Sexism and the City

For such a serious topic, this article lacks any substance.

I am a man, and I hate Sex and the City, as a show because it is extremely deceptive, and extremely generic. All the people who think the show is empowering are completely delusional. It encourages self-loathing if yourrrraaayour walltyou your wallet is not large enough to afford the right brands of clothing. It shows the vast majority of the men in the show as riduclously one dimensional characters. Caricatures of real people.

Why would you compare a movie like Sex and the City, that claims to have social value/insight, to a movie that is admittedly (by producers and directors) "extremely cheesy" like The Hulk? It seems to make almost no sense to me.

If you want to see a film that has real female empowerment, I am not sure why you would go for Sex and the City over any of the other much superior films available this year/other recent years. Persepolis, Pan's Labyrinth, I feel fairly confident that Alien has more respect for women then the underlying self-loathing present in Sex and the City.

My girlfriend thinks the level of obsession a woman has with Sex and the City can be used a yardstick for projection of self-confidence. I am very glad to have this type of girlfriend. I would choose Marjane over Carrie any time, any day.

The movie and the series were awful. People who want to find some sort of explanation for the justified criticism beyond that are just being absurd. By the way, nothing is more pathetic than a male suckup. Get some self respect guys, stop trolling for approval from women by sucking up to them . Sex and the City has always sucked. No "sexism" need be applied.

Ken

of course it has nothing to do with the fact that they are all vapid, rich, and white. no, it has to be sexism...

This is easy. Many men, particularly in America, are uncomfortable with their sexuality. Anything feminine is to be shunned. The reaction to the "Sex and the City" movie is not unlike the reaction men have to seeing another man dressed as a woman. When a man dresses as a woman, the reaction is savage, vengeful and angry. And for what? Who does it harm? After all, woman dress like men all the time. But the message here is implicit: embracing femininity, either as a man OR a woman, is not valued in our society. So, in "Sex and the City," you have women celebrating their femininity and that then is interpreted as an affront to the dominance of male masculinity. Me? I think "Sex and the City" was a funny, well written show. I could care less if the focal point of a story is a man or a woman. A good story is a good story, period.

For me, disliking it has nothing to do with "having it in for girl movies" The movie always got on my nerves because Carrie was so ga-ga for New York. If you are like me, and you don't particularly care for big cities in general, or NYC in particular, it made your fingers twitch, wishing for one moment that she'd end up in a dairy in Kansas for at least one episode where she'd have to milk cows and clean out horse stables.

All that being said, I do think there is an inherent negative male reaction to this. I feel it myself quite strongly. The question is why? Do we really dislike women that much? I don't think I do. Maybe its just that given the times in which we are living, between the war, the economy and everything else, men have an even harder time relating to a bunch of carefree chicks running around the city buying shoes.

SATC is very, very bourgeouis, in that sense. And maybe we prefer people like Indy, Batman, or Tony Stark who get up in the morning and try to *do* something to have a positive effect on the world. Maybe at some subconscious level men can't stand it because they see these women as simply taking up space, especially right now.

I think for me, personally, a good indication of this is that never once, in all the years Buffy The Vampire Slayer was on, did I ever for a moment have the kind of distinct dislike of any of the characters that I have for the cast of "Sex and the City." Despite the fact that it was heavily female. Nor would I ever begrudge Buffy or Willow a shopping spree or a handbag. Why? Because unlike the SATC crew, their characters earned it.

Okay, you're just ASKING for hate here...but I LOVE what you've said, agree wholeheartedly, and wish you well in every single thing you do. You obviously have an extremely keen insight into cinema and cinematic trends.

My husband of one month and I just saw the movie and I can tell you that it is everything a Sex In The City fan would expect. Surprisingly, my husband who knew nothing about the show even enjoyed it. As a person who thinks critics in general are overrated and over paid, I say let the men hate it......it would not shock me in the least if these happen to be men who are single for a reason. The fact of the matter is no matter how much these men may rip on this movie, they will never be able to take back those first weekend numbers. And critics.....they are people who are overwhelmingly knowledgeable in the area of films, but in essence, they are just people with opinions.

While I have noticed that the negative criticism is mainly from the males, I would like to say that there are at least a few of us men, secure enough to say we too enjoyed "Sex and the City". I went to see it with my wife this past weekend, and I enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed "Indiana Jones" and I think there are many others who also ought to be recognized as a minority fan base who supported this movie. While it is a female led cast, I disagree that it is inherently sexist. My favorite character is Harry, who I think is a positive role model to those of us who are also hopeless romantics and are having a bad hair life.

