I didn’t start watching “Sex and the City” until its run on HBO had officially ended. In fact, my first exposure to the famous TV show was through the significantly censored, half-hour-long reruns that played on Channel 11. Considering that the show first began in the year 1998, when I was in third grade, this was probably a good thing. I started watching “Sex and the City” sometime in high school, and my friends and I were instantly hooked. Even though we knew how silly the show was, we kept coming back.
For the uninitiated, “Sex and the City” was a very successful TV program about the lives of four New York City women, especially that of Carrie Bradshaw, a sex columnist and Manolo Blahnik devotee. “Sex and the City” focused on their romantic and professional lives. Recently, a movie was released (I dragged one of my less SATC-inclined friends to the theater with me) detailing the story of Carrie’s marriage to Mr. Big, a business tycoon with whom she had a turbulent on-again off-again relationship throughout the TV show’s six seasons.
So, why am I (and countless others, no doubt mostly female others, throughout the United States and beyond) fans of “Sex and the City”? Its premise doesn’t sound so different from any other girlfriends-centered serials that have been floating around the TV networks for the past ten years. There are all kinds of possible explanations out there, from more erudite explorations of how the feminist ethos “Sex and the City” speaks to high-powered single females in today’s fast-paced world to the personal opinion of my friend Jane: “It’s just fabulous.”
While it’s true that the writing on the show has won awards for its light-hearted wit and examinations of socially relevant issues like STDs, the changing roles of women, sexual experimentation, etc., I’m inclined to agree with Jane as to why I enjoyed the show so much. The lifestyles of the four women in “Sex and the City” are indeed fabulous, in every sense of the word - wonderful, marvelous, and “resembling or suggesting a fable: of an incredible, astonishing, or exaggerated nature” [Merriam Webster]. When I'm watching the show, I don’t question the fact that Carrie, a newspaper columnist, can afford an apartment on the Upper East Side, tables at the city’s hottest restaurants, and $400 Manolo Blahniks. And when she steps out of her brownstone in the morning wearing a dress with a flower bigger than a newborn baby pinned to it, my first thought isn’t “Ouch” (although it probably would be if I were to see something like that in real life). Instead, I think “WOW, that’s such a GOOD idea.” SATC does things like that to me.
“Sex and the City” is defined almost entirely by the act of consumption; Carrie and her friends do a lot of shopping and lunching. In fact, most of their heart-to-heart conversations about Men and Relationships take place in fancy clothing stores or restaurants. In addition, I’d say that about 84.3% of “Sex and the City” is devoted to shots of Carrie’s newest outfits and purchases. And although each of the four women on the show have main men, I’ve always thought that the most compelling relationship on “Sex and the City” was not the one between Carrie and Mr. Big, or even Carrie and her “girls,” but rather the one between Carrie and Manolo Blahnik.
"Manolo Blahnik Mary Janes! I thought these were an urban shoe myth!"
In all six seasons, the only reality check Carrie receives regarding her spending habits occurs in one episode when she needs money for a loan as a down payment on her apartment. While shopping with Miranda, she realizes just how much money she has spent on shoes over the years:
Carrie: "Where did all my money go? I know I've made some."
Miranda: (Holding one of Carrie's designer shoes), "At $400 a pop--that's $40,000. There's your down payment."
Carrie: "I spent $40,000 on shoes and have no place to live. I literally will be the old woman who lived in her shoes."
In the end, the problem is solved when wealthy Charlotte offers Carrie her ring as a loan, which she accepts. The money in Sex and the City comes and goes very easily, which is probably the primary reason why it’s such a fantasy-come-true for fans. The idea that one’s consumption habits can be used to create a glittering new lifestyle for oneself and have no (very) severe repercussions on your bank account is certainly an enticing one.
Adorno & Horkheimer would probably have hated Sex and the City with a passion, for the reason that it is one of the most successful television shows to have stomped all over the boundaries between art and consumption. A typical episode plotline: Carrie is dumped by a boyfriend; upset, she goes shopping and buys a new pair of heels; she wears them and goes out with her girlfriends. Not only did Sex and the City make Manolo Blahnik a household name, it also made the idea of retail therapy more acceptable and glamorous to women everywhere. Case in point: I really think that Sex and the City is nothing more than a very entertaining sales pitch, not necessarily for specific shoe or clothing brands, but rather for an entire lifestyle centered around consumption, and yet I wholeheartedly and unironically enjoy the show.
And while I would never be able to go out and buy myself a pair of designer shoes if I just felt like it (let alone be able to afford it), I can take pleasure in watching Carrie Bradshaw do it and look ridiculously fabulous (or fabulously ridiculous) while doing it. This might be the more de Certeau-oriented part of me talking; that part of me has no problem with Carrie defining her personality and lifestyle with preposterously expensive stiletto shoes. De Certeau would probably argue that the shoes are, for Carrie, a symbol of empowerment and her ability as a strong, independent woman to get over any guy who dumps her. Carrie's fashion sense and taste in shoes could be considered an extension of her personality, and in that sense her purchase of them is a form of creative expression and therefore completely acceptable.
At least that's what I tell myself when I'm turning the TV on.
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