Sex and the City’s Daughters: The Representation of Women in Cashmere Mafia, Gossip Girl and Hart of Dixie. Iris Calderó Guerra English Studies 13/06/2004 Abstract My dissertation is an examination of the repercussions and afterlife of the series Sex and the City. This project situates Sex and the City in its context and analyses its significance as an example of Chick Lit and as an HBO product, as well as a series that challenged the presentation of women on television. The aim of this research is to reach conclusions on how other series have responded to the challenges started by Sex and the City, whether they go beyond the established limits or, on the contrary, still fall into conservative notions of femininity. The methodology involves textual analysis within the framework of cultural and gender studies in order to reach conclusions based on the interpretation of the texts under analysis and on the use of relevant secondary sources that support the findings. Results seem to suggest that television series aimed at women, despite being targeted as products of female empowerment, relentlessly promote patriarchy and sexist ideas also present in our current society. Keywords: Sex and the City, Cashmere Mafia, Gossip Girl, Hart of Dixie, Chick Lit, HBO, the presentation of women in the media. - 1 - Index. 1. Introduction. ............................................................................................................................................ - 3 - 2. Situating Sex and the City: Generic Affiliation and Repercussions. ....................................................... - 5 - 2.1. Situating the Series. ......................................................................................................................... - 5 - 2.2. Sex and the City as Chick Lit. ............................................................................................................. - 9 - 2.3. Sex and the City: Significance and Limitations. ............................................................................ - 14 - 2.3.1. Sex and the City’s Progressive Agenda. ................................................................................ - 14 - 2.3.2. Engaging but Dangerous: The Limitations of Sex and the City. ........................................... - 17 - 3. The Afterlife of Sex and the City: A Move Forward or a Step Back? ................................................... - 19 - 3.1. Sex and the City’s Daughters: A Selection. ................................................................................... - 19 - 3.2. Cashmere Mafia. ........................................................................................................................... - 20 - 3.2.1. Technical Information. .......................................................................................................... - 20 - 3.2.2. What the Series Is about. ....................................................................................................... - 20 - 3.2.3. The Discourse in Cashmere Mafia. ....................................................................................... - 21 - 3.3. Gossip Girl. ................................................................................................................................... - 25 - 3.3.1. Technical Information. .......................................................................................................... - 25 - 3.3.2. What the Series Is about. ....................................................................................................... - 26 - 3.3.3. The Discourse in Gossip Girl. ............................................................................................... - 28 - 3.4. Hart of Dixie. ................................................................................................................................. - 33 - 3.4.1. Technical Information. .......................................................................................................... - 33 - 3.4.2. What the Series Is about. ....................................................................................................... - 33 - 3.4.3. The Discourse in Hart of Dixie. ............................................................................................ - 34 - 4. Conclusions. .......................................................................................................................................... - 41 - References.......................................................................................................................................................-43- - 2 - 1. Introduction. Sex and the City (HBO 1998-2004) is a television series that challenged the presentation of women and femininity in the media by offering progressive ideas. Accordingly, the show’s outstanding success led to the creation of several series featuring a group of professional women such as Cashmere Mafia (ABC 2008) or Lipstick Jungle (NBC 2008-2009), which focus on their lives and vicissitudes. The objective of my dissertation is to consider the influence of Sex and the City and analyse how other contemporary series that followed the same or a similar pattern have responded to its challenges. On that account, what I intend to find out is whether these series go beyond the limitations of Sex and the City or turn out to be conservative and not to advance the cause of feminism. In the case of Sex and the City, after six seasons celebrating sisterhood and singlehood, the show regressed to a fairly conservative discourse because of its reluctance to ultimately present singlehood as a viable choice and its emphasis on romance and marriage as the fundamental objectives for women. Therefore, my aim is to determine whether similar series dare to step beyond the logics of romance as the only ‘happy ending’ for women or are still constrained by it. To proceed, I will first introduce Sex and the City, taking into account its generic affiliation –Chick Lit– and as an HBO product, a subscription channel that changed the face of television with its daring marketing strategies and bold material. Having said that, I would like to mention that I have watched several series in order to do research for my dissertation, which include Cashmere Mafia, Lipstick Jungle, Hart of Dixie (The CW 2012-), Gossip Girl (The CW 2007-2012) or Pretty Little Liars (ABC 2010-), but because of the scope of my dissertation I have decided to just focus on three of them: Cashmere Mafia, Gossip Girl and Hart of Dixie. I have chosen these three in particular because, in spite of their similarities with Sex and the City, they also have differences with the show, which will enable me to be more specific in my conclusions. Firstly, Cashmere Mafia, like Sex and the City, focuses on a group of female professionals, as is also the case of Lipstick Jungle. Secondly, Gossip Girl, presents a group of females in the glamorous Upper East Side of - 3 - Manhattan –like Sex and the City– although the series is aimed at a teenage audience. Within this group I could also have considered other shows such as Pretty Little Liars. And last, but not least, I examine Hart of Dixie which, like series such as Men in Trees (ABC 2006-2008), features a female professional as a protagonist but does not focus on female friendship as Sex and the City does, since it has a solo protagonist. As for the methodology, I will rely on textual analysis –to read the implications of what is said in the texts– within the framework of cultural and gender studies in order to understand the presentation of women in the media. According to McKee, through textual analysis researchers can “obtain a sense of the ways in which, in particular cultures at particular times, people make sense of the world around them” (2003: 3). Thus, through a close reading of the texts I will be able to analyse whether patriarchal notions of romance are popularized or challenged in the media. Furthermore, I have made use of secondary sources to contextualize and support my claims, such as Douglas’ The Rise of Enlightened Sexism (2010), Whelehan’s The Feminist Bestseller (2005) and Overloaded: Popular Culture and the Future of Feminism (2000) or Negra’s What a Girl Wants?: Fantasizing the Reclamation of Self in Postfeminism (2009). As well as these, I have watched all the seasons of the shows I am working on for my research, which include: Sex and the City (6 Seasons, 94 Episodes), Cashmere Mafia (1 Season, 7 Episodes), Gossip Girl (6 Seasons, 121 Episodes) and Hart of Dixie (3 Seasons, 66 Episodes), as well as all the seasons of two of the other shows I mention: Lipstick Jungle (2 Seasons, 21 Episodes) and Pretty Little Liars (4 Seasons, 96 Episodes). However, and even though I take into account the narrative arcs developed in the three series that I have chosen for analysis, I only provide examples from a few episodes in order to keep the length of this dissertation as close as possible to the established limits. - 4 - 2. Situating Sex and the City: Generic Affiliation and Repercussions. 2.1. Situating the Series. Sex and the City (HBO 1998-2004) is a series that openly challenged the presentation of women on television. The series focuses on the situation of women who, despite having reached the age of thirty, push marriage into the background –not to mention maternity– in order to enjoy their careers as professional women, and rejoice in the freedom of being economically independent. Contrarily to the trend followed in some network comedies