lucia Rahilly 15 Outsiders in the city 231 Ashley Nelson 16 Carried away in Manhattan 234 Kim Akass and Janet McCabe 17 Coulda’, shoulda’, Prada: shopping for Satori and strappy sandals in Sex and the City 237 Mark W. Bundy APPENDICES Episode guide 241 Film and TV guide 249 Bibliography 253 Index 265 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The editors would first like to thank the authors – Joanna di Mattia, David Greven, Mandy Merck, Astrid Henry, Ashley Nelson, Susan Zieger, Stella Bruzzi, Pamela Church Gibson, Anna König, Sarah Niblock, Tom Grochowski, Jonathan Bignell, Deborah Jermyn, Lucia Rahilly and Mark Bundy – for turning in such fascinating contribu- tions and adhering to strict deadlines. Special thanks go to Philippa Brewster for steering the project from its earliest conception to final realisation, and for sharing her ideas and much laughter with us along the way. Thanks also to Susan Lawson, Veroushka Georgantis, Deborah Susman, Robert Hastings and all who have supported the project at I.B.Tauris. The editors would like to acknowledge the following libraries: Trinity College, Dublin, London Metropolitan, the Billy Rose Theater Collection at the New York Public Library for Performing Arts and the British Film Institute library. Janet McCabe I would like to thank the Arts and Social Sciences Benefaction Fund at Trinity College, Dublin for supporting this project, and awarding me a grant to travel and research in New York. Thanks also to my colleagues at Trinity, especially Paula Quigley and Kevin Rockett, as well as Ann Mulligan, Rhona Greene and Brian Singleton for listening to me and sharing ideas about Sex and the City around the metaphoric water-cooler. Thanks to John Thurgar for hating the series so much and to Joan and Lydia for defending it so well. Thanks to Kim Akass for what she has given me professionally and for being such a joy to work with. She is not just a good woman but also my best girlfriend. I owe an enormous debt of thanks – more than I can ever say – to Michael Allen. His kindnesses are too numerous to mention, and his gentle patience, both as an astute editor and loving husband, during what has been an almost impossible year, is just inspiring. Finally, to my father – Richard McCabe. His death as we were finishing the collection is a profound loss to all of us whose lives he enriched with his love and gentle humour. While he would be less vii READING SEX AND THE CITY than proud to be associated with another one of my American com- edy shows, I hope he would be as proud of the end result as I am of him. It is to him that I dedicate my half of the collection. Kim Akass I would like to thank the Research Committee at London Metro- politan University for awarding me a grant to travel and research in New York, also for allowing me teaching relief in order to realise this project. Thanks also to my colleagues at London Metropolitan University for their support in my first year as a permanent staff member. As always, particular thanks to Tamméé Greeves for pro- viding practical help and support when it all got too much. Thanks too to Chris Townsend at Royal Holloway for introducing us to Philippa Brewster. My special thanks go to Janet McCabe for being such an inspi- rational woman, wonderful writing partner and brilliant friend. Thanks also for showing me round New York, giving me faith in myself and having a wicked sense of humour. Many thanks to my friends and family and to Elisabeth for their help over the years. My most special thanks go to my husband Jon for quietly supporting me in so many ways. Thanks for having faith in me when I had none of my own, for encouraging me to aim high, for keeping the home fires burning and for looking after our children while I was working on this book. Thanks to Daryl and Caitlin for continuing to love me even though I often spend more time with a computer than them. My special thanks also go to Mike Allen for welcoming me into his home for many hours of writing, for feeding me well, but especially for mixing the best cosmopolitan this side of Manhattan. Finally, to my parents – Madge and Tom Vinall. It is to them that I dedicate my half of the book. They did not live to see my name in print. I know that they would have been proud of me. viii CONTRIBUTORS KIM AKASS is a Lecturer in Film Studies at London Metropolitan University. She is researching the representation of motherhood in contemporary American TV. She has written with Janet McCabe on female narratives and narration in American TV drama. JONATHAN BIGNELL is Reader in Television and Film in the Depart- ment of Film, Theatre and Television at the University of Reading. He is the Director of the Centre for Television Drama Studies, and leads a research project on British TV drama from 1960 to 1982. His publications include Postmodern Media Culture (Edinburgh University Press, 2000) and British Television Drama: Past, Present and Future (Palgrave Macmillan, 2000), and he is joint series editor of ‘The Television Series’ monographs on TV screenwriters for Manchester University Press. He has recently completed a book on Terry Nation’s science fiction TV in the series, and is currently writ- ing a book on Big Brother and reality TV. STELLA BRUZZI is Professor of Film Studies at Royal Holloway, University of London. She has written several essays on film and fashion, and is the author of Undressing Cinema: Clothing and Identity in the Movies (Routledge, 1997) and New Documentary: A Critical Introduction (Routledge, 2000). She has co-edited and contributed to Fashion Cultures: Explorations, Theories and Analysis (Routledge, 2000) and has just completed a book on the representation of fatherhood in post-war Hollywood cinema (BFI, 2004). MARK W. BUNDY lives in Southern California, where he is working on a PhD in English as a Chancellor’s Distinguished Fellow at the University of California, Riverside. He has presented several con- ference papers on ‘Gay and Lesbian Studies and Visual Culture’, both internationally and in the US, and he has an article forth- coming in a book of essays about the work of Gloria Anzaldua. And, of course, he loves to shop. ix READING SEX AND THE CITY PAMELA CHURCH GIBSON is a Senior Lecturer in Cultural Studies at the London College of Fashion. She has written a number of essays on film, fashion and fandom while co-editing and contributing to four anthologies – Dirty Looks: Women, Power, Pornography (BFI, 1993), The Oxford Guide to Film Studies (Oxford University Press, 1998), Fashion Cultures (Routledge, 2000) and More Dirty Looks: Gender, Power, Pornography (BFI, 2003).