Chiara Settineri Gender and Popular Culture VMS331S Prof. Lamm May
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Chiara Settineri Gender and Popular Culture VMS331S Prof. Lamm May 2, 2020 Sex and the City: Friend and Foe of Contemporary Feminism Few cultural products emerging from the 1990s entertainment landscape have been as timeless and widely celebrated as HBO’s hit series Sex and the City (1998-2004), created by Darren Starr and Michael Patrick King and based on the eponymous book by Candace Bushnell. Taking place amidst the chaos and glitz of New York City, the series follows relationship columnist Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker), and her three close friends, Miranda Hobbes (Cynthia Nixon), Charlotte York (Kristin Davis), and Samantha Jones (Kim Cattrall), as they tackle the dramas of day-to-day life as—for the most part—single women in the city. The show baits viewers (particularly female viewers) with its glamour and keeps them hooked with its raw, unabashed honesty about every aspect of the female experience. Featuring open conversations about topics ranging from hair removal and aging to sexual satisfaction and discrimination in the workplace, its themes were unprecedented within mainstream popular culture. Through this openness, the show acts as a site of identification for women who had previously not seen themselves represented in popular media. I argue that identification characterizes the show as inherently feminist, at least to a degree. In this paper, I will evaluate SATC’s relationship with feminism, arguing that it promotes feminist ideals while simultaneously placing certain limitations on feminism. In the subsequent paragraphs, I aim to bring the revolutionary aspects of the show to light, particularly focusing on its emphasis on tight-knit female friendships, financial independence, choice, sexual liberation, and pleasure in self-presentation. While these components of the show are surely groundbreaking, in my assessment, I will also point to the limitations of the show—namely its exclusive white, upper class appeal, its relentless emphasis on heterosexual relationships, its reliance on typologies, and its promotion of hyper-consumption. Throughout this paper, I will demonstrate that the show’s messages are mixed and its characters are compleX and will argue that it is this complexity which keeps viewers coming back for more. As the show’s consistent referencing within popular culture—despite its conclusion sixteen years ago—proves, the series left an impression on our cultural consciousness, and because of this, it is necessary to question why the four leading women spurred (and continue to spur) so much conversation, particularly by feminist scholars. Feminist Identifications Each of the four women who leads the show has her own set of defining characteristics that allows viewers to relate to her. Carrie is a spunky, Manolo Blahnik-obsessed writer who acts as the show’s witty narrator. Miranda is a driven and level-headed lawyer who grounds the group with her skepticism. Charlotte is an optimistic art dealer who feels destined for life as a devoted mother and wife. Samantha is a confident, sexually liberated woman working in public relations who is never afraid to speak her mind, despite how outrageous her thoughts may be. Due to the portrayal of these different personality types, female friend groups across the country have pegged their traditional, hopeless romantic friends as “the Charlotte” and their more flamboyant and seX-positive friends as “the Samantha,” a practice that has continued as the show has aged. Women have even gone so far as to describe themselves and their friends as medleys of the characters, i.e. “mostly a Miranda with a splash of Carrie” (my personal identification). Notably, the characters of this series are not aimless twenty-somethings without responsibilities; they are career women in their thirties and forties aiming to negotiate their future aspirations with their current realities. Though the show relies on typologies to an extent, these women are more complex than their earlier TV counterparts (largely due to the security associated with HBO’s paywall), allowing them to offer more accurate representations of womanhood (Arthurs). Through these genuine and (largely) unfiltered portrayals of life as a woman in contemporary society, SATC undoubtedly promotes feminism and its ideals. The idea that pop culture products like SATC are capable of promoting feminism through their accurate portrayals of womanhood is explored by Andi Zeisler in her book Feminism and Pop Culture (2008). In her work, she argues that popular culture—particularly American popular culture—influences the ideology of the masses, especially in relation to people’s ideas surrounding gender and feminism, and is, therefore, worthy of academic analysis. She offers a complex argument, similar to my own, suggesting that, while some elements of popular culture uphold sexism and are built around the male gaze, other elements of it are employed to promote feminist ideas and offer new, more multi-faceted visions of womanhood. As part of her argument, Zeisler emphasizes