Why I’m not reviewing SATC2

I’m not going to review the new ‘Sex and the City’ movie as I’m really not qualified. However, I find the ‘it’s not as good as the TV series’ comments in the media interesting as I’m not sure what critics expected, or were hoping for.

Okay, first I should state my ignorance of all things SATC: I have only ever knowingly watched about two minutes of a single episode of the TV series. In it, as far as I remember, the Sarah Jessica Parker character was walking along what looked like a downtown New York back street. The street looked grey, grubby, industrial but also kind of cool. It could have been the backdrop for a Strokes video. SJP was struggling to make her way down the uneven sidewalk in her high heels and an amazing, colourful, whimsical dress. Maybe it was raining too. She looked like a princess from a fairy tale, at odd with her surroundings, lost in a dark place. It looked like a fantasy.

So why are people disappointed with the films? An article in today’s ‘Guardian’ newspaper quotes ‘New Yorker’ film critic Anthony Lane, who has said of watching the SATC2, “I walked into the theatre hoping for a nice evening and came out as a hardline Marxist.” Lane obviously felt that becoming a Marxist was a terrible thing; that the grotesque consumerism on show had infected him in a way he didn’t like. He was disappointed and angry. How could these cherished visions of high-fashion frippery have engendered in him thoughts of such a nasty political persuasion? What had the producers done to him? Something had obviously gone awfully, awfully wrong.

Really? Was there ever anything else other than grotesque consumerism in the show? Ah, but I haven’t seen it (the chorus of disapproval cries) and most of those who have say that there was so much more to the show: the four central characters were strong women facing modern-world difficulties with wit and panache. In the ‘Guardian’ article, some of these difficulties are recounted to mount a case for the defence. I scanned the feature again, looking for words that had been used to describe famous situations and dilemmas covered by the TV series. At a glance I got:

Jilted; Altar; Clothes; Sex; Married; Shopping; Baby; Abortion; Breast cancer; Youth; Looks; Wedding; Child; Rejected; Marry; Marriage; Jobs; Boyfriend; Job; Marries; Boyfriends; Work; Fashion; Designer clothes; fashion; Get together; Men; Marry; Women.

Hmm, well, maybe other subjects that the TV series covered off just didn’t get a mention in the newspaper article. Y’know, the ones in the episodes when storylines about relationships and marriage and babies took a back seat and the characters went off and did something, anything, else… As I say, I don’t know. But if they did exist, it doesn’t seem that anyone’s that interested in them. Was there one about disabled kids or charity work in Rwanda or even a lengthy debate about music or philosophy, or Iraq, Mexican drugs cartels?

But okay, maybe those storylines didn’t need to be there and, maybe, that’s one of the show’s strengths. Maybe the show deals in a more localised realism – maybe its storylines really are the big issues that face NYC women today. Maybe the show simply whacks up the glamour quotient. And why not? Would anyone want SATC to suddenly go all Eastenders?

But if the rubbish boyfriends and the work/life balance and Mr Big and hopes for marriage etc are indeed the essence of SATC – all dressed up in Halston of course – then why the long faces from the critics? In the ‘Guardian’, the writer even says that, after the disappointment of the first movie, she can’t even properly enjoy the TV series any more.

Maybe this isn’t about SATC per se. I have often noticed how so many ‘groundbreaking’ imported US dramas that inspire reams of media attention when they’re shiny and new, end up in graveyard slots on Freeview channels, or repeated in the cheap mid-afternoon hours when no one’s watching. Remember how ‘Friends’ was once unmissable? Now it might raise a fond smile but it just looks all a bit 1990s. Was it really so influential and cool? ‘ER’? Ditto. We once watched ‘Northern Exposure’ too.

Perhaps the reason that people fall out of love with shows like these is that, beyond the hype, the styling and the contemporary nods and winks, there just isn’t that much to them. The gloss wears off. The fashions and decor – however attentive or incredulous – date. The wisecracks that had viewers swooning soon become the oft-repeated anecdotes of a lovable but faintly embarrassing dad. Few programmes really stand the test of time – they’re just not made with that in mind.

And so no, I’m not reviewing SATC2. Enjoy it if you like. Remember though, it surely wasn’t ever intended as a piece of gritty realism: it’s a fairy tale. Fairy tales don’t always have happy endings, but fairy tales they remain. Enjoy the enchantment of the fantasy by all means, but remember that people grow wise to fantasies.