Competition winners: In conjunction with the former Mr R, (who is himself blonde and blue eyed) Ms R has had a look at the entries and feels that while credit must go to Duck for a great take on a well known exchange and Timmy Worstall for his topicality on London Mayoral elections and Boris, it is Angela la la and Misssy M who are joint winners. Although obvious they both reflected what many participants were actually saying. We shall have to organise some sort of prize. Emails shall be forthcoming.
Unlike various media commentators who've portrayed it as a Great Leap Forward for women, Ms R is not convinced that the televison series of Sex and the City was any more than disposable TV; four women with mountains of cash, contacts and clothes met in expensive restaurants and discussed how hard their lives were. If that isn't fantasy, what is?
The title of the series was itself misleading: save for Samantha, there wasn't that much sex, not on screen anyway. Mostly they talked about it. And in terms of Ms R's own experience Samantha wasn't doing anything more than most confident, single girls who enjoy sex have always done, although she did discuss it volubly. The one thing that SATC wasn't about was men. For four supposedly intelligent women, men appeared to be a huge mystery. Sure this was partly the premise of the lead character's column, nonetheless they spent an inordinate amount of time discussing their inability to understand them but not really trying to. Let's be clear here: the women Ms R knows do not spend entire evenings discussing men. Even when disappointed the conversation will usually go like this.
"He was a knob."
"My husband's being one lately."
"They all are." End of.
While the popular myth is that the show got women talking about relationships and sex (do we need a TV show to do that?), Ms R and her friends were mystified by Carrie's (Sarah Jessica Parker) finances. How could a columnist for a NY tabloid afford to leave the house daily wearing around $5000 worth of clothes? She paid her rent in Manhattan, drank $25 cocktails and took cabs everywhere. It didn't add up.
They spent many hours trying to work it out.
"Ok let's say she makes about $100,000 a year."
"No, no let's say "$150,000..maybe she was poached from her first paper?"
"Ok she buys at least two pairs of Choos or Blahnik's every week. That's around US $1400. $5,600 a month before the Gucci, Westwood and Oscar De La Renta clothes at around $3000 a throw.
"It's entirely possible; everyone in Manhattan maxes out their credit cards."
"It's just a fucking TV show."
"What about the apartment; it's huge?"
"Rent controlled."
"Still her outgoings have got to be minimum around $100,000 a year..."
"Yeah but hang on she gets free entry to clubs 'cos she knows lots of people..plus they probably send over drinks.."
"Fair point..you never see them paying the bill."
"Maybe the fashion PR's send her stuff..you know 'cos she's a columnist?"
"Still doesn't add up..."
"Blokes buying her stuff..."
"She never has blokes for long enough..she's always with her mates...no time to fuck for gifts..."
Then it got desperate
"Let's start with one pair of shoes a week.. and $200,000 a year..."
Thursday, 15 May 2008
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34 comments:
*Yawn* That's better.
'First Anon'.
Could she have been moonlighting as a hooker? On second thoughts, that would have been a drop in the ocean.
I have never seen it, and now the film is coming at us like a freight train tripping on aviation fuel.
Fsshionistas--bleh! Who cares if she's wearing Manolo Blahniks? If she's in the sack with do you actually think my mind's on her damned shoes? lol AS for SATC--watched it a few times but got bored with its trivialities. Will I see the film? nope. Would raather watch a salacious FRench flick any day lmao.
Beau
Can't you do better than that Anon: So anxious to be first and then nothing clever to say..Were we lovers once? Did you disappoint me? I imagine that what's it is otherwise you'd be off reading another blog.
GB:Still doesn't explain it GB - I mean sure there have been questionable spaceships on TV but this is completely out of this world.
Beau: I'm with you babe. That's why nobody got in the sack with her...
Conan: You snuk in there. Great description as per usual Conan:) I only saw the latter series but let's say that it didn't figure as high as ER did in those days for me. As you know Conan very few things translate well to the Big Screen and I'm not going to bother with thisn but we did have fun yelling at the TV occasionally, like I do with the Apprentice really.
Yep but I sure wouldn't mind you in the sack. That may be one of those experiences of a lifetime. :-)
Beau
Beau: Why thank you Beau; from a man with experience of life that is indeed a great compliment.
Sex in the City is worse than a fairy tale because:
A. Who wants to aspire to either Big or the redhead's little shrimp of a man + baby? ('kay, I'll take Samantha's beau last season, but that's about it.)
B. Writers across the universe make squat. Which means you're buying your Manolos used on eBay.
eugh used manolos?
