by Maggie Chan
When I first started watching “Sex and The City,” I expected to see another Ally McBeal-type story, another big city girl pretending not to wait for her Prince Charming to save her from brutal reality. But as the series went on, I realized that the show is more than sex, and the city. “Welcome to the Age of Un-Innocence.” What should love in the 90’s look like? Nobody knows for sure. Based on the book Sex and the City, which originated from Candace Bushnell’s column in The New York Observer, the TV series focuses on the love life of four 30ish women – a columnist Carrie; Charlotte, an art gallery dealer; Samantha, the PR executive; and lawyer Miranda – who live in the Big Apple. As Carrie taps away at her laptop, her narration leads us through Manhattan’s most popular hangouts, celebrity events, nightclubs, endless streams of lunches and cocktail parties – while the four characters experience misadventures in love. Through the voice-over of Carrie, the lead character, we are allowed a peek at the love life of high society, the gorgeous, successful, and rich elite in the city. We meet, for example, the “modelizer,” who only dates models, and the “toxic bachelor,” the powerful and successful single man who is self-centered and allergic to commitment. We feel the glossy atmosphere and inanity amidst the champagne, cigarettes, and wine. The author herself once admitted in an interview that no women she knew actually dressed like they do on the show during the day time, yet this is a comedy after all. Most important of all, the show speaks from the point of view of women. As the girls gather around bars or coffee shops and engage in small talk, women’s questions are constantly coming out: “Why is it always the woman who has to change, and not the man? Can a woman fully commit to a man and still maintain her independence? Can she be friends with her ex-boyfriend? Are relationships the religion of the ‘90s? Overwhelmed by everlasting contradictions, the same doubt emerges as I hear Miranda spilling out her thoughts amid their conversations, “How does it happen that four such smart women have nothing to talk about but relationships and boyfriends?” However, I then realized that it is what the characters say, rather than what they do that has won audiences over. As Carrie declared in one recent episode, “Maybe some women aren’t meant to be tamed. Maybe they need to run free until they find someone just as wild to run with.” Or Miranda: “If a man is over thirty and single, there’s something wrong with him. It’s Darwinism. They’re being weeded out from propagating the species.” The show has won fame for being funny, smart, glamorous, and straightforward. Personally, I think it’s occasionally crude, even vulgar, but that’s really what the show is about. It is about life, finding true love (if it even exits), and sex, as it reaches down to the very basics of human nature – the mating rituals of mankind. The lines are somewhat outrageous, bold, sarcastic, honest and a bit over-embellished – but funny. We laugh at the show, as we identify with the characters and their entertaining remarks, and that’s what makes the show so popular and successful. Eyeing the show miles away from New York City, I’d simply say that “Sex and the City” is a well-made imitation of social life, particularly of the distinct species called Manhattan’s successful and attractive singles. But how much does it resemble the reality that we live in? How much does it resemble the love life in Taipei city – or is it the “End of Love” in Taipei? The patterns would be amazingly similar, I suppose, though I assume that the answer varies from person to person. Yet one thing can never change, that the process of searching for a perfect partner will remain the same, and maybe especially in the city. This is TV series, after all, not an anthropological thesis. Debates are raised but left unanswered. But it doesn’t matter whether the show is gaudy or not, and I certainly wouldn’t mind the formulaic plots: to love, or not to love? Love in its nature is the simplest yet most complicated idea to portray. The show, although it aims at depicting this very topic, is something made to be enjoyed and laughed about. And what’s going to happen to Carrie after Mr. Big has left her to marry someone else? a
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May 2024
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