Cougars on the prowl
Somewhere along the way, the main page of Yahoo! changed from a bunch of portal links and AP news headlines into a weird internet version of TV soft news morning shows. Witness today’s featured column “10 Love Lessons From ‘Sex and the City’” by Valerie Reiss. I didn’t think it was possible to distill everything I find repellent about SATC into a few paragraphs, but the writer did a pretty good job with her first “lesson”:
1. Single is Not a Dirty Word
The SATC gals transformed “single”–”spinster”‘s more evolved cousin–from being a hole to a presence; they made singledom cool. Even when it hurt.
One of my favorite moments is when Carrie’s silver Manolos get swiped from a smug-married’s apartment and the friend refuses to reimburse her. She lectures Carrie about spending too much on shoes and not enough on family, playing right in to her singleton’s shame.
This, after Carrie has bought engagement, wedding, shower, and baby gifts for her. In a genius move, Carrie registers herself at Manolo Blahnik just for those shoes, single “bride” that she is, forcing the friend to pay up. To me this said the single life is just as valid as the married. We deserve as many gifts and even blessings from our friends and society, regardless of what others might think of our struggles and choices.
*not pictured: reason, accountability, Jennifer Hudson
Oh Carrie! You go, girl! What’s amazing is that I don’t think Ms. Reiss was going for even a hint of irony when she wrote this. “To me, this said the single life is just as valid as the married.” Really? Catty pranking to get the overpriced shoes you want is how you validate, nay, empower yourself? I mean, it’s not like anyone has ever accused SATC of being shallow and materialistic before. Oh, wait, that’s what everyone criticizes the show for.
Maybe she has a point about SATC making singledom cool. I disagree, but it’s a position one can at least take. But backing it up by pointing out the time Carrie stuck it to her married friend over some shoes can’t be the best example of it. Or like the 50th best. But still you’ve got to hand it to the “Sex” writers; not only did they manage to fetishize female singledom into a thin metaphor for a very specific kind of male otherness, they’ve spawned a whole generation of otherwise lovely women who believe that Chris Noth A) possesses a penis, and B) is something to pine for.
I truly do believe that women can look forward to finding a man like Chris Noth’s Mr. Big in the real world, and simple to find such a guy. All you have to do is consult a well known dating service that’s been around for… like forever. It’s called the mafia.
Like all men everywhere who know of TV and/or women, I’ve seen maybe two episodes of the show in it’s entirety, and parts of maybe 10 or so episodes. (And the movie too, which I was dragged to at gunpoint by a beautiful woman. She really didn’t need the gun when she had those guns, if ya know what I mean) Including the one where Carrie can’t afford to pay rent but she’s got a couple thousand dollars of shoes that are about to be homeless along with her bony and grotesque ass.
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