Sex and the City 2 was already feeling dated in all the ways that the show itself does now with the hindsight that comes with each passing day, colored by the very obvious sentiment: men are not necessary so why is that all these women can talk about (“okay, so you don’t need a man, but do you still want one?” Carrie asks Samantha at one point in the series)? Though the movie came out in 2010, it already smacked of irrelevancy upon its release, with Mr. Big overly commenting on Stanford (Willie Garson) and Anthony’s (Mario Cantone) “gay wedding,” played up by the fact that when you’re around so much gay energy, Liza Minnelli “materializes” (there was no other way to explain her haunting in its horridness performance of Beyoncé’s 2008 single, “Single Ladies [Put A Ring On It]).” The one thing that remains palatable about the dialogue (written by Michael Patrick King, who really shouldn’t funnel his own voice into women, mainly Samantha, to say things like, “Who ordered the Australian sausage?” when a rugby team approaches the pool) is Miranda insisting that the only reason they all got married was to avoid “having to dance to that song at weddings.” No, instead they can all sit there comfortably with their husbands and not be looked upon as “The Witches of Eastwick” as they were oh so long ago in season one when they attended a wedding as the single ladies Beyoncé tries to uplift.
As one of the movies of May that year to kick off sequel season (and it’s sequel season now, after all–solely because Mamma Mia 2 is coming out), Sex and the City 2 was the only real offering the then “movie powers that be” thought would be a surefire return on their investment with female audiences, not content solely with Jake Gyllenhaal in Prince of Persia: Sands of Time (which looks a lot like the Smith Jerrod movie, Heart of the Desert–what was with the Middle East fetish that year, it’s not like we hadn’t already invaded Iraq in ’03). Relying on this built-in audience for box office success, the film raked it in its opening weekend, though was ultimately beat out for number one by Shrek Forever After–kids have more clout than women.
On the one hand, King, who also directed, was trying his best to bring glamor back to cinema (as only, apparently The Tourist could that same year) and therefore wanted the escapist backdrop of a place like Abu Dhabi (which was really Morocco, sort of adding to the insensitivity of the portrayal, but then, the UAE rightly wouldn’t let them film there). On the other, Lawrence of Arabia this is not (or even Lawrence of My Labia, as Samantha quips in one of her most unsettling lines). As evidenced by the nod to black and white movies of the 30s, King also intended to imbue the sequel with that same sort of over the top, screwball nature. Unfortunately, Carrie doesn’t have the charm or doe-eyed look to carry off an Ellie Andrews (Claudette Colbert) in It Happened One Night vibe. Still, King tries his best, but even that led to one of the harshest and most accurate assessments of the movie to come from essayist Lindy West, who noted, “SATC2 takes everything that I hold dear as a woman and as a human–working hard, contributing to society, not being an entitled cunt like it’s my job–and rapes it to death with a stiletto that costs more than my car. It is 146 minutes long, which means that I entered the theater in the bloom of youth and emerged with a family of field mice living in my long, white mustache. This is an entirely inappropriate length for what is essentially a home video of gay men playing with giant Barbie dolls.”
And yes, that has always been the core of why SATC hasn’t aged well, the blatancy with which these women are presented as one-dimensional, materialistic marionettes being wielded by one of the last of the older gay gentlemen strata. That, and, of course, a lack of diversity in all ways: from race to sexuality to social class. In point of fact, the decision to set the stage in the Emirates came from King’s desire to imbue the narrative with the same grotesque excess and decadence that the show had always been allowed to before the recession wrought by the 2008 financial crisis (best explained in The Big Short). Regardless of the “believable decadence” of a place like Abu Dhabi, tone-deaf exchanges between the likes of Charlotte and Miranda about not being able to understand how “women without help” manage to raise their kids really hits home the notion of just how out of touch with reality this quartet is with the common man (and let us hope no one makes an anti-Cynthia Nixon campaign using this clip as evidence of such, since people can’t differentiate her from her best known character more).