Since when is not liking "Sex and the City" inherently sexist? The franchise is not designed to be enjoyed by men, so it should hardly be surprising when men don't enjoy it. There's nothing inherently sexist about either Ebert (by the way, Ebert gave it two stars NOT as this article falsely claims, one and a half) or Berardinelli's remarks. They just didn't like it. Neither did female critics Manohla Dargis or Julia Turner (Slate).

I like Sex in the City but I think Hilary Clinton is a sore loser. So does that make me a misogynistic Feminist or just a normal guy that can make a distinction between what he likes?

Comment: I'm sick of hearing about Sex and the City...The fact that the media shoves this show in my face everytime I want to read real news articles on this site keeps me from ever having an intrest in watching it. Will someone please tell me WHY this show is so great????? I'm also so sick of seeing Sara Jessica Parker's face I could puke!

I'm also a woman.

I was a fan of the series (I'm male), but it's easier to be one when you don't get to it until it's on video. That way you can watch one episode after another and there aren't any cliffhangers. If I had to watch the scrubbed reruns on broadcast TV I'm not sure it'd be the same.

Still, if you're a guy and a fan, maybe it stimulates the same part of the brain that NASCAR wrecks and police video shows do. The appeal is watching the women make fools of themselves, overthink situations or the like. Makes you glad to be in the simpler gender. Most male characters do seem like fools, not least of which was Mr. Big, who uses seemingly unlimited financial resources to be noncommittal with the woman voted Unsexiest in America (at least he's not Matthew Broderick!) Aiden and Steve, the "sensitive" ones, don't seem rewarded in any way for that.

I think the rest of the vitriol may mirror the generally bad situation between the sexes at age 30 and up. Guys may see real-life parallels between the SATC characters and the dating pool they face if they don't "rob the cradle." Of the 4, only Charlotte would be really appealing in my book, and she'd have to get bounced on very high maintenance costs.

ramin, as a gay man, you're going to identify with this film more than someone not gay. It doesn't mean that those folks are sexist, just as someone like you who didn't like indiana jones is effeminate. The harsh criticism is likely because our media culture encourages absurdly disproportionate reactions. You saw the same thing with last 3 star wars films, which were retreads like this film

Thanks for this article -- I hate to pull out the "gender" card, but I too have noticed that a lot of men have a HUGE problem with this movie, most of them without even seeing it.

So, even when women have the #1 movie they're still being victimized? That's just more PC rubbish. Of course, the majority of men wouldn't enjoy this movie, and they don't mind telling you so. So what? Should they be passive-aggressive with their criticism? Perhaps men voted it down on IMDB so they could use it as an excuse not to go. "Look, honey, it's getting terrible reviews." Use your noodle, Ramin.

I'm sick of hearing about Sex and the City...The fact that the media shoves this show in my face everytime I want to read real news articles on this site keeps me from ever having an intrest in watching it. Will someone please tell me WHY this show is so great????? I'm also so sick of seeing Sara Jessica Parker's face I could puke!

It's not the "women" issue that I have issues with (Iron Man didn't really call out to me either), I'm a guy by the way. What really bothers me, of the two or three episodes that I happened to watch during all nighters I was pulling was that the show is fairly one dimensional, and while they try to portray the mindset of middle age NY women, they honestly parody, anyone else's mindset, whether it was a 20something, or some LA/SF characters, or the midwestern woman in the ponytail, they portray them as giddy dolts--very one dimensional side characters--it would almost be laughable if it wasn't slightly offensive. In fact they themselves sometimes seem to evade an aura of middle aged ingenues/arrivistes/somewhat not really in the know (as well as many of the fans I've encountered) whether that seems to have been the original intent or not is sometimes puzzling. I will say that they do show their vulnerabilities and it is refreshing to see a show that deals with mature elements in such an honest and non threatening way. Still my criticisms hold for my own personal self.

It's not the "women" issue that I have issue with (Iron Man didn't really call out to me either), I'm a guy by the way. What really bothers me, is the two or three episodes that I happened to watch during all nighters I was pulling was that the show is fairly one dimensional, and while they try to portray the mindset of middle age NY women, they honestly parody, anyone else's mindset, whether it was a 20something or some LA/SF res.

There are many legitimate reasons to explicitly criticize the "Sex" phenomenon. Among them, the vapid materialism of the show, a pseudo-cosmopolitanism (that is THEORETICALLY opposed to that materialism), and the fact that it imbues women with a disempowering essence that is the embodiment of the dictatorial impulse of many varieties of contemporary feminism.

A juxtaposition:
Episode A: The women express unanimous disgust for men who kiss with too much saliva.
Episode B: The women seriously mull over one lover's request to take a piss on one of the girls.

The notion that this type of "Sex" represents some unique "liberation" for women only highlights the poisonous depiction of feminine sexuality in the media.

Then again, maybe I'm just sexist. That's probably it. What else could it be? My bad...