As a man who enjoyed the T.V. show, I have to say the most offensive thing about Sex & the City to me has always been the dismissal of work. Most Americans (who BTW live better than 80% of the world) spend most of their waking hours at work. Work is central to the lives of almost everyone, except our privileged "feminist" heroines. Insane wealth without work - talk about a fantasy.

No aspect of the show highlights this more than Big and that how he makes a living is not only unknown, but of no interest to Carrie. She values work so little that what her husband does for a living is not even worth knowing. What a person does for work could never reveal anything about them. All you need to know is how much money their work makes them.

The best possbile plot line for the movie would have been for Carrie to find out Big makes his money in weapons design, or runs a public relations firm for tobaco companies, or something unseemly. Now THAT would be funny.

Imagine Carrie finding out that Big makes his living publishing abstinence only sex ed books. That would be hysterical.

I've heard the issue of work brought up frequently as a flaw of SATC, and my feeling has always been, So what?

SATC is a fairy tale, with work/family (notice that we don't know anything about where Carrie's socioeconomic background) omitted on purpose to make it easier for audiences to relate to the characters on the main themes: love, sex, relationships.

In fact, we find out plenty about the role of work in Miranda and Steve's relationship in the series, and a little in the film as well. Same goes for Samantha. Why? Because work mattered more to those two characters. With Charlotte, we find out more about marriage and reproductive issues, because to her, they loom large in her life.

Carrie has always been the most fantastical character of the bunch. I'm not sure why, because she was fairly down-to-earth in the series beginning. Maybe the producers wanted to give her a Cinderella/Jane Austen heroine character arc to appeal to fans? Don't know.

But the most ardent fans are well aware that Carrie is just writer Candace Bushnell's alter ego and have figured out long ago that Mr. Big is based on Ron Galotti, former publisher of Vogue. Hence, if you ever watched the series and remember the episode when Carrie visits Big to ask for financial help on her apartment, he's shown in a somewhat modest office (in NYC terms), just like a publisher.

If we require every movie to show all aspects of its characters' lives, I can also ask the same of the James Bond movies and Indiana Jones: why do we never see more of their families and friends? what's their political leaning? just what kind of peer review does Indiana go through for his archeological findings? Good lord, it's so offensive that we don't see an accurate depiction of academia!

Dammnit!

i wanted to agree with Brooklyn on this one--and I partly do--, but Strawberry, I think you're right.

I watched a few episodes and found it appealing at first, but then it just lost me.

Who eats that much brunch? :-)

I'm not sure that REALISM or accuracy is the issue - it's the value system portrayed. There's certainly plenty of troublesome and offensive aspects of Indiana Jones as well - imperialistic, chavunistic attitudes, etc...

Accuracy is quite beside the point with both Sex &the City and Indiana Jones. But who are we if we don't ask the simple question, "What are the values being celebrated in this work of popular art?"

people, please keep repeating to yourselves: THIS IS A WORK OF FICTION. Thanks.

At one point, he owned part of a vineyard in Napa Valley, California and that was crucial to the plot line for a while.

Frankly, I find it amusing that your Top Post received a Checkmark, while several other worthwhile posts by female posters, did not. I also think too many of you are taking this all too literally -- SATC is FICTION, after all. Let Mr. Big have a little mystery -- after all, we didn't even know his NAME on the network version of the re-runs. Only on the original cable program was he ever identified as John, according to a friend of mine who has watched it from Day One of the original.

i.e, LIGHTEN UP! And Editors, maybe take another look at more of the Top Posts in this discussion. (Must be one of the two male Editors this week. :-) )

Well, that it's fiction is preciously the point. Any entertainment our culture cosumes in such staggering numbers is certainly worth talking about.

That it should be both enjoyed & "taken seriously" is hopefully an acknowledgment of the power of popular art, and that a close look at what rallies our collective imagination can maybe tell us something about ourselves. Sex & the City is just a small blip on the pop culture radar, but considering the confusing state & open definintion of modern feminism, and our increasingly controversial consumer culture...

Wait, so because it's fiction we can't criticize it? I know that SATC is fiction. I get that it's escapist fantasy. But I'm still interested in talking about what kind of fantasy it's selling, and why that fantasy is so popular. Lots of movies and television shows sell fantasy, but this one is not only extremely lucrative and popular, it apparently has the ability to inspire near-fanaticism. I think it's definitely worth talking about, and it's fair to think about what kind of image of women, relationships, friendship, and happiness it is trying to sell, and what that is so popular.

Not to mention that people always critique and analyze fiction, including popular culture. There is absolutely nothing unusual or bitchy or strange about what the writers here are doing. Maybe there are lots of SATC fans who are unfamiliar with literary criticism, film criticism, or the general phenomenon of analyzing pop culture, but I assure you, it's done quite often.

Kit Kat, you said it much better than I.

You are so right about other fictional characters -- where did James Bond spring from? Where did he live? And so on. We don't know & we don't need to know.

Independently, I made almost those same comments to another poster on another thread, about the importance of work in Miranda's life -- and yesterday, in Samantha's. And there were SOME glimmers, no, more than just some, of work in Carrie's life in the TV series. (The segments with Candace Bergen & Ron what's his name at Vogue come to mind... and of course, her book being published, her having an Editor (Amy Sedaris) and so on.) Not having seen the movie yet, I don't know whether her work is totally ignored in the film or not. Yes, you're right, Mr. Big is in an office when he offers the loan to buy her apartment and as I also pointed out in another post, he is a co-owner of an unidentified vineyard in the Napa Valley. (Remember the sad, awful segment in the empty Park Avenue apartment when he's getting ready to leave for California -- "you weren't going to TELL me?" "Weren't you going to tell me?" "You were just going to what? Call me from California?"