I must confess to losing interest in the whole concept of SATC after the first series... just as I did with Ally McBeal... and I have never watched an episode of Desperate Housewives.
Call me weird, but I can't be bothered watching shows that make ordinary women desperate to emulate a handful of fictitious women, who have them striving for the impossible. They bore me just as much as those vacuous dimwits that grace the magazine shelves screaming "me, me, me"... and will somebody please explain to me why SJP chose to wear a bloody plant on her head to the premier?!?!?!
"The title of the series was itself misleading: save for Samantha, there wasn't that much sex."
/*beging geek
Actually, when the series was ending I remember seeing some stats (that i can't be arsed to google) that over the series Sam had 80+ partners, Miranda 35+, Carrie a good 20+ and even goody too shoes Charlotte had 10+ partners.
*end geek/
Even Charlotte had more partners over 7 poxy series then I've had in me lifetime so there was plenty of shagging going on!
Why do I care\know? An old roommate was a big fan which was great whenever she had a bday all we had to do was get another dvd box set. Job done!
As for the money they were earning yes it was stupid but so is paying $800 for shoes.
I'm with anonymous..."yawn". The film is going to bomb....you heard it here first.
Helga ... I can only assume she was wearing the "bloody plant" to distract us from her bloody face.
Is it just me or are there other people out there who can't see how she's become rated as gorgeous?
Ah, little SJP, cantering around the Big Apple with her horse face and fancy shoes.
I must confess that I have watched the show quite a lot. I also must confess that I nearly pretended I hadn't, for purposes of looking cool and fitting in, etc.
I wouldn't like to be friends with them, though. They talk about men too much and never listen to each other. Also I'm not sure I could quite get on board with the garden-head look, either.
Charmed, though. There's a good show. At least it admits to being ludicrously fantastical. I love Charmed.
Moi: Yeah I wasn't salivating over the guys..and right now I am making squat. Nothing for me,not even on ebay.
Mei Del: I'll stick to bare feet..looks sexier I reckon
Helga: It was about a 'me' generation of women who commoditised men the way they commoditised everything else. Unlike yours truly who adores men even though she doesn't trust them at all, they didn't like men. As for the hat..oh fuck knows.
Brian: When did they have those partners? It was dull sex anyway, says Ms R (who shagged in the park on Wednesday)
Belle: Except that Anon isn't yawning at the film: he is doing what he always does on my posts...
Ro: How is every daughter of a rock star a model? How is Lily Allen in 'great shape?' How is Princess Beatrice 'curvy' when in fact she's a fat chick?
Leonie: You've hit it: you wouldn't want to be friends with them 'cos they'd never listen and they'd talk while they ate..that annoyed me too.
Some American Titillating Comedy? Shoes And Twaddle Combined, more like.
I read Candace Bushnell's column in the Observer for a couple years before the series. I loved it and her. The series comes out, credits roll and I see, "Created By, Darren Star." The fuck stick who created, Melrose Place and Beverly Hills 90210.
Bushnell is also full of shit. While her columns were bawdy and full of drinking and drugs, she always complained about NYC men and their habit of droping women 'cause they always thought they could do better. Perhaps. But she'd never date a Park Ranger and it was my personal experience that most women in NY wouldn't date a Park Ranger either. Fortunatly, older, married women in NYC liked to sleep with Park Rangers and buy them dinner. I'm working on the series.
I did enjoy SATC when it was on..although latterly it seemed to become more about the clothes than anything else. You were not the only person who wondered about eh credulity of a writer who wrote ONLY ONE COLUMN being able to live the high-life in NY, especially since the financial situation of the the other three main characters was amply explained.
Hence the show has kind of given the ordinary waged girl a bit of albatross around her neck. Not least the girls in my new work, one of whom spent £200 on a belt last week. Me? I wear H and M, find my labels at TK Maxx (I got fab Lulu Guiness shoes last month!!), look miles better than her and can still pay my mortgage.
You know I loved SATC so Im worried about the movie. Im particularly concerned that in the trailers, Big is definitely looking his age. I think at the time I watched the series, my life was one long round of sleepless nights, nappies and coffee mornings, so I suspended reality and belief and just absorbed myself in the subplot discussions (sex toys and positions/behaviour) rather than the in your face over the top lifestyle. I never really liked the fashion aspect. Even a woman who spent her life in leggings and baggy tshirts could see that some of the creations were a little over the top for the playground or the very occasional evening out at the local curry place with the girls :)
Ah, it's all just a bit of glossy dross, the televisual equivalent of flicking through a women's magazine or reading a sex blog. Nothing wrong with that, many's the time I want to tune out to something easy on the eye while my brain freewheels for a bit. It doesn't stand up to any serious analysis but it was never meant to, it's just a bit of froth.
