Sex and the City 2 - The Decline of Western Civilization

For my movies in the real world assignment I chose to view the movie Sex and the City 2. I went into the movie really wanting to like it. As most women in their twenties I grew up watching the T.V. series and I found it to be sexually liberating, for me it was my first exposure to women declaring that they wanted and enjoyed sex and then pursuing it. Perhaps it was me relating to the evidence of experience as disused by Scott. With that being said I headed to the theater on Shattuck in downtown Berkeley with one of my best girlfriends. We chose a matinee for the price cuts (we’re both students on a budget). The film was playing just about everywhere so selecting a theater was not a problem. The poster to the movie should have been my first indication to the film monstrosity that lay ahead. The poster itself was widely criticized for the massive amount of airbrushing applied to all of the four main characters, what did they do to Kim Catrall’s face?! As I settled into my seat, the theater had couches to sit in, the movie began with a view of New York City and a voice over by the character Carrie - and the decline began there.
The movie digressed from one cliché to another. I saw a series that had been about women trying to figure out there sexual needs and desires while fighting hetero-normative gender roles discarded from any plot line. Left were characters that were selfish, rude, and wholly unlikable doused in copious amounts of capitalism. They engaged in “wasteful, homogenizing, and marginalizing discourses of capitalism” Cruickshank 103. One of the main opening scenes displays a wedding between Anthony and Stanford. A scene that had the potential to be about the rights of homosexuals to marry was turned into the cliché of homosexuals lacking loyalty within marriage. The whole “in the mouth but not in the ass” is okay in marriage because you’re gay, right? According to this movie that was most certainly the case. In addition, Lisa Minnelli performs Beyoncé’s “If you liked it Then You Should Have Put a Ring on it,” accompanied by two younger versions of herself. At this point I was awkward, uncomfortable, and mad. In addition, the wedding took place with an entire chorus of gay singers on a white set, complete with a bridge, flowing river, and swans. I felt as if I had stumbled into a bizarre Wizard of Oz from hell.
The narrative of the movie continues; allow me to sum it up. Being overly wealthy, white, and married is truly the hardest role to fill (let’s all take an entire movie to fill sorry for the over privileged). Literally Carrie flees with her girlfriends to the Middle East to escape her upper east side multi-million dollar, I have everything and more than I could ever want/need, life (insert multiple adult tantrums as you please). Arriving in the Middle East the women begin an onslaught of racist, offensive, and intellectually devoid actions. I was embarrassed not only for women, but for Americans in general. The trip (which actually feels like a week) ends with the ladies finding that the once perceived repressed Arab women are in fact wearing the new Louis Vuitton Spring collection under their gowns – yay- we’re all selfish consumers with no intellect! In addition, the movie was filmed in Morrocco, not in the United Arab Emirates (because all those Middle East type desert places are the same).
Upon returning, the women and plot wraps up all of their woes. Charlotte, who was concerned about her braless nanny, found out that she was a lesbian! Hooray! Her body no longer holds a gaze or is threatening because she doesn’t and won’t screw her husband. Carrie returns home to find that her million dollar closet will bring her comfort. Miranada found a new job that she liked; she earlier in the film had the luxury of quitting her job because she didn’t like it. Finally, Samantha gets to return to her hormonal pills and creams to stand off women’s greatest plight – gasp- ageing!
This movie was possibly one of the worst movies I have ever seen. The audience that was around me seemed to feel the same way; no one laughed or really had any reactions to what was going on. When the lights went on everyone looked quite solemn as they exited the theater.