Carrie at her most pathetic, needy, and human.

Carrie's 'job' is, obviously, more fantasy-world & free-lance-based, than most people's but jobs like that do exist -- mostly in New York City, London,, LA, and so on. I think that many posters probably are not familiar with that kind of 'glam' Madison Avenue, West End of London, etc. life and work, Another: San Francisco is filled with people who live like that. Before 'retiring' to marry Trey MacDougall and volunteer at the Met, Charlotte had worked for eight years in art galleries.

One gap along those lines, though, that has always bothered me: the lack of family members in most of their lives. We never see or hear about a sister, a set of parents, a brother, cousins even in Carrie's or Samantha's lives. I always wondered why that was -- we see Trey's family all the time, and Steve's wild whacked-out mother & some cousins, we learn that Miranda has a mother and siblings in Philadelphia when the mother has a heart attack & then dies; even Mr. Big takes his mother to a fancy Upper East Side Presbyterian church every Sunday, and Mr. York (who we never see) does give Charlotte away at her wedding to Trey ... but even when Carrie is desperate to borrow money to buy her apartment after Aidan leaves, even then -- at the one moment when even the most family-less or family-avoidant person might CALL a parent & just ask -- not even a reference or a mention.

That always did bother me, both realistically & fictionally.

It just doesn't sit right. Thanks again for your comments.

Um, 'is preciously the point?" How do you mean that, exactly? (Wondering if you meant 'precisely,' perhaps?)

Also, I'd like to hear more of what you think about our "increasingly controversial consumer culture." Thanks.

I agree with StrawberryLover that work just hasn't been the issue with most of the characters, however, I think this issue is overstated - there really is room for their work in the show.

A successful syndicated columnist and author in NYC wouldn't really need to work that much, or would do it on her own timeline. It's not inconceivable that enough residuals would keep Carrie on track when we're not watching her, and that it really doesn't take her all that long to write her 54-cents-per-word (or however much) columns about shoes for Vogue.

We do see Miranda and Samantha work sometimes, but who wants to watch a lawyer go over briefs (as she points out to Samantha, "I have a job," and in season 6 she negotiates her schedule down to 50 hours a week - hardly not working)? Samantha's PR business is described as so successful, she has time to randomly fly to Mexico to forcefeed Carrie berries and yogurt. And Charlotte is described in season 4 as rich enough to not need to work anymore.

Also, they do describe "John James Preston III" as a "New York Financier." We see Big infrequently enough to think that he could be at work all day, and if Miranda's law work would be boring to watch, finance would REALLY be boring. Even without accepting that SATC is a "fantasy" (which is true enough), this argument is a little silly. Would we really expect a show about, ya know, sex and romance and city life to include board meetings and billing concerns?

Well, what I find offensive is that people keep trying to ascribe all sorts of attitudes and politics to SATC when I think it's just pure fun, which is why I used Indiana Jones and James Bond as counter examples in my first post.

That's because what's good for the goose is good for the gander, folks.

If men are allowed their mindless entertainment, living out their fantasies on screen with impossible gadgets, millions of dollars at their disposal to lose on a poker game, driving Astin Martins, cavorting with beautiful women, knocking out bad guys with one punch while sustaining countless blows to the head (as a retiree no less!) with no problem whatsoever, then uh... I don't see anything wrong with women in a movie with wonderful relationships, happily ever afters, powerful jobs, a penthouse on the Upper East Side and beautiful clothes and shoes to boot. And seriously, if we're talking consumerism, what costs more? Astin Martins or Louis Vuittons?

See, I don't see people wringing their hands over the impossibilities of Indy and Bond (or the countless other superhero movies we'll see this summer) like they do with SATC. And yes, I think it's only happening because this is a movie that's mostly for women. To get back to the matter of privileges and the "dismissal of work," maybe work/family issues were always obscured in SATC because they would make the sex and romance less fun if the audience was reminded of money and how hard it is to get ahead. (We already do that in real life. No need to see it mirrored in everything in pop culture.) But my point is, people nitpick SATC for this when they don't bat an eyelash at the rampant consumerism in Bond.

Which is why I didn't like seeing four women on Slate sit around and tear SATC apart either. When have male writers ever had to do that with Bond and Indy? No, to them it's just good fun. Sure, some men don't like the franchises just like some women don't like SATC. So what? Let the rest of us have our cake and eat it too.

(BTW, thanks for your comments, Lunesta. I enjoyed reading them in the other thread as well and obviously I loved the show and the movie, so it's nice to see another fan on these boards!)

"Maybe there are lots of SATC fans who are unfamiliar with literary criticism, film criticism, or the general phenomenon of analyzing pop culture, but I assure you, it's done quite often." Now who is being the bitch? What an arrogant remark to make. I completely understand why you agree with the four women.

Snarky yes, bitchy no. There's a large number of posts on this article that basically say that because it's just a television show, or a movie, or a fantasy, or mindless summer entertainment, that it's stupid to critique it and that the Slate writers are silly or bitchy or delusional or whatever for doing so. I felt it necessary to point out that popular culture is frequently the source of criticism and analysis--and yes, writers have discussed male-oriented action movies as well as female-oriented romances. The Slate writers are doing nothing remotely unusual, and SATC is not somehow off-limits because it's "just" a movie.