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Good Detroit Free Press article on the lessons of SATC.

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5 things we learned from 'Sex and the City'
BY JULIE HINDS
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

February 18, 2004



Carrie, Carrie, will you ever marry? Will you stay in Paris with your Russian hottie, Petrovsky, or return to New York with Mr. Big? Or are you destined to strap on your Manolo Blahniks and totter off into the sunset with Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte, the friends who may be the true loves of your life?

The suspense ends Sunday night, when HBO airs the final episode of "Sex and the City." Since its debut in 1998, the groundbreaking series has had a powerful effect on popular culture, turning cast members Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Cynthia Nixon and Kristin Davis into a style-setting quartet to rival the Beatles.

What their characters have taught us about life, love and the joys of fashion took years to play out. But there are five essential lessons every "Sex and the City" fan knows.

Four hundred bucks isn't too much to spend on shoes.

Expensive designer clothes weren't merely an indulgence for Carrie and her pals. They were gorgeous armor to gird them for battle as outspoken, uninhibited single women. Female viewers understood and copied their look. Those who could afford to bought high-end high heels by Manolo Blahnik and Jimmy Choo and assorted labels from the show. Those who couldn't relied on knockoffs. "I loved, loved how they'd put pieces together that you wouldn't necessarily think worked together, but they did. It took your thinking out of the box," says Lauren Bean of Franklin. "People want to look like Carrie, and they want to mix it up," says Cheryl Daskas, co-owner of Tender in Birmingham, where the "Sex" trends fly off the shelves. "It's a feel-good thing."

Women's conversations are sometimes rated NC-17.

Sure, Carrie and crew had plenty of romantic exploits over the seasons. What was revolutionary was their habit of discussing them -- without blushes or apologies -- during racy gab sessions. "Women do actually talk that way, you know that. It had a sense of realness to it," says Peggy Watkins, owner of P.W. Collections, a home-based fashion business in Southfield. Yet such frankness from females was something new for entertainment, according to Dara Goldman, who teaches a graduate-level course, Urban Desires: Sex and the City in Caribbean Cultures, at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. "This is a paradigm we've conventionally seen with male characters in buddy pictures, where they're often discussing their sexual exploits and desires. This isn't something we're used to seeing from women on TV."

A froufrou cocktail can be a celebration of life.

A shot of vodka, a splash of cranberry juice and a few other ingredients became a national craze when "Sex" popularized Cosmopolitans. "I'd heard of them before, but within a year of them being on the show, everyone started ordering them" says Mark Liles, a bartender at Bartini's Blue Moon Lounge in Clinton Township. "There was kind of a link that it was sophisticated." Still, it wasn't really about the alcohol. It was about reviving an old-school Hollywood sense of style, about dressing up to run to the mall instead of throwing on a pair of sweats, about using the good china for a meal eaten alone. And it spoke to anyone who ever put microwave popcorn in a crystal bowl and diet cola in a martini glass to watch a new "Sex" episode.

Manhattan is the center of the universe.

Most fans don't believe Carrie will wind up living in Paris because it's impossible to imagine her anywhere but New York City. It's the only location as brash, experimental, self-assured, messed up and triumphant as the characters on "Sex" themselves. "I love the lifestyle these women have in the most fabulous city in the world," says Marguerite Parise, executive producer of Bond Films North, a Southfield-based television commercial production company. "They just grab life by the tail and enjoy the scene. And New York is the best scene in the world. The show is a tribute to the city." Since 9/11, all of America has come to celebrate the Big Apple for its unique strengths. "Sex" always did.

Boyfriends come and go, but girlfriends are forever.

Carrie fell for Mr. Big and a string of men who've so far failed to ignite her "bride gene." Charlotte wed a Prince Charming, then divorced him and converted to Judaism to try matrimony a second time. Miranda became a single mom. Samantha never met a fling she didn't like. Through it all, the one constant in the foursome's frantically complicated love lives was their loyalty to one another. "I thought that was one of the healthiest parts of the show, that your friendships can be a source of help and humor, and a sounding board for how healthy your choices are. They know they can bring up anything and get listened to," says Joe Bavonese, director of the Relationship Institute in Royal Oak.

"The bond between them, how different they all are, women get that," says Josie Knapp, co-owner of Assaggi, a bistro in Ferndale. Although Knapp is rooting for Carrie to wind up with her toxic lover or ultimate soul mate, Mr. Big, there's another ending she wouldn't mind. "If she stayed single at her job, with all her girlfriends, that would be perfect," she says. "It would be a happy ending, too."