I have watched it and sometimes watch it, but not my choice. I find it vapid, trite, boring. It's only, and I am ashamed to admit this, my Mista likes the programme! God damn him! It's so out of character for my normally brainy brawn! He is from NYC and claims the show is as much about the city as it is about the false friends (Leonie is so right).
I suppose I could leave the Mista with his bad habit. But I do like sitting on the sofa with him.
ho hum: Were we running a competition on that one too?
Tintin:I have been to NY only once for six days and adored it. From the series however and from other sources you get the impression that women over there are only into men with money and men are into very young women. Mind you there is lots of that over here. Park Rangers rule!
Misssy: I used to earn the big money and have the big inclination for designer clothes. I still adore clothes - having a mum who makes couture explains it a bit - and feel good in them. But I like to mix it up and with about half a dozen exceptions (very skinny clothes) still wear lots of stuff I've had..plus I have a brilliant designer second hand shop. And I throw in a bit of other stuff as well. For me it's more about keeping my body in shape and skin in good condition..after that the clothes work, no matter what they are.
Cake: Also don't you think it was structurally meant to work as vignettes.not as a film...Bushnell originally wrote it like that. I must say some of Carrie's creations were rather worrying. She reminds me of fashion stylists who go out on a limb to prove they are who they say they are and end up looking like little girls who've raided mummy's closet. SJP is what the French call 'jolie-laide'
Luka: Very frothy indeed. I watched it as that but I can't believe the columnists trying to convince me it was a seminal work of feminism...
Clarissa: I like the bits about NY but they were often overwhelmed by the neurosis of the characters and their "I want" attitude. Truly no woman I know is that neurotic. Really.
Competition? Nah. Just Serious Aspirations to Conciseness, as opposed to Seriously Addicted To Choo...or Chewing, for that matter
But can I have permission to plagiarise 'seminal work of feminism...' A wonderful phrase. Pretty please, with sweetener on top? Assuming it didn't come from the second hand shop, of course..:)
BTW, is it just me, or is there some some resemblance between some portraits of the horsey faced one, as so delicately expressed by Leonie, and the CiF portrait of a certain girl contributor? Noticed it weeks ago, but never been a suitable forum to ask others views before.
Ho Hum: Goodness, you don't mean..yes you're right, there is a resemblance.
And yes you can use my silly phrase..it isn't secondhand
I've suggested all this other stuff to CIF since my last outings but they turn me down and yet they let shit on...I don't get it
But isn't that their speciality? ie 'to shit on'
From what I can see, though, and what might count against you, is that you don't seem to qualify if you do it with style and humour.... ;)
I loved SATC at the time but now it seems dated and irrelevent. Like HavingMyCake said, I was so absorbed in child rearing that it was just a bit of 'me time' during the day. I used to wonder how Carrie could afford her clothes but, you know, columnists really do get paid rather well over there unlike here where the higher up the ladder you go, the more they expect you to be grateful for the job. I remember discussing this with a friend of mine who said that Vanity Fair was a dream job whereas anyone over here with a job at Vogue would have to be living in a bedsit to be able to afford to work there. As an aside, Candace Bushnell interviewed me last year. She had an incredibly annoying high pitched squeal that would have driven most men away.
Suzanne: Candace squeals? How revolting. It's a great bit of fluff but really as a comment on women it's tosh.
I enjoyed SATC the first time and watched it all on DVD again here. This time round I found myself rapidly cooling over Carrie - I had originally liked her, but she doesn't half whinge. I don't know how I didn't notice before. I found myself wondering why she just didn't "get it" with guys.
Predictably, perhaps, I love Samantha. God knows how she'd do with the guys out here though. I think even she might find it hard to keep up her one-per-show score.
Oh Emsk, Carrie was a whinger, wasn't she? And she went all coy and fucking girlie when she met a guy. She was the least independent in many ways..I love Samantha because she had an attitude.
I have to agree with Emsk. First time around I loved this show - it was (ignoring all their money!!) a realistic picture of single women. Or so I thought. Watching it again on dvd, my first reaction was to say to my boyfriend 'god women are annoying'!
this was too good not to share
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/sex-and-the-city-'totally-empowering'%2c-says-manky-slapper-20080513949/
Ho Hum... Aarrrrggghhh!!! You've got to learn to post links!!!
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