I've taken a long absence from blogging, and due to popular demand (I assume), I'm back! Just in time to tell you about the worst movie I have ever seen in my entire life. Sex and the City.
Let me lay some serious on you. This is a truly heinous and downright offensive movie. Sure, I love girl talk and cocktails as much as the next gal, but what I don't appreciate is a movie about ladies giving up their entire lives for men, hoping for the pleasure of being screwed over once again. Spoilers ahead!
Let's start with Jennifer Hudson's character. Besides being totally unnecessary, she is in search for Love. She says so on her job interview. Seriously. That's not pathetic at all. Granted, if I was trying to get a job as Carrie's assistant, I'd probably say the same thing. Though from reading her books, she should know that NY is officially out of decent men. As if that wasn't on-the-nose enough, we also know she wants Love because it says so on her keychain. See, she was badly hurt by her boyfriend in St. Louis because he loved her but didn't want to marry her. Apparently, one look at her fancy Louis Vitton bag, and he realized she has become quite fancy in the big city, so he must drag her back to boring old Missouri. Yeah, he proposes and she quits her job in NY to move back to St. Louis to be his wife. This is met with cheers. Also, her name is Louise. Like St. Louis. And Louis Vitton. And she gives Carrie a copy of Meet Me in St. Louis. I didn't understand why they made 1 million puns about this, but they did.
On to Samantha. She moves to LA to manage her boyfriend's acting career. That...is pretty unimaginable if you are familiar with her character at all. But...ok I'll go with it. Samantha is independent! She doesn't need a man to complete her! Except she does need to constantly have sex with a man to feel complete! Otherwise she will eat a lot of food. She gains some weight and her girlfriends are horrified! She needs to dump him immediately. After all, as his girlfriend and manager, it's all about him! She needs it to be all about HER! When you are in a relationship, it's all about the man! That's the theme! So she dumps him. Nevermind the fact that she could just hire some other manager to take care of his career. Nope! She loses her job over a man and goes back to NY.
Next up is Miranda. She's a fancy lawyer and doesn't have time to have sex with her husband or get bikini waxes. That means he's allowed to cheat on her. Then, Miranda moves away, and it becomes all about how she's a giant bitch and won't take him back. Really Miranda, you didn't have enough sex with him. WHAT DO YOU EXPECT? Even her husband is like, I don't know if I can trust YOU, because you cut me out of your life. Hmmm, I don't think the cheater is allowed to be indignant. But that's just me. So after all her girlfriends give her major shit about not forgiving him, she meets him on the Brooklyn bridge and she FOLLOWS HIM BACK TO BROOKLYN. Where she hates living. By way of apology, she let's him do her up the butt. I'm not kidding.
Charlotte has no problem holding onto her husband. She has lots of sex and gets her waxes right on schedule. Want to know why? SHE HAS NO JOB. That's another theme--don't have demanding jobs. Any of you.
And finally, Carrie. After Miranda convinces her she's gotta get married, Carrie and Big start planning a wedding. But Carrie's wedding is too big! Get it? TOO BIG! It freaks Big out! He can't handle the pressure of a ONE DAY EVENT! Miranda tells him he's stupid to get married (being that she just got cheated on) and this sends him over the edge. He drives away from the wedding. Literally. Then he changes his mind but Carrie is HORRIFIED. Cue dramatic orchestra music! Screaming! Dramatic rose petals flying! Carrie is understandably depressed...but...literally, she is unable to feed herself. Samantha has to spoon feed her yogurt. Carrie wonders, "Will I ever laugh again?" Uhhh, I'd imagine getting semi-stood up at the altar would be traumatic, but he didn't try to KILL YOU or something. But, this is worse than cheating, in all the girls' minds, because they urge Miranda to suck it up and forgive Steve, but what Big did was TOO TERRIBLE. Then, Carrie realizes this is not Big's fault. It's HERS! She made the wedding all about her! NO WONDER HE RAN AWAY FROM HER! Also, Miranda told him he shouldn't get married, so it's also Miranda's fault. It's never the man's fault. Girls are just too emotional. Or too emotionally unavailable. Either way, they are wrong.
Anyway, Big pulls shit like this all the time, so my attitude is get the fuck over it, Carrie. Big misses her terribly, but not enough to ever come see her OVER A YEARS TIME or stay at the hospital after Charlotte gives birth long enough to talk to Carrie. BUT! He sends her love letters! Through email! THAT HE COPIED FROM A BOOK! Apparently, this makes everything better! So they get married in the crappy city hall ceremony Big wanted all along. ....yay?
So, well done, ladies. You managed to make me hate men and women and relationships and being single all at the same time.
