After reading Katerina’s post on Sex and the City and in honor of SATC’s opening debut today, I felt I had to give my two cents on why so many women will be flocking by the millions to see our favorite gals this evening and maybe throwing down a Cosmo afterwards.
I have not only read Candace Bushnell’s book which the TV series is very loosely based on, but I have watched every single episode twice of Sex and the City (thank you Netflix). I guess you could call me a fan.
If you don’t watch SATC because you like it, watch it because it will make you feel morally superior. I realized initially that is exactly why I was watching it. I got a real high–sitting on my sofa nursing my new baby for hours on end–watching shallow Carrie and egotistical Samantha make terrible relationship decisions and mistakes. Evidently I am not the only one who gets this joy. The comboxes are filled with “and that is what women get for living like immoral men.” Oh the joy I had comparing my life to their morally decrepit and emotionally vacant lives. Somewhere in the middle, though, I realized THAT was the point. Carrie gives us a clue in the very first episode that the dating scene in Manhattan is cynical and vicious. To each to their own and yet . . . that is not what SATC is all about.
At some point I started realizing that even though our worlds were very apart, I could relate to Miranda. Her struggle to be her own person and yet learning how to surrender to love. I mentioned this to my comadre and she said, “Don’t you think that is the point, RCM? We all can relate to these women and have each one of them in us at some point in our life.” And she is right. Though the women’s methods are dysfunctional and imperfect, they still reveal a deep yearning for Love. And even though they each start out wanting selfish Love, they each end up learning selfless Love. I would venture a guess that most of us when we first marry are pretty close to these ladies. We may think we are selfless but in reality most of us are motivated by lust. It is only after time and some pain/sacrifice in our relationship, when push comes to shove, that the lust fades away and married love reveals itself to us.
For super control freak Miranda (my favorite character), it is her child that converts her. And as a new mother, struggling to overcome Myself as I spent unexpected hours and hours allowing my daughter to nurse when she wanted, I could so understand Miranda’s final surrender to her son as she realized she was now a mommy for real and her pre-mommy life didn’t exist anymore. And that was ok.
Samantha’s conversion is a man who loves her unconditionally. She doesn’t want to love him and, worse, she doesn’t want him to love her unconditionally because it will mean she will have to respond to it. Over time, she gives in and his unconditional love makes her a better person. How many of us struggle to allow ourselves to be loved for who we are? As Samantha struggles with her mortality when she faces cancer, I could understand her struggle with vulnerability as I was ill and all of sudden could no longer care for my own family. I had to learn to let others care for me–cook my food, watch my daughter, walk my dog, clean my bathrooms. Like Samantha, most of us are so proud and despise vulnerability. How many husbands and fathers could handle losing a job and having to search for another one? Most of the ones I know don’t do well when something like that happens. How many of us do well when a loved one suffers? We are Samantha. Proud and self-centered.
Charlotte: I love Charlotte, too, especially because she thinks of herself as one way and yet lives a completely disjointed life. It is only her love for her second husband, Harry, and her conversion to Judaism that Charlotte’s actions and words merge. Who she wants to become is fulfilled in married life and her new found faith. If this isn’t a Catholic message, I don’t know what is.
And then we have Carrie. Carrie reminds me of what Dorothy Day calls “The Long Loneliness.” She is the epitome of a deep longing in our materialistic culture. Christians will criticize SATC this weekend, and yet, these ladies represent OUR society and even our own lives. How many of us upgrade items we have? Do we really have to upgrade? What type of vehicles do we drive? Clothes, name brands? Most of us participate in materialism because we are searching for something–community, God, wholeness. Carrie happens to do it in a different way and yet most of us are not that far removed from her sentiments. Even Christians experience loneliness at some level, though, hopefully we find better methods of coping than Ms. Fashion Queen.
My absolute favorite scene in all of the SATC episodes is the one where Miranda searches for her mother-in-law who suffers from dementia. She finds her mil eating out of a trash can and Miranda takes her home and bathes her. Self-sufficient Miranda bathes her disliked mother-in-law because she loves her husband so much she doesn’t want him to know his mother ate trash. It is this surrendering to sacrifice, motherhood, family, and Love that motivates women like me to love Sex and the City despite the raunchiness.
First, our mission as Christians should be to save souls and watching shows just to feel morally superior should be a scandal. I’m not saying that’s what you advocate here, but it is far from what Christians should be doing.