To add to the paper thin narrative, Samantha just happens to be invited by “one chic sheik” (as Carrie must annoyingly pun) to stay in a suite that would ordinarily cost $22,000 a night–again, King wanted to portray the decadence that America simply couldn’t get away with in 2010–to lend her PR services in making the hotel “a star” the same way she did to Smith Jerrod (that was his entire purpose in the movie, after all, to lead Samantha to the producer of his film, from Abu Dhabi naturally). Of course, considering her “scandalous” nature, even by New York standards, we know to expect that the entire plot is going to rely on Samantha causing controversy in a part of the world that thrives silencing women’s voices (a phrase occasionally bandied to attempt showing that the gang is “woke,” especially while watching a woman eat a French fry by lifting up her “veil” to do so).
That the women are so crass in their self-involvement and lust for luxury, however, is part of what speaks to the freedom of being an American. Yes, the country has a reputation for frivolousness and blindness to anyone outside of themselves, but that that’s part of the freedom of choice that comes with living in a jurisdiction that helmed 7-11 (again, choice). The right that every person–man or woman–has to be vacuous or promiscuous or cartoonishly self-involved is epitomized both in America and Sex and the City 2. And though the United States is experiencing the most self-loathing it has ever known thanks to a certain human Cheeto, it is still the only place where you have more liberty than anywhere else–to the point of excess really, as you can still go out and shoot people without guns ever being reined in.
So no, the “problems” faced by the women in this final installment (at least the final installment that will feature Kim Cattrall) do not create an “elegant” portrait of female priorities or issues (“If we don’t leave now we’re gonna get bumped from first class!”). Yet Samantha’s ability to finally snap in spite of everyone in her group and around her telling her she has to abide by the customs of the culture (this is almost impossible for any American to do when they travel to another place) speaks to the spirit of the Bill of Rights within us all. The “inalienable” rights that tell us suppression is death. And even if, at the time of the film’s release, The Atlantic commented of Samantha’s outburst, “Watching a teenager wave condoms at Muslim men during their call to prayer would be bad, but when 52-year-old-Samantha behaves in this fashion, you wonder if she has lost her mind,” it must be said: Fuck that. Outbursts should be acceptable at any age, particularly if one is being stifled as a result of who they are. That Sex and the City 2 and its reviews of the time hold Samantha up as a cautionary tale of not aging gracefully only serves to make her all the more heroic as we watch her defiance now. As usual, she is the only character with any real courage. Even Charlotte doesn’t have the backbone to tell her Irish nanny, Erin (Alice Eve), to wear a bra so as to ease her fears about Harry cheating on her (insecure much?). Thus it resolves itself with the neat little bow of: the nanny is actually a lesbian so everything’s fine. Carrie, too, gets a black diamond as “punishment” for her dalliance with Aidan (John Corbett) abroad and Miranda becomes a peppy version of herself now that she only has to work with women. Looking at it as a whole, there is nothing redeeming about this sequel (except maybe the opening shots of the quartet in their 80s incarnations).
But maybe, just maybe, if we look at it now in piecemeal form for certain scenes touting freedom of expression, Sex and the City 2 is a reminder that while, yes, America has shed all of its former believability as the country known for being the “land of the free,” at least you’re still allowed to essentially do whatever the fuck you want (even fuck in public if it happens to be on a beach at night in the Hamptons) without judgment, scorn or arrest. Shall we keep it that way?
“… that has always been the core of why SATC hasn’t aged well, the blatancy with which these women are presented as one-dimensional, materialistic marionettes being wielded by one of the last of the older gay gentlemen strata. That, and, of course, a lack of diversity in all ways: from race to sexuality to social class. ”
I never really liked this show. Of course, I’m a man, but it did see too obsessed with consumerism to be very interesting. (I didn’t like “Entourage” either). That said, Cynthia Nixon was always worth watching as an actress. It’ll be interesting to see what she does in politics….
For a show about women in the “Big Apple”, I’ll take “Broad City” anyday.