Oh and PS-- www.CarrieBradshaw.com is a real site. It's pathetic. And a "mess." The book excerpts are mistakenly all from the same book. Louise, that computer science degree was a waste. At least you're married and won't need to be tech savvy! Leave that for smart men!
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3 comments:
Wait, did they seriously do it up the butt? Was I sleeping during that?
My favorite part was that during the trailer, it was obvious "something bad would happen" before the wedding. Personally, I was rooting for heart attack. Then the movie makes me wait for an hour and a half before something bad happens! I know something bad is going to happen! There is no tension here! Obviously this wedding is not going to end well!
2 and a half hours? Really??
PS: One day, I plan to have my wedding in the style of Carrie's. I expect you to be waiting for me outside the courthouse squealing. Be a good friend!
Well, I guess I half-agree...and as a male, I am really only half-qualified since I am of a different gender than the characters (and the target audience) and therefore did not really think about "what it means."
Alright, so Jennifer Hudson was kinda pointless. But watchably pointless. I sort of liked her character, if only because she was presented in a way that made me think important things were happening because she got excited so much. It made ME excited. It was a little ridiculous how they made such a big deal out of St. Louis. Since when has SEX & THE CITY pretended anyplace besides New York City is an acceptable place to live? I suppose I also found it lame when she decided to just go back to that guy, but as soon as she left I forgot her character ever existed. It was nice to see Carrie mentoring a younger girl, though. I still can't believe that girl has an Oscar, but I digress.
Onto the women we care about. I must disagree on Samantha, because I think it was good to show her trying something new, making a steady relationship with a decent work. But she was still very much herself. I appreciated that she was trying to make sacrifices because living for only yourself can get very unfulfilling. But I also like that it was realistic about the fact that ultimately it didn't work for her, and she needed to change it. I admired that she was trying something new and making sacrifices, and admired her even more after having tried that and deciding that just being in a relationship is not a good enough reason to be untrue to what you need. I don't think it was all about the job for her - the problem would have existed even if she wasn't still managing him.
I also don't quite agree about Charlotte, since she is a mother and lots of mothers don't work. (Miranda does, to provide the other side of the spectrum.) I don't really see that the movie is saying that only women who don't work can be happy, since Samantha and Carrie both love their jobs and Miranda, well, likes to complain about everything.
I appreciated the Miranda/Steve storyline for taking some risks. People LOVE Steve and so it sucked seeing him cheat, but sometimes people cheat in real life and that sucks too. The girls never really got cheated on in the show, oddly enough, except Samantha, and Richard was a prick anyway. So I liked that it dealt with that. I can see where you are coming from on the stuff where, toward the end, they made it seem like she was wrong not to forgive him. He didn't really have any right to be pissed at her. I did think that having them get back together was earned, in its way - people really do stay together after mistakes sometimes, especially when they have kids - although there is another part of me that doubts that Steve can really be trusted and if they'll be happy. I don't think the movie quite hit all the notes it needed to to make us feel 100% on them getting back together, because Miranda isn't the main character.
Which brings us to Carrie, which is the one resolution I do have some issues with. I didn't HATE the way it ended because, from a writing standpoint, using the Cinderella thing and then having them marry in the simple dress like she wanted is somewhat well done. But after about 70 instances of Big being a jerk, I think we hit a record high with him leaving her at the altar and I was ready to be done with him. The fact that Carrie got caught up in her wedding is NOT a valid excuse to decide not to come, so having Carrie realize it was her fault didn't work. Sure, it's nice to acknowledge that nothing is totally one-sided, but at that point Big needed to just stop being a Big Pussy and go into the damn building. And yes, the emails thing was lame. Big knows Carrie hates the internet, why would he send her endless emails? Plus there is nothing less romantic than an email. I would have rather seen them leave it open-ended with Big, maybe they're friends, but for Carrie to forgive him AGAIN was too much.
I didn't like seeing two of the women forgive men - who both made huge fuck ups that could easily and justifiably be unforgivable - and take them back. It seemed to send the message that forgiveness is ALWAYS the answer no matter what someone does to you, when in fact, lots of people break up over such things. And should. If Carrie is going to take Big back then I would rather have seen Miranda and Steve not stay together for those of us who get fucked over and decide to be bitter and alone forever rather than compromise.
That said, I did really like the movie for showing what happens after the "happily ever after" (although it ended happily ever after, again, sooo...?) It tackled some darker themes and wasn't totally just a light crowd-pleaser that showed easy to please fans exactly what they wanted without taking risks. I can definitely see your point overall though and think (most of) your feelings are justified. But I'm a male, so ultimately, I'm right.
Chris, didn't you hear the India Arie song in the trailer?
"I think it's about... forgiveness... forgiveness...even if, even if, you don't love me anymore."
India speaks the truth because there is punctuation in the middle of her name for some reason.
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