Secondly, there are a lot of sexual innuendos and so forth in the series that do not nurture our understanding of sexuality; therefore, what can one gain to become a better wife/mother? I may be too drastic here, but I believe that anything that invokes impure thoughts should be eliminated. Why should one watch Sex and the City if there are better things to watch (or to read!)? Would Mother Teresa watch Sex and the City? I don’t think so.
Thirdly. Yes, there may be good themes underlying the series. I watched a few. But I rather extract them from a good book or a movie with a good moral theme than this trash.
I guess bottom line is: Does watching this make us a better person? I don’t think so :)
Very good. I agree with this post more simply because it realizes the needs of the heart from the movie. I agree with what Fr. Raymond said, as quoted by Katerina, but it gave the impression as if Christians who have Christ do not experience a solitude or loneliness that those women in the movie experience. Being detached from sexual promiscuity, going to Mass, praying the rosary, etc., does not take away our desire for more or a loneliness we experience when we lack a certainty about our future or relationships.
Finally, the fact that you presented your experiences with this movie makes your argument more credible.
RCM
While I would say there is good in any story (we just have to find it), we must also realize the good might be unbalanced. The problem is that for many Sex and the City represents the life they want, think they should have, and there is nothing wrong with it. In other words, it encourages the lifestyle by example. The adults who watch it might not be influenced in this way, but teens certainly are.
Katerina: I was just taking a poke at all the anti-SATC Christian blogs this weekend. I think if you only see what is wrong with is quite evident in the movie, you will miss why it was a hit series and a hit movie even among Christian women. Are we all bad for liking it? Maybe. It may very well be the whole “let’s go watch the fights in the coliseum syndrome” that drove St. Augustine nuts. And you are probably quite correct that the saints would never watch it. But for those of slogging through life, I learned quite bit from those ladies and I sure appreciated the humor I found along the way.
Katerina, anyone who has watched the episodes comes away with the feeling that the sex is not all that. That is the point. That is the reason that in this movie, Carrie is going to get married. Sex isn’t all That and THAT is why more is needed. Sex has to be taken in context.
I’m with Henry… the girls I used to minister at my parish are NOT going to SATC tonight because they understand the deep psychological troubles that these women may go through. They go because that is who they want to be and that is how they want to live their lives. They like what they see and that to me is a tragedy.
Katerina,
The thing is, I don’t think anyone can simply detach from any promiscuous movies nowadays. What is needed is a Christian with a formed conscience, with his heart oriented towards what is good and beautiful. So even when seeing a movie like Sex and the City or No Country for Old Men, we can distinguish who the Christian is and who is not. We can distinguish the Christian not so much in that he does not go to Sex and the City movies, but because we find a certainty in him that is not found elsewhere; he looks at the world differently than others.
Henry you are a Christian who expects the culture to be Christian and that is just not so. I argue that while there are deep flaws in the characters, they ironically want the same things that Christians do in very secular and atheistic way. And they arrive with some serious damage . . .but they arrive.
RCM
Well, we should all want the culture to be Christian. But that is not my point. Even non-Christian cultures didn’t have these problems; post-Christian society with its alienation, yes. But again, the movie turns what is most self-destructive as what people should be doing and becomes imitated by those watching it. Again, doesn’t have to be a Christian culture to see the insanity of this lifestyle; it does, however, fit right in with MTV culture and its sexuality. And what do you mean “they want the same things as Christians do”? Yes, in one sense, we all want the same thing: God. But in another sense, no, I don’t see these characters really wanting the same thing. They want personal freedom without responsibility, or, the romance novel turned into reality, a playboy , carefree reality, except for women. It’s part and parcel with the sexual revolution and the culture of death which produces abortion on demand.
RCM,
I agree a lot with elements of your post. The show was a comedy based on a tight friendship among four women whose sexual proclivities was a basis for the humor in the show. They made the same mistake over and over again, sex first compatibility later! Which of course lead to frustrated and heart broken personal lives, but they always had the unconditional love of their girlfriends to carry them through.
The show was also very well written! The episode where Miranda contemplates abortion against the backdrop of Charlotte who desperately wants to conceive but can not was very powerful. I thought the show was able to give a pro-life message with out being preachy and judgmental; and of course Miranda changes her mind knowing her three friends will help her through single motherhood.
