-Melvin Udall (Jack Nicholson) in "As Good As It Gets" responding to an adoring female fan wondering how he writes such accurate female protagonists in his books.
If you've read my blog over the past 16 months with any regularity, then you're fairly familiar with my insatiable curiosity about women. Specifically, the driving force that shapes female personalities. I realize that intending to make sense of women is as fruitless as an apple orchard in February, but searching for discoveries where none are thought to be found didn't stop Magellan and it's not going to stop me.
In conversing with girls, gals, chicks, broads, dames, cuties and women, the general consensus seems to be that men are easy to handle.
We're rather simple creatures.
While I wouldn't equate simplicity to stupidity, I am under the impression that men also feel this way about themselves; especially when compared to women..
There isn't a single aspect about women that should be misconstrued as simple. When I use the word "simple," I am not speaking of intelligence. This gender analysis is focused on emotions, not intellect.
And emotionally speaking, what tic-tac-toe is to Rubik's Cube, men are to women.
I've been feeling a bit male-bashed lately and the great bulk of it can be attributed to Candace Bushnell...
...That bitch.
For those of you unfamiliar with Ms. Bushnell, she's the author of four popular books, all comprised of roughly the same content, aimed at roughly the same demographic and none more popular than her first novel entitled, "Sex in the City." Nine years ago, HBO thought the book would make a wonderful television series and hired the tyke from "Square Pegs"; the woman from "Big Trouble In Little China" (who later played Britney Spears' mom in "Crossroads"); the actress guilty of brushing her teeth with a toothbrush dropped in Jerry Seinfeld's toilet during his show's heyday; and Gozer the Gozarian from "Ghostbusters" (see fig. 1.1).
Fig.1.1: Typical New York monster (left) and typical New York Gozarian (right)
"Sex in the City" eventually proved phenominally popular. I never had HBO while the show aired, but look around the apartment of any late-20s/ early-30s bohemian female and you'll find at least one season of the show living on in infamy somewhere on the premesis. It's like "Dirty Dancing", "Pretty In Pink" and "Erin Brockovich" rolled into one. What is it about certain movies that draw women in like lemmings off a cliff?
Four years after the show called it quits, I wanted to learn what the hubbub was all about; I wanted to find enlightenment. I wanted to know how a half-hour situation comedy managed to grab the hearts and minds of every women between 18 and 40. Watching women in real life wasn't cultivating enough answers for me. Women are far too aware of themselves, far to worried who is watching and who is judging. I could only hope that the reflective qualities of "Sex in the City" would allow me to catch American women with their guard down.
In short, I hoped that "Sex in the City's" national acceptance would illuminate the neo-feminist pathology without pulling any punches; without censoring for the benefit of the fragile male ego. And while I'd venture to guess that fans of the show believe "Sex in the City" does exactly that, I'm of the belief that the show voids itself by creating caricatures out of the hundreds of male guest stars that traipse in and out of the series.
People - both men and women - want to see a reflection of themselves in pop culture characters. When enough people identify with these characters, they become icons. Certainly enough women (and homosexual males) seemed to have found their reflection in Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte that it didn't take long for the show to encapsulate an air of iconography. But if we want to watch versions of ourselves represented on screen and in magazines in order to feel validated, isn't there a danger of letting the cart run the horse? What if people, in an effort to be accepted and understood, look toward shows like this for guidance on how to be better versions of themselves?
Friends, family and professionals sometimes withhold this guidance, or insure that it be released with a price. Television never judges. It allows us all to take what we want, if we want - while asking nothing in return.
So what does "Sex In the City" give and more importantly, what do women take?
Well, slip off your $800 Christian Louboutin patent mary janes and toss your Marc Jacobs pocket hobo aside and lemme tell you what I've gathered…
...to be continued on Friday. June 22, 2007
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