It should come, sadly, to no one's surprise, that the reviews of Sex and the City 2 have been unusually fixated on the age and looks of Carrie and company. One review lambasted Sarah Jessica Parker saying something like 'no one can pretend that she's attractive anymore" which I thought was bizarrely cruel.
But what of the double standard that allows harsh criticism of four women when a new movie, The Grownups, features men that are definitely in the age range of the Sex and the City gals but happily unattractive? Why are bad puns in SATC2 being razzed but the fart and poop and piss jokes in The Grownups seen as just gosh darn funny?
The double standard that exists of how women are supposed to be a creature of beauty while a man is 'allowed' to go to pot is a well worn trope that I needn't go into here (even gay men seem to be ditching the gym in lieu of a second or third dessert - the thought is that if we've created a subculture where it's OK and even encouraged to be overweight, the health
issue simply vanishes) but it is interesting the vehemence that reviewers have torn into a pretty innocuous movie about four fabulous women living independent lives with their husbands and children and dalliances in tow. Is it simply a matter of men (and not a few women) feeling that anger towards the 'haves' that's been bubbling up in this country over the past couple years (forget of course the Glenn Beck's who preach against the "elites" who control wealth in this country - while he's sitting on millions of his own dollars - and a television show - I'll grant you in this over televised society with hundreds of channels that everyone who wants a television show can actually have one - but realistically there aren't that many people employed to have their own daily show - when you compare Beck to the other 7 billion people who don't have a show, that feels fairly 'elite' to me)?
My thoughts on the movie itself is that it's all well and good (and interesting) to see twenty or thirty somethings insecure and out of control with their worldly affairs (love, job, home) but it's another thing altogether to see a movie with fortysomethings complain about their nanny or that they have too much free time. The narrative does fail in that regard.
And yet, what's the alternative? Seeing a movie about Big dying of a heart attack? Maybe Miranda's redheaded son Brady can get cancer and we spend the two and a half hours watching him be all sick? or perhaps one of these not yet golden years girls would meet her end? I don't know that that is something I want to see from these characters. Simply put they are a fantasy of what we want to be. Of course there are plenty of fortysomethings in real life who don't have their shit together but I sure do want to hold the fantasy in my movies that we're supposed to have it worked out by now.
If there is a SATC3 (and there may not be given the dismal box office) I'd recommend Michael Patrick King look at creating a younger generation of women to look up to and learn from Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte and Samantha. These characters have gotten to the age where they're together enough for gals of another generation to look up to them, let's see them still be sexy and come into their own power-wise and see themselves in various assistants. They can still be insecure (Carrie might think "wow, was that me 20 years ago? what a mess I was!") and find out new things about the others (maybe Charlotte's nanny, while lesbian, is as much of a sexually generous gal as Samantha is and through her, Charlotte learns a little bit more about her than she did before). And why not bring back Jennifer Hudson as Carrie's assistant? She seemed sort of primed to be the first of the next generation.
In any event, here's to the ladies who lunch and drink and have great sex in this city!