We’re not going to “transform the world” and bring hope to it by being just like the world. Integralism is not the answer and we need to stand up for things that are not right instead of conforming to them and just say “well, they’re not that bad” or “we can’t fight against them” anymore. I’m sorry, but how are one-night stands and anonymous sexual adventures OK? What more movies are there that have same themes without all the trash attached to it? Again, I’m appalled. Young girls and women don’t watch Sex and the City to see the pro-life message that is underlying among other issues. What is advertised? The clothes, the men, the freedom and the sex. It’s as simple as that.
Okay, well, I disagree with the whole “pro-life” thing. Just because a woman does not have an abortion does not make it pro-life. That’s why I didn’t like Juno except for its weird humor. I mean, what exactly was the precise reason for not having an abortion? And it’s not pro-family either. The woman who wanted the baby didn’t care much for having a family; what she wanted was simply being a mother.
But anyway, as for transforming the world…I think that the movie is not so much that women can imitate them. If that is so, that’s their problem. I did not watch No Country for Old Men to imitate them. Maybe there were people who thought violence was just cool and wanted to be like the killer, but that’s their problem. I think that women like Sex and the City because, as RCM said, it relates to them.
How are we going to transform the world? By seeing reality as it really is. Look at the way RCM analyzed the shows. She looks at movies and shows differently from other women. That is what Christ does. It is not that she cannot see these kinds of movies. It’s that she is still attracted to and moved by the truth and beauty of Christ; she sees movies with the attentiveness to her own heart and that is why she can truly see why the women in the movie will ultimately be lonely.
I think, for example, that Stranger Than Fiction is one of the best “Christian” movies. Does it have Christ written all over it? It even has premarital sex (though there are no sexual scenes as such). But I would recommend that movie over, say, the Chronicles of Narnia. Why? Because it shows the concreteness of reality, that we want to live life intensely. Transforming the world does not mean detaching ourselves from movies with bad scenes and simply going to movies with women not having abortions. It means true judgment. We see a nude scene in a movie and we judge it rightly: is it true to its nature or not? I’m not saying that we should recommend people watching playboy or a violent movie for the sake of it. What matters is what the person loves and he will judge reality by what he loves. Plus…grace is in the world. Christ came here to “reconcile” the dialectic of good and evil: look at the cross. Maybe a Christian in a movie theater is what we need.
Apalonio,
Oddly enough, the apparent celebration of non-marital motherhood put the film in my wife’s non-interest department. I kind of wanted to see it given folks’ recommendations.
Generally,
I have watched SATC a half dozen times in syndication. I couldn’t get into it. It didn’t help that it was on fairly late. I don’t think my wife ever got into it, but she does enjoy Desperate Housewives and used to watch Grey’s. DH is sometimes’s interesting if you follow it. I could never get into Grey’s.
I think what’s at issue isn’t what you watch, rather, how you watch it (with some exceptions, of course)…
I think Katerina is missing a crucial distinction. What may be poisonous for some viewers may for others be–well, not exactly wholesome fare, but at least food for thought.
I’d agree– and I strongly suspect RCM would do the same– that it is a bad thing when young women watching SATC want to emulate the lifestyle they see. But there’s a difference between an unformed or poorly formed person conforming themselves to the secular culture and a person who is conformed to Christ who is able to view entertainment with more discernment. St Paul tells us not to conform ourselves to this world, but I do not think that means we must shut ourselves in ghettos and refuse to participate in culture. We must be in the world but not of it. How can we evangelize the culture if we shut ourselves out?
I’ve never watched SATC and have no intention of ever doing so. But RCM’s description of her experience speaks to me. I’ve been known to find threads of grace in odd places. Pulp Fiction, anyone? I’ve seen it enough times I can quote much of it by heart. Violent? certainly. And full of profanity and fornication and pretty much the whole range of human vices.
And yet we live in a fallen world. One function of good art is to hold up a mirror to reality. And though perhaps works like SATC and Pulp Fiction seek to glamorize vice, they often show more truly than their authors know and reveal the effects of evil, the deadening of the soul. And they also show that even those who are totally caught up in the secular materialist culture may still be striving for the good, however blindly they grope in the darkness. I love the scene in Pulp Fiction where the two hitmen, who are on their way to what turns out to be a massacre, argue about the ethics of one of their fellows giving a foot massage the boss-man’s wife. It speaks to me of the truth of our human experience. All of us except for the most saintly tend to exist in a state of moral contradiction. We might be striving to find the good in one area and yet be grossly blind to our faults in another area. We may know and follow the natural law against fornication while ignoring the prohibition against murder.
