Maybe because it portrays (those four) women as being primarily concerned with shopping, money, and sex? But that's just pigeonholing. They're characters. Only one of the four is actively interested in all three of those things, it's only when you lump them all together that those. As such, "shopping" and "money" especially only occasionally come up in the show as active topics of discussion (but don't get me wrong, I think "excessive materialism" is one of those legitimate criticisms you can throw at the show -- it's just that it's more frequently a backdrop or something Carrie is concerned with than actual things they are concerned with).
Anyway I mean like... if it was about four women who liked the exact same things and reacted to the world in the exact same way, then, well, yeah. That's sexist. If they were all the same, the show would be making a statement (intentionally or not) about how women are, but as it is, it is just telling us how these four individuals are. The four characters hinge upon their different viewpoints -- that's why they were created. And since feminism isn't about not caring about shopping or our desire to have children or whatever traditionally feminine area of interest, but rather about having the ability to care about what we as individuals want to care about, "feminine" or not, I don't think that's a valid argument.
LIKE, I get that it's glossy and absurd and overly sexualized and all kinds of things, I do. I loved the movie, but it was technically terrible. But it is also the only film I have ever known to end with a woman celebrating her 50th birthday with her friends. I think when we dismiss it as a franchise as misogynistic, we're dismissing all the things it does do -- center a show around four (successful, independent) women, objectify men, place real friendship between females front and center (and furthermore, above any relationships the women have with men), target women as their primary audience. It is almost impossible to find anything else in pop culture that does any of those things, let alone all of them. It shouldn't be that way, but it is. Until someone steps up to the bat and tries to do all or some of those things without the gooey, materialistic layers too, SatC is what we have.
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Date: 2009-07-04 07:49 pm (UTC)But that's just pigeonholing. They're characters. Only one of the four is actively interested in all three of those things, it's only when you lump them all together that those. As such, "shopping" and "money" especially only occasionally come up in the show as active topics of discussion (but don't get me wrong, I think "excessive materialism" is one of those legitimate criticisms you can throw at the show -- it's just that it's more frequently a backdrop or something Carrie is concerned with than actual things they are concerned with).
Anyway I mean like... if it was about four women who liked the exact same things and reacted to the world in the exact same way, then, well, yeah. That's sexist. If they were all the same, the show would be making a statement (intentionally or not) about how women are, but as it is, it is just telling us how these four individuals are. The four characters hinge upon their different viewpoints -- that's why they were created. And since feminism isn't about not caring about shopping or our desire to have children or whatever traditionally feminine area of interest, but rather about having the ability to care about what we as individuals want to care about, "feminine" or not, I don't think that's a valid argument.
LIKE, I get that it's glossy and absurd and overly sexualized and all kinds of things, I do. I loved the movie, but it was technically terrible. But it is also the only film I have ever known to end with a woman celebrating her 50th birthday with her friends. I think when we dismiss it as a franchise as misogynistic, we're dismissing all the things it does do -- center a show around four (successful, independent) women, objectify men, place real friendship between females front and center (and furthermore, above any relationships the women have with men), target women as their primary audience. It is almost impossible to find anything else in pop culture that does any of those things, let alone all of them. It shouldn't be that way, but it is. Until someone steps up to the bat and tries to do all or some of those things without the gooey, materialistic layers too, SatC is what we have.