Harry’s Place

The hat ain’t photoshopped on? (Off topic, after watching a VHS of The Goonies last night, I’ve decided it’s Martha Plimpton for me.)

The thing about “Sex and the City” is that it isn’t really about sex or the city. It’s really about shopping. The four central characters spend their time worrying about whether they have the right clothes, or the right apartments, or are getting invited to the right fashion events. They treat their personal relationships in exactly the same way, obsessing about whether they are having the right kind of sex and boasting to each other about how fashionable their sexual encounters are. The whole show is a paean to mindless status-obsessed consumerism.

So there is nothing in any way modern or liberating about “Sex in the City”. It is the glorification of vapid fashion slaves who treat even the most intimate aspects of their lives as an exercise in competitive conspicuous consumption.

What’s wrong with George?

All the hetero men I know think Sex and the City is a complete pile of poo barring possibly the Scouse bird - ten years ago.

It’s the sort of prog that makes you want to add a para. to an OBL communique. “The depths of their soulless depravity and gross materialism and love of life is no more strongly illustrated than by this infidel show.”

“is that a really annoying hat?”

Anything to distract from her face.

“The honest answer is all four of them, but it’s too dangerous to admit that.”

Dead giveaway he’s a closet Muslim. “ALL FOUR!” He says! He’ll whisk em off to Iran or somewhere and marry them all but they needn’t feel in any danger of being molested as any man who watches “Sex in the City” is obviously playing for the other team.

no one could ever accuse George Galloway of pandering to feminists (or ordinary women that don’t like to be seen as mere sex objects and playthings of men) ?

Galloway’s stupid comments can’t be terribly helpful to his comrades in Respect Renewal, as they try to convince the wider populace of gorgeous George’s magnificent leadership?

fat chance.

Really didn’t get this show, the ’sexiness’ seemed very plastic. I was sat next to a great fan at work, it seemed to be all about the shoes for her.

Puritans.

Film based on a comedy series?

Screw Sex and the City.

Taking off my acting pants for a moment and pulling my analrapist stocking over my head, it’s all about this.

One of the few things I’ve ever seen that gets funnier with repeat viewings.

For those that like this kind of thing, more stuff for the obsessive here and here and here.

Beats listening to a bunch of whiney Tamaras whingeing about shoes and men hands down. I doubt the S&C film will have a party as good as this…

More of this, please.

What does Azzam Tamimi think of Desperate Housewives?

Oh, really Gene, what bollocks.

http://thethoughtfuldresser.blogspot.com/2008/05/doing-vamp.html

Fat is a feminist issue!

I suspect George is channelling the thoughts of Uday Hussein.
I wonder if they used to share cigars and SATC boys nights in.

I can imagine that George is touting for a cameo appearance as Seaman Staines in the forthcoming film “Sex in the City - The World-Wide Cruise”.

The honest answer is all four of them, but it’s too dangerous to admit that.

She’s not the prettiest, the sexiest or the cleverest. But she would be, quite simply, the most fun.

Starring Salma Yaqoob, Yvonne Ridley, Soummayya Ghannoushi and Lindsey German in Sex and the City.
Starring the eponymous George Galloway Respect (George Galloway)

Working Title.
Sex and the City and East. George Galloway (Respect) George Galloway.

“Kass predicts that millions of men will be dragged kicking and screaming by their wives or girlfriends to see the movie. It seems others, like George, will go voluntarily.”

He’s wrong: what happening is groups of women going together, which, y’know, was kind of the point of the show in the first place.

I’ve got nothing against Sex And The City. Never really got in to it, but I’d watch it if it was on. To be fair, it was all very pretty to look at, which is how I judge most of my light-entertainment viewing. Good looking people doing fun things in nice locations is something Americans do much, much better than everyone else.

Shmuel -

I’m no puritan. Desperate Housewives, already mentioned, is much more appealing. I think essentially Sex and the City is a women’s show. It started life essentially as a newspaper column for women.

What SaTC is about is female friendship, ageing, sex, pleasure, the idea that you cannot, in fact, have it all. That there are compromises which must be made. About the shredding of hopes and illusions. It is of course light enterainment, but so were the great screwball comedies of the 30s.

Sex In The City is to sex as Auf Wiedersehen Pet is to building, ie not particularly “about” it. I can bear SATC in small enough doses, but I can’t say I’m hugely looking forward to my visit to the cinema this Sunday.

“It is of course light entertainment, but so were the great screwball comedies of the 30s.”

Yes, but they were funny. SITC is just depressing. And the dreadful, complacent, hand-me-down homilies at the end … I mean!

Is that really a hat? I thought she was just standing in front of a flower arrangement.

Yes, SaTC is ‘depressing’ and all sport is mindlessly boring, action films are snoozaramas. The cultural czars have spoken.

My wife went to see it last night. She said the audience was 95% women, 4% gay men and 1% men who