I don’t think RCM is arguing that most people should go out and see SATC any more than I would argue that people should watch Pulp Fiction. But we shouldn’t let our indignation to a works’ very real failings blind us to the fact that it might also be a very good mirror. Some works of art function much like Dante’s Inferno, we see sinful nature and its natural consequences. As RCM says their promiscuous lifestyles do not make these women happy. In that perhaps they are like Paulo and Francesca, the doomed souls of two adulterous lovers at the beginning of the Inferno, warning signs to those of us who are playing with fire.
Awesome discussion, folks. Thanks!
MZ: It is interesting because while Miranda does have a baby out of wed-lock she realizes she WANTS to be married to her son’s father. She yearns for that stability that she has thought she wanted to avoid.
I agree with Melanie. I guess I am arguing that these women in a very secular and atheistic way, convert, even if imperfectly, they convert.
And while I agree with Katerina’s concern that young girls maybe won’t see the negative only the glam, I don’t see how they cannot see it. They may be damaged by life at the end of it, but there is still hope for change.
I do not think Sex and the City is written to be an exposition on the lifestyle and its problems, ala a modern Dostoevsky. I have no problems of having a concrete representation of reality (which is what Dostoevsky does). However, as has been said before, Sex and the City is not even that — it is not realistic (I’ve heard one description of it as “homosexual writers putting their fantasies into reality through the women”), but the thing is, culturally what is not real can become real and Sex and the City has influenced younger generations (like MTV) to think this is “normal and ok.” It is not aiming at the problems, but glorifying the lifestyle; and that is also how the media has potrayed the series — all the women watching it wanting, secretly, to be like one of the main characters. In all reality, if you want to know what genre the series is, it is the “Romance Novel” updated to the modern age. And like the Romance Novel, it is a kind of pornography.
Henry,
I agree that SATC is not written to be an exposition of the lifestyle and it’s problems. I suspect you are right that the intent of the writers is to indulge in fantasies and glamorizing the lifestyle. However, sometimes art goes beyond the artist’s intent. Sometimes it speaks a truth the artist himself does not consciously know. In fact, I suspect that is true much of the time. There is definite truth in the stereotype of the dissolute artist. Many artists are tortured souls living in the muck and yet with the grace of God they are able to portray a truth they themselves are not consciously aware of.
The truth is that sin is sin and no matter how hard the artist tries to glamorize it, that truth often shines through the glamor. Sin makes us unhappy and so even in a work that attempts to paint it in a positive light we can see the true results, the real emptiness and pain that underlies the false romance. People seldom consciously seek that which they think will make them unhappy. In fact their error is not in seeking the bad but in seeking lesser goods and trying to make them do the work of the greatest good. Thus the characters in SATC are seeking love and seeking relationships. They are looking for that which will fill the God-shaped hole in their hearts. Looking for love in all the wrong places? Sure; but they are looking for love. And certainly God tells us if we seek we shall ultimately find.
I’m not saying SATC is objectively good or that it presents a positive image. I’m saying the opposite, I think the glamor it portrays is damaging to young women. However, I think that as RCM says, it often shows more than it knows. It shows the glamor, yes, but it also shows the emptiness behind the glamor. As long as there is life there is hope and it isn’t wrong for a Christian to hope that even those women caught up in the Sex and the City lifestyle may one day find the true love that their heart desires. Perhaps one day their restless hearts may rest in God.
Okay, I hate to throw a huge monkey wrench into the discussion, but I think discussions of the SATC phenomenon, show and/or movie, that focus on this as intentionally reflective of anything about women’s lives is completely off base.
Why?
Because this is a gay man’s show.
Sure, Candace Bushnell may be a straight woman, but the creator of the series and the guiding light for it the whole way through, Michael Patrick King, is a gay man, and it is pretty much blindingly obvious that the “women” in this show are not women, but gay men in drag. It is reflective of a gay sensibility, gay culture…it’s about the gays, not the women.
Which means, of course, it has a deeply misogynist heart.
Terry,
Can you cite for me where anyone argues that the show is “intentionally reflective”? As far as I can tell everyone concedes to you the fact that the creators of the show are gay and don’t have a positive message and that any insights we might glean from the show/movie are probably not intentional.
That Catholics or Christians, for that matter, do not see a problem funding and contributing to the popularity of this kind of media (yes, because Sex and the City will not be the last one of this kind of series given its popularity) is beyond me.
Garbage in, garbage out!