My friend Aaron Aradillas mounted a spirited defense of Sex and the City, the movie and series, in a comment to a fairly flimsy and peevish post of mine. In this post I expressed a certain delight at the prospect of not having to engage the Sex and the City movie at all, heh heh heh. Of course, announcing one’s non-engagement is in and of itself a form of engaging; hence my flimsy and peevish post engendered some spirited argument. At one point Aaron resorts to a fairly timeworn plaint, saying, “The sexist-snobbish streak running through most reviews is a little sad.”
When one puts it that way, it’s tough to answer, as the sexism charge only creates a feedback loop, as reverse-sexism charges are leveled at the movie’s depiction of its male characters, and nobody goes home happy. (Incidentally, I should point out here that as of this writing, I still have yet to see the Sex and the City movie.) It’s the snobbism charge, or rather my own personal reaction to the snobbism charge, that I found interesting. My own personal reaction being, “So what?” Not only “so what,” but “fuck that noise,” because, “I’m entitled to pull out the snob card every now and again, am I not? Just because something is a putative pop culture phenomenon I’m automatically expected to give it some respect? For every person who ever looked at me like I was a fucking mutant for espousing the virtues of Bela Tarr or some such thing, I STILL can’t just express a de facto indifference and/or conceptual hostility to Sex and the City? I don’t think so, Quicksdraw!”
A bit of an overreaction, I suppose. But cut me some slack. I’m a little stressed out at the moment.
SATD: Funsy. Tarr’s Satantango: Not funsy.
But, it’s an interesting question to ponder, particularly for me, coming up as it does during a lull in my career as a film critic: Just where is one obliged to place one’s personal prerogatives with respect to one’s obligations as a chronicler/assessor of a form that is both pop culture and art? I don’t expect to answer that question here, but lemme throw some anecdotal stuff against the wall and see what gets a discussion going.
On a line for a screening at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, I overheard a conversation between a young Spanish critic and a young German critic. They were speaking English, which I’ll assume was the common language between them; hence, I not only overheard the conversation, I understood it. At some point the Arnaud Desplechin film in the competition, Un Conte de Noël, which I, and many others, adored, came up. The German film critic wrinkled her nose and shook her head and said, “I don’t like movies about the bourgeoisie.” Which elicited a sort of “Oh, okay,” reaction from the Spanish film critic.
I’m not even gonna bring up the fact that anyone who can afford to attend the Cannes Film Festival, reimbursed or not, carries some taint of the bourgeoisie on his or her person. I just want you to consider the kind of environment in which you cannot only totally get away with saying, “I don’t like movies about the bourgeoisie,” but you will possibly be lauded and congratulated for saying so. As if this pronouncement actually represents a kind of aesthetic principle. On the line, I felt like butting into the conversation and averring, “You know what? I don’t like movies about poor people. They’re dirty and they don’t photograph well.” You know, take Truffaut’s “I don’t want to see a film about Indian peasants” one step further! But I thought I’d be better serving myself by going back to my book.
(And you know what? Since it’s true that I have no particular truck for “socially conscious” cinema, it could be argued, maybe, in fact I actually don’t like movies about poor people, and how bad would that be? At a dinner the night before the start of a the festival, I was reflecting on the fact that as I was pretty much covering the festival for myself, without obligation to Première, and not doing the competition critic’s jury for Screen International, I could pretty much see or not see whatever I wanted. I rather gleefully proclaimed that, thus, I was considering skipping the new Walter Salles/Daniella Thomas film Linhe de Passé, about four poverty-stricken brothers in a Brazil slum. The person I said this to looked at me as if I had announced my intention to spit in the five wounds of Christ. )
(On the other hand, after walking out on Pedro Costa’s Colossal Youth back when it played the 2006 Cannes, I subsequently checked it out again, in its entirety, when it played Anthology—and I LOVED IT!!!)
The “I don’t like movies about the bourgeoisie” card is the only acceptable snob card out there, it seems. And it’s not a reverse-snob card either, it’s of the undistilled variety, it’s just putatively politically righteous. Its distant, stupider relative is the “Wes Anderson is a spoiled rich kid and because of that his movies are twee” argument.