the continuous struggle women face in finding sources of identification within popular media. In her first chapter, she writes: In examining how feminism has informed pop culture and vice versa, it’s instructive to look at the way the evolution of the women’s movement has been mirrored in pockets of popular culture. This evolution has almost never been linear; as with the women’s movement as a whole, many representations of women in pop culture have stayed stubbornly behind the curve of liberation expectations. But others have changed with the times, alternately gratifying and frustrating the women who watch carefully, looking for accurate portrayals of who they are and can be. (Zeisler 12) The last sentence within this quote expresses the crucial idea that individuals, especially women, yearn to see themselves accurately represented within popular culture. In a media landscape fraught with flat and stereotypical representations of themselves, women pick through cultural products to find fragments of their identities or their experiences. As evidenced by its popularity among women, SATC resolved, at least to a degree, this lack of representation and offered women real reflections of themselves to show them they are not alone. Within this portrayal of womanhood is the show’s most feminist aspect: its spotlighting of genuine, loyal female friendship. In fact, it can be argued that the main character in the show is not Carrie Bradshaw but rather the group of girlfriends as a unit. Whether at their weekly brunches or chatting over the phone (landlines, of course), the women are each other’s constants throughout the upheavals of daily life. Their support ranges from advice about men and relationships (the most frequent form of support) to attendance at each other’s career-related events, whether it be an exhibition opening at Charlotte’s gallery or Carrie’s book signings. Importantly, the differences between the four personalities only make the group stronger and more colorful; although they may not agree on everything, these women maintain an unrelenting love for each other. The strength of their friendship effectively nullifies any real need the women might have to pursue other serious, deep-rooted relationships, particularly romantic ones. Jane Gerhard explores the women’s fierce friendship in “Sex and the City: Carrie Bradshaw’s Queer Postfeminism” (2005), where she describes SATC as reflecting queerness due to its denial of stable, long-lasting heterosexual relationships and its promotion of postfeminist ideals, such as owning one’s sexuality and finding freedom in consumption. In this piece, Gerhard underscores this feminism by using queer theory to emphasize the way in which Carrie Bradshaw’s relationship with her girlfriends fills the void left by men in her life. In this way, though Carrie and her friends are (for the most part) straight in the series, their bonds reflect the “elective [nontraditional] family structure” typical of queer communities (Gerhard 44). To emphasize this point, Gerhard writes: When one tunes into the show, one quickly gathers that these women’s girlfriends are the most valued people in their lives. And indeed, the show insists that these relationships are more lasting and trustworthy than those with men or potential husbands. […] Their conversations are as intimate as the sex with men they enjoy. In many episodes, the heterosexual sex is akin to jogging or clubbing, but the talk is the true subject, the process by which the show’s narrative, its knowledge and its pleasures, are generated. (Gerhard 43) This extended quote essentially points to the show’s emphasis on the women’s ability to achieve personal satisfaction without a man. The “talk” Gerhard describes offers a fuller picture of the female experience, as the women dive headfirst into taboo topics like sex, money, and aging; it is this talk amongst women which audiences grasp onto and hold dearly, as the conversations mirror their own. Though the women spend much of the series talking about their fleeting relationships with men, which is one of its key limitations, the relationships at the heart of the show—the ones the show is most celebrated for—are the relationships among the four women. SATC (quite literally) broadcasts the discussions that women have been having behind closed doors with their female confidantes to people across the globe. For instance, in Season 4, Episode 11, Miranda questions whether or not to go through with an unplanned pregnancy. At the beginning of the episode, she tells her friends that she intends to have an abortion saying, “This is not in my plans right now” (“Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda”). In this scene, she recognizes that having a child would be a detour in her ambitious career path and acknowledges the fact that it is entirely her choice whether or not to proceed with her pregnancy. Another layer is added to the situation, as Charlotte (the most conservative of the four) reacts with anger and jealousy toward Miranda’s decision, seeing as she is personally going through fertility troubles at this point in the series—another underdiscussed issue women face.