They’re back, those four Manolo Blahnik-shod Manhattanites, and by all accounts, they’re well past their culturally relevant prime.
Reading initial reviews of the movie, there seems little doubt the franchise has seemingly now become an over-blown, cliché- ridden, squalidly materialistic catalogue of designer frocks, accessorised with ethnically-insensitive stereotypes all for the bargain price of $15.
With the premiere of the sequel big screen outing of Carrie, Miranda, Samantha and Charlotte in Sex and the City 2, there will come the obvious tussle over what, if any, cultural interest this franchise still offers. But, this time around, three of the four women are sporting something else - wedding rings.
After years of hook-ups, having seen out hundreds of boyfriends, one husband and a nasty STD, those of the foursome who wanted to marry, have indeed wed.
Moving beyond the question of whether we are actually still willing to invest any degree of emotional energy, or a couple of hours of our life, in their glittery Middle Eastern sojourn, the original series is far from contemporaneously bankrupt.
It is worth considering and revisiting their dating travails, of which we were privy for seven years, given that the question of finding a marriageable mate has become something of a cultural flash point with the publication earlier this year of Lori Gottlieb’s provocative book ‘Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr Good Enough’.
Gottlieb’s book explores what she perceives as the valiantly romanticised assumptions many younger women bear about the whole mating business.
Gottlieb’s book argues that women should not wait for that great coup de foudre, that cataclysmic love of childhood fairy tales and Mills and Boon bodice-rippers. They should instead make do with any of the reasonable boyfriends they jettison in their 20s and 30s instead of holding out for The One.
Her reading of the situation is that women have been sold an unrealistically sentimentalised view of what they should look for in a husband. By holding out for the popularly fabled notion of a soul mate, they are in fact missing out on the good and dependable men who will father their children and help pay the mortgage.
To provide some background, the author, approaching 40 and single, conceived a child via IVF. The standpoint from which she approaches this subject is one of regret, as she wistfully discusses rejecting men she was involved with who could be now taking their turn getting up in the night when the baby cries.
Rather she, bought the fraudulent, overly idealistic view of marriage that has been popularly peddled in the post second wave feminism days. Gottlieb writes:
Marriage isn’t a passion-fest. It’s more like a partnership formed to run a very small, mundane, and often boring nonprofit business.
So if you rarely see your husband—but he’s a decent guy who takes out the trash and sets up the baby gear, and he provides a second income that allows you to spend time with your child instead of working 60 hours a week to support a family on your own—how much does it matter whether the guy you marry is The One?
Settling will probably make you happier in the long run, since many of those who marry with great expectations become more disillusioned with each passing year. (It’s hard to maintain that level of zing when the conversation morphs into discussions about who’s changing the diapers or balancing the checkbook.)
My advice is this: Settle! That’s right. Don’t worry about passion or intense connection. Don’t nix a guy based on his annoying habit of yelling “Bravo!” in movie theaters. Overlook his halitosis or abysmal sense of aesthetics.
On the question of applying an overly critical and superficial assessment of potential partners, she may have a point.
But Gottlieb presents a largely neutered view of married life that reduces marriage to a supportive economic arrangement with occasional nappy-changing thrown in as part of the bargain.
Gottlieb’s thesis is devoid of passion and bears a calculating practicality that verges on the dispiriting. Genuine emotional connection, the kind that would lead to enduring companionship when the fire has gone, does not seem to come into Gottlieb’s argument.
In the original article in ‘The Atlantic’ on which the book is based, she writes of other mothers in her playgroup, arguing there are women who: “would rather feel alone in a marriage than actually be alone, because they, like me, realize that marriage ultimately isn’t about cosmic connection—it’s about how having a teammate, even if he’s not the love of your life, is better than not having one at all.”
A seam of fear runs below the surface of Gottlieb’s argument, a starkly perceptible anxiety about having to face the rigors and pressures of life without a halitosis suffering “teammate” by your side.
Gottlieb’s rationale suggests that women commit to something that sounds akin to running a suburban bakery with a man simply because they don’t want to go to bed or pay the car insurance on their own. It renders marriage a mercantile arrangement against isolation that harks back to the days of the plow and ox.
‘Sex and the City’ vociferously argued across seven seasons the exact opposite- don’t settle. Carrie, Miranda and Charlotte spurned the idea of relationships that would simply function as a defensive fortification against the harsher realities of life.
Perhaps these weren’t women driven by the pounding, shaking beat of their biological clocks. But they said no, repeatedly, to more comfortable lives where someone else paid the bills and proffered the occasional reasonable orgasm in favour of waiting it out for a man who was truly their equal.
What would life have been like for say Miranda if she had followed Gottlieb’s advice and married the charming sports medicine doctor from Season one, episode six, who liked being spanked? Would it have been OK if he had turned out to be a kind, attentive father, who paid the orthodontist’s bills but, who spent his Friday nights getting his arse-smacked red raw by a gum-chewing 19 year-old college student who needed to pay the rent while Miranda fretted about getting the kids into good schools?
Throughout the series, the women of Sex and the City were presented with dozens, if not hundreds of men, who were superficially reasonable propositions that would have neatly fitted Gottlieb’s standard of marriageability.
But, at some point in the narrative arc of each episode, a flaw in each of these sundry bankers, artists, doctors, designers, bartenders and models would be revealed; an incompatibility or an underlying tension. Cue a cocktail and several conversations and these women would inevitably come to the conclusion that they did not need these men in their lives, for anything.
Throughout the series they refused to trade their independence for financial or emotional security, instead presenting the audience with a template of self-sufficiency and pride in their ability to take of their own needs. (ALL of their own needs- remember the episode with Charlotte and the Rabbit?)
The four women of Sex and the City held onto their freedom, their self-respect and their Manolos and for that, well I may not fork out to see the movie, but I will raise a vodka tonic to them for offering a fabulous reminder of why women should not settle.
Facebook Recommendations
Read all about it
Punch live
Up to the minute Twitter chatter
In my sports column on The Punch tomorrow: why Eurovision was easily the best game on the weekend. Mummy bloggers, you'll like this one!
Recent posts
The latest and greatest
Punch on: Open thread 28/05/2012
There were two skydiving incidents reported over the weekend. VIDEO: Granny’s shocking skydive…
Abbott’s crass logic: trash the Parliament in order save it
An email was sent to almost every politician in Australia this week saying that someone should cut off…
Our special forces don’t always need special treatment
We admire them, but we’re not entirely sure why. We allow them to operate in the shadows; we rarely…
Nosebleed Section
choice ringside rantings
From: They must pay for one’s bitter disappointments
Michael S says:
"A teacher at Geelong Grammar had criticised her for using words that were too long, which had left her confused and had made her doubt her ability to write essays. She became ''quite distressed'' when her English marks began to fall." I can sympathise. My scholastic mentors conveyed to me a causal relationship… [read more]From: Welfare for breeders is a bonus for everyone
Change Up! says:
I have no problem paying my taxes. As a single, childless person on a very decent income, I can afford it and not have my life severely altered. Plus I understand that my taxes paying for things like schools, childcare and infrastructure is ultimately a good thing. A better community is better for me… [read more]Gentle jabs to the ribs
They must pay for one’s bitter disappointments
A private school girl’s family is sueing her elite, extremely expensive private school for not… Read more
Most commented