But, if one is not playing that particular card, aesthetic snobbery is always, always, always wrong. Taken to its broadest application, this leaves us in a rather curious position when it comes to the idea of actually applying any standard to, well, anything. Apparently it’s so thoroughly inadmissible to object to Sex and the City on moral grounds that the idea of doing so barely even comes up any more (Manohla Dargis actually comes close in her Times review, but grounds her revulsion in the context of a zeitgeist shift, rather than in any absolutes—Carrie’s an “ick” girl now because she hasn’t changed with the times). Even the National Review Online’s Kathryn Jean “Abstinence Only” Lopez, reaching new heights of intellectual incoherence, defends the series and film because, for all the bodily fluids vainly spilt therein, the “deeper message…is that it’s not hooking up but true love and marriage and children that [its heroines] want.” (Which, come to think of it, is also the “deeper message” of every have-it-both-ways full-of-shit Hollywood romance from about 1963 on, except some people haven’t been paying attention.) As for other grounds, it has some very staunch defenders—Kurt Loder actually compares the dialogue to that found in the films of Sturges and Hawks, which analogy will possibly give my blog friend Self-Styled Siren a stroke. (Kurt also asks, “When was the last time you saw a naked woman turn herself into a living sushi platter?” Well, Kurt, it was back in 2002, in Wicked Pictures’ Red Dragon, directed by Brad Armstrong and starring Stephanie Swift. Thanks for asking! Now I’ve got a question for you, Kurt, or anybody who cares to give it a shot: How is Sex and the City connected to Luis Bunuel? No, it’s not a trick question, either. Here’s a hint: foot fetish.)
But none of this is really such a big deal, is it? Sex and the City is not, finally, some kind of line in the sand, an occasion for which to revive Lester Bangs’ “I will say goodbye to you?” line, is it? I mean, as it happens, I may wind up seeing the damn thing anyway. And then what will I say?
Every young critic should be forced, at gunpoint if necessary, to read Barthes’ “Mythologies”. It’s a valuable corrective to certain stripes of pretentiousness.
As for the snob label: it’s usually what people deploy, I’ve found, when you know what you’re talking about and they don’t.
As a woman and passionate defender of the woman’s film, I gotta say your original post was very much in sync with my own take on the series and film. Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, indeed. The few bits and pieces of the series I have seen never persuaded me that I was missing anything, much less reminded me of Sturges or Hawks. Not even The Beautiful Blonde from Bashful Bend or El Dorado.
Not that there’s anything wrong with the series, mind you, aside from a related bunion epidemic and its popularizing the ridiculous trend of women walking around bare-legged in New York in January. It just isn’t my dish of tea.
as for Bunuel – ooh, ooh, ooh, is this a Viridiana reference?
http://www.pep-web.org/document.php?id=JAA.022.0663A
No, although “Viridiana” is one of the many latter-day Bunuel pics to exhibit a foot fetish on the part of a character and/or the director himself. What I’m thinking of is the fact that Manolo Blahnik himself has cited Bunuel’s “Diary of a Chambermaid” as one of his favorite films and a concrete influence on his work. Particularly the scene of the old patriarch asking Jeanne Moreau’s title character to try on a favorite pair of boots…
The quote’s actually in a not-too-old issue of Première, which I don’t, alas, have access to at the moment.
I haven’t seen the film and I’m not intending to; I never watched the TV show. It is just not my type of thing ‑I don’t think that’s snobbery, but just a matter of personal taste.
Re: when was the last time you saw a naked woman turn herself into a living sushi platter?
I’m pretty sure that was a plotline on one of the CSI shows a while back.
Regardless of how one feels about Sex and the City, which I’ll eventually see as a combination of connubial obligation and Kristin Davis fetish, I’m appalled at Dargis’ review. Except for the bit about Montezuma’s revenge, she never connects her generalities to anything specific. She’s just pitching a hissy fit at the very idea of the movie.
I absolutely love “Viridiana”. I bought it blind because it was A) a Criterion release and B) a Bunuel film, and I wasn’t disappointed. It’s weird how Bunuel snuck up on me and became one of my favorite filmmakers when I wasn’t looking. I just looked up one day and realized I’d bought pretty much all of his late period I could find.
