Consumption, Destruction, and Sex in the Multiplex
Thursday, June 3, 2010 at 10:47AM I've never been a Sex and the City kind of gay.
Divas, excessive consumption, class envy, and dreams of an all-White Manhattan don't do much for me, and I've long been quietly frustrated at mainstream gay culture for being so much about such fantasies. My sexuality-related fantasies are much more queer than gay: about rejecting and destabilizing existing systems rather than fabulously infiltrating and inhabiting them. Drag, for example, is exciting because it deconstructs all gender as performance, not because it reifies gender categories. Difference is exciting because it points to ruptures in normative assumptions and ideologies, not because it allows high-end designers to cater to a wider variety of airbrushed skin tones.
While I don't often live up to my own ideals, I do believe that every purchase is a political act, that we have a responsibility to educate ourselves about where the products we consume come from, who makes them, and what kind of damage we're doing when we encourage more such products to be made. I believe that the accrual of wealth is, at the very least, ethically fraught in a world where so many have so little. Etc.
Sex in the City frames Prada and Manolo Blahnik as second only to long-term gender-coded monogamy (preferably with an emotionally fragile billionaire) in terms of the ultimate fantasy, the material expression of a fulfilling life.
Not my cup of tea.
I've long been baffled by Chris March breaking into worshipful tears at the chance to design (sans pay) for Sarah Jessica Parker, and by my moderately successful architect friend who lives in one of Manhattan's smallest apartments but loves it because it's just a block away from SJP's. When an out-of-town ex visited New York and wanted to see the first SATC movie while he was here (simulacrum, anyone?) I was troubled by the audience of women and gays who applauded and squealed in delight when Big built Carrie an enormous closet, and who gasped in horror when the depth of Carrie's despair was indicated by a shot of SJP without make-up. During a montage in which Carrie is trying to find an assistant, I was startled to see a seemingly ideal candidate dismissed as shockingly, laughably unsuitable because he was wearing women's shoes with his sensible suit, a disturbing about-face given the show's up-with-stereotypical-gays reputation. And I couldn't help but notice that the only non-whites in the movie were servants, and that the filmmakers tried to make up for this by giving one such servant (Jennifer Hudson) a heart of gold and wisdom beyond her years. Furthermore, while the series as a whole has taken a lot of heat from social conservatives for a supposed glorification of promiscuity, I've often found it to be a lot less pro-sex and sexually progressive than it might seem, though I'll refrain from detailing that argument here.
With the release of Sex and the City 2, which by most accounts may be the worst film of the year, I was considering jumping on the anti-SATC bandwagon as a means to rant against the increasingly irritating, increasingly commodified mainstream gay culture, a largely depoliticized subculture producing artifacts like this one at an alarming rate.
And yet...
The current backlash against all things Sex and the City has an ugliness—and arguably an hypocrisy—to it that I'm not entirely comfortable with. My friend Alex Morales has been following the backlash with irritation, bristling both at the gleeful attacks on a franchise that has provided him some escapist comfort over the years and, more compellingly, at the uncomfortable, genre-delineated sexism that seems to underly quite a bit of the criticism.
Before reactions to SATC2's ludicrous storyline, cultural insensitivity, etc. began to emerge, the film's negative buzz focused on the usual (and typically distressing) mainstream hetero complaints: SJP getting too old to be playing sexy; boyfriends being dragged to the movie by swooning, ditzy, fashion-obsessed girlfriends who need something to occupy them between Twilight films; etc. People who found nothing insipid or offensive about Transformers 2 or Iron Man 2 railed against SATC2 in a way that implied that fantasies about traveling to exotic places and spending lots of money are only valid if you get to blow some shit up along the way. Destruction, violence, and sexual imperialism are fine, but high heels, cosmpolitans, and, well, sexual imperialism are corrupting, feminizing, groan-inducing. You can see the movie, but only if your girlfriend can't get her pet gay to join her. It's something you might have to put up with in order to get laid. And of course you'll have to pay for the ticket and probably won't be allowed to put any of that delicious butter flavor on the popcorn.
So this isn't a bandwagon I can jump on, I'm afraid. As much as I still want to rant against diva-obsessed gays whose greatest political ambition is to be the target of advertising for luxury products, I'm not willing to do so by playing into a misogynist uprising masquerading as a critical narrative. If I'm going to rail against mindless consumption, I should at least take a moment to recognize that spending all that money on overt violence and bombastic pyrotechnics is arguably worse than spending it on a tasty drink and a nice pair of shoes.
Reader Comments (5)
At the risk of sounding like a big queen: PREACH Frank!
Great post, Frank.
I was thinking a little further about my history with SATC and realized that 1. my first boyfriend was employed by the show and I was happy that he had work there for 2 seasons 2. I was initially offended by the first season's tone of "ooh, look at us! so white and privileged! . . . but the show descended (thankfully) into silly over the top sex farce . . . and that's when I got hooked . . . it didn't hurt that it was post 9/11 and I was unemployed and single and well, you can do the math.
I do agree with you on queer vs. gay and that is an distinction I keep trying to make for myself. So much of what I call the Bravo/Logo version of gay culture is very consumerist, white, and commercial. It really doesn't speak to me at all. Embracing my sexuality was about liberation for me--culturally, emotionally, intellectually . . . and I've been realizing over the last few years how I have felt the opposite of liberated by trying to fit in with mainstream gay culture (actually my last play addresses this). I feel mainstream gay culture is probably as oppressive to me as the straight culture I grew up within. Only instead of pressure to conform to gender roles, there's the pressure to be thin, rich and sexually successful.
Ironically, I consumed Sex and the City like pints of Ben & Jerry (or more appropriately, Magnolia Bakery cupcakes). But I also have very intelligent friends who love Jersey Shore. So I guess contradictions abound.
Thanks, guys
Akash: you need to let out your inner queen more often, Frankly.
Alex: what's with all the capital letters?
Nice post, Frank. I appreciate a thoughtful voice in this conversation. I have to admit up front that I haven't seen the film, but I agree with your overriding point re: misogyny. I also wonder about the Orientalist and Islamophobic representations that many reviewers have criticized in the film. Do you agree with this characterization? And if so, doesn't the glorification of consumer culture in this particular film, with its Abu Dhabi setting, speak in newly problematic ways to the U.S. imperialist project in the Middle East, as well as to Western assumptions about female agency/feminism in the Muslim world? That seems to be fair -- feminist --ground from which to criticize this film.
I actually haven't seen it yet, Carly. I probably will, now that I've entered into this conversation, but I've been dreading it.
Everything I've heard about the film, though, definitely suggests that it is vulnerable to Orientalist and Islamaphobic critiques, among others. I have no doubt I'll hate it and find it offensive. Most of the criticism, though, has felt like it comes from a place of relief. People who've been wanting to attack SATC for years now have a chance to go after the whole franchise with unrestrained venom because the new movie is, apparently, without redeeming qualities.
As with many such conversations, this one seems to reveal as much about the critics as it does about the object of criticism.