Movies in the Real World: Sex and the City 2

“We made a deal ages ago. Men, babies, it doesn’t matter; we’re soulmates.” Samantha Jones, Sex and the City 2.
I walk into the AMC movie theater in Emeryville, getting ready to see the 10pm showing on the opening day. As soon as I arrived there, we immediately see dozens of girls in stiletto heels, laughing with their group of friends all waiting in line in the lobby to see Sex and the City 2. We pay our expensive $11.50 ticket I am completely taken aback by their extreme make-up, their hair, their nails, their clothing and how it correlates with the “fabulousness” of the film. However, I’m not completely surprised because I had seen many advertisements about a Macy’s “Girl’s Day Out” in which there were many sales encouraging young women to go shopping before the film. I also remember the excessive publicity exerted by the publicists of the film and everything begins falling into place. I walked in that night wearing my work clothes and Uggs while my partner wore basketball shorts, a white t-shirt and Nikes. We immediately looked at each other and thought the same thing without having said a word, “I feel out of place.” I looked around and hardly saw any men, children and anyone over the age of 30. I think the targeted audience really was the one they got: women from the ages of 20-29 years. For some reason, it did not look as if it was completely aimed at the middle aged or elderly; it makes me question why this is. The plot of Sex and the City, the series and Sex and the City, the movie, were quite simple. They should appeal to everyone. So why was it just them, and us?
Inside of the actual movie room, the dozens of girls turned into about a hundred girls joking with their friends, on the edge of their seats waiting for the movie to begin. As it begins, there is a burst of applause as the young women all see the main characters. In the film, Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte and Samantha embark upon another addition to the series, and the film. During the beginning scene, our eyes are completely drawn to the shine in everything that is filmed including the city exuding a kind of extravagance and fabulous lifestyle that appeals to us. We are then introduced to Carrie Bradshaw, the main character and we immediately know the film is mostly about her. Throughout the beginning of the movie, the emphasis is more on how the women have grown in their personal lives, marriages and lives as mothers. There is a wedding, Big, Carrie’s husband, has an opportunity to cheat, Miranda’s son is all grown up and her marriage is perfect, Samantha remains single and loving it and Charlotte has two daughters and a perfect family as well. One scene that really got to me was when Charlotte was cooking at home with her two daughters and they were both being children and “being bad.” Ultimately, she couldn’t handle it and left them both out in the kitchen by themselves. She hadn’t taken care of them for one day when she was already over her head with having children and “couldn’t stand them anymore.” She later decides to take a vacation away from her children with her best friends.
Throughout the film, many themes get addressed, be it purposefully or even accidentally. Some of the themes that stuck out to me in particular are: ageism, sexuality, motherhood, friendship, marriage, and an underexposure to different cultures. While the film is filmed in New York City, there is a vast majority also filmed in Abu Dhabi. This is where the majority of the criticism it sparked about the Middle East originated from. Another very popular scene of herself with the three other women in Abu Dhabi, and Samantha drops condoms in front of a lot of men. Everybody looks at her surprised and she looks around and yells, “Yes, they're mine! I have sex!” all while doing a thrusting motion with her legs open. In this region of the world, the Middle East, it is against their religion and their morals to speak of this sort of thing in public, much less dress the way they were. This reminds me of the article we read, “The Evidence of Experience” by Joan Scott in that she hasn’t experienced many different cultures and is pretty much oblivious to them. It also reminds me of this when in the article it states that many things are hidden in history and considered taboo. Sexuality is a big taboo in the Middle East and the fact that she is blatantly shouting obscene sexual things is very disrespectful and shows the amount of experience she doesn’t have. Also, I compared this to when Scott says that experience is not socialized and is an individual process; the lack of experience and knowledge that each of them have is very individual. I also wanted to mention the article “Continuous sex: the editing of homosexuality in Bound and Rope” by Lee Wallace. Wallace talks about how there was a type of denial of homosexuality in Bound, and it reminded me of the wedding shown in Sex and the City 2. Carrie and Charlotte’s best gay friends get married, but there is nothing beyond the wedding that demonstrates homosexuality in the film. The whole movie has many heterosexual sex scenes that can be considered pretty graphic, but a gay wedding (an extravagant one at that). I also remember how in the series there is also an editing of gay sex scenes; there must have been one I the entire series. It made me question how this heteronormative series and these movies hadn’t been thoroughly analyzed for any homophobia.
The rest of the film was very interesting, however, as a fan of Sex and the City, the series and the first movie, I was very disappointed. This movie lacked any substance, imagination and a plot. There was scattered laughter throughout the entire movie, scattered applause and giggling here and there. My partner and I looked at each other at certain moments of the film and were in shock. And the ending ultimately had a very cheesy "lesson" in the end: friends stick together no matter what. I thought, this is what I waited for? Man.