Glenn: while this probably wasn’t your intent, my opinion of Manolo Blahnik just zoomed way higher.
He’s been somewhat supplanted by Christian Louboutin as the shoe of desire of the mo, but now he’s got a special place in my heart … if not, due to budgetary constraints, in my closet.
Actually, MY opinion of MB shot up when I read the quote, which I recall was very precisely detailed with respect to both the footwear and the overall tone of the scene. The guy clearly got it. So in a way, it was my intent…
Except from when it comes from someone like Oscar Wilde, snobbery is pretty tiring. Who really wants to hear a person professing his/her grand dislikes unless it comes with some genuine wit? Pulling the “snob card” usually just sounds like somebody whining, particularly in Internet blog posts.
(And I say that just as an answer to the general question asked by this post, NOT that I think Glenn you are whining at all.)
My somewhat jaundiced pictorial take on Sex and the City.
http://boxoffice.com/blogs/steve/2008/06/lifestyles-of-the-vapid-and-cr.php
I enjoyed SEX IN THE CITY for awhile when it was HBO’s post-DREAM ON shock comedy and took some pleasure in its trendy name-dropping (it was the first place I, a midwesterner, heard of Cosmopolitans and Cohibas) and taboo-breaking (eg., when a man in a sexual encounter group accidentally came in Miranda’s face). But I got very turned off when the promos started treating the show’s characters, all introduced as quirky misfits of a sort, as HBO rock stars, strutting down the runway at us in their matching haute couture. The show got very full of itself very fast and, as the show dragged on to its final season, the once-interesting characters lost their respective edges and all sold out in a variety of predictable sitcom ways. I have zero interest in seeing the movie.
“I mean, as it happens, I may wind up seeing the damn thing anyway. And then what will I say?”
I dunno, Glenn. I thought you were a formalist. If that keeps you out of arguments in re the historical content “Che” leaves out, couldn’t you just review “SATC” as, you know, a movie?
I’m not trying to be snotty – I’m not a fan of the show, and I think the lead character is the worst friend, worst girlfriend and worst writer ever depicted by a TV series. It’s just that, cutting through the thicket of Barthes and Pedro Costa (and we’re not going to get into that again, are we?) and Bunuel and even the very pretty Stephanie Swift, the snobbery this film attracts is tied directly and specifically to its appeal to women. To groups of women all keening together in their clickety heels, 10 years before they do it all again in ugly red hats. Chick flicks can be dismissed because they’re not threatening and, for better or (pretty much always, and thanks Nora Ephron, for vulgarizing everything you touch) worse, they’re part of a venerable and undeniably towering screwball/weepie tradition. Despite a valiant effort by the Washington Post to trace “SATC’s” lineage to “Three on a Match” and “Valley of the Dolls” – and come on, where’s “The Group”? – its weird, rabid, culty, aspirational appeal is sui generis. It’s closer to “The Phantom Menace” than it is to “Shop Around the Corner.” And yes, I’m going to see it. I like shoes.
“the snobbery this film attracts is tied directly and specifically to its appeal to women.”
So, how do you explain women disliking it? Because I’ve read a lot of female backlash on this (a lot of women were less than enthused with the whole “Oh, you’re female, you’re going to see ‘Sex and the City’) and in fact it’s been more vitriolic than the male reaction, which by and large has been “Jesus, this thing is HOW LONG?”
I’m not saying this isn’t necessarily a factor, but I do happen to think it’s overly simplistic, and I think it’s used to excuse way too many bad movies, and this is true of any film aimed at any minority. At some point the filmmakers ARE responsible for the appeal or lack thereof of their work.
I think the key problem is any movie by, for, or about any minority is expected to cater to all of that minority. I find it all faintly ridiculous, to be honest. You mention screwball, and screwball was never explicitly female-aimed; popular with women, sure, but it’s not like they do a gender test before they let you watch “Bringing Up Baby”. I’d gladly show up to a movie about relationships, provided it actually looks funny.
I haven’t seen SATC and probably won’t until it comes out on DVD (such is the life I lead), but I’m in favor of anything that brings women back in big numbers to the multiplex. Anything to end the tyranny of 14-year-old boys!
“I’m in favor of anything that brings women back in big numbers to the multiplex. Anything to end the tyranny of 14-year-old boys!”
A word of wisdom from a very wise man. Lost in the furor is that Sex is one of the few big-budget films aimed at adults.
I absolutely agree, Dave…and Herman. And felt that way about “The Devil Wears Prada” which is at the moment close to what I consider the Platonic ideal of female-centric Hollywood comedies.
And Demi, don’t forget that the original impetus for my nose-thumbing was the fact that I’m NOT reviewing “Sex and the City” because at the moment I’m under no actual obligation to—my original post was called “The Perks of Unemployment.” Were I employed I’d be happily reviewing the thing. Actually, I’ve noticed that Première.com still hasn’t posted a review of “SACD”. Wonder if they’d be interested. So the whole thicket came about as a result of circumstance as much as anything else. But I agree that the question concerning the type of snobbery that attaches to an aversion to “SACD” is central to any argument to be had about the whole thing.
Also, I design my thickets to entertain, for sure, but I definitely didn’t contrive to put the S. Swift reference in there. Kurt Loder asked, is all…
@Dave
It’s not really the tyranny of teenagers (after all, it’s not fourteen year old boys clamoring for, say, “The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants 2”) that’s the problem, it’s Hollywood assuming they have no standards and filmmakers taking no pride in their work. Pixar’s a good example; aside from “Cars” and “A Bug’s Life”, which I’d argue are movies made squarely for children, their films are largely aimed at everybody in the theater, not just the kids.
Once again one of my comments has inspired a separate post.
I guess I used the word “snob” a little too loosley. It seems to have become interchangealbe with “élite.” Just watch Fox News or read armond White and you’ll see how these words get thrown around. I should’ve chosen more wisely. I apologize.
But my disturbance by the negative reponse to SATC still interests me. I completely understand where Glenn is coming from with regard to being able to pick and choose what he feels like seeing. (In an interview with Janet Maslin, she told me more or less that she enjoyed the ability to not be obligated to see certain bloated product now that she was a citizen.) I guess it struck me that Glenn’s “perk” conveniently lined up with a certain portion of critics who seemed to be exhibiting a let’s-get-this-over-with attitude regarding SATC. I mean, if it was me, I would rather opt not to be obligated to see the latest dumb summer comedy from Adam Sandler.
I just think that any serious-minded chronicler-observer of movies and pop cultural would want to tackle a genunie phenomenon (as oppose to a manufactured one) like SATC. It’s fun.
I do find it amusing the way some male critics are quick to point out the number of female critics-columnists-bloggers who are also panning the movie. I didn’t realize that an opinion of SATC needed such validation.
As for the female critiics themselves: I hope they scrutinize their Phil Spector girl group CDs as thoroughly as they do SATC. It’s Liz Phair and P.J. Harvey CDs for everyon! Anyone want to defend “He Hit Me (It Felt Like A Kiss)” while panning SATC?
For the record: I have the Phil Spector Back to Mono box set on almost constant rotation on my CD system.
And to the person known as Bec: I’m not sure I would want to boast about not seeing an episode of SATC AND not planning on seeing the movie. That kind of argument doesn’t hold much water. It’d be like me saying, “I’ve never read Shakespeare and I don’t plan on seeing any of his plays or movies of his plays. It’s not my type of thing.”
Aaron, it needs validation because pretty much any man I’ve seen who’s given SATC a bad review has instantly been hit with: “WELL YOU’RE A MAN AND THEREFORE A SEXIST AND DON’T UNDERSTAND.” It’s playing defense, but it has to be done.
Aaron ‑I wasn’t boasting about not seeing either. There doesn’t seem much point (to me) to watching the movie without having watched the series. To boast would infer that I was making a (negative) value judgement on SATC and I don’t feel that I could comment on the merits (or otherwise) of it, precisely because I haven’t seen any of it. The whole SATC phenomenon just seems to have passed me by.
And I’ll qualify my ‘it’s not my type of thing’ ‑Reading film reviews is part of making an informed choice about what films I choose to go see and from what I’ve read/ heard/ been told by (enthusiastic) friends, it’s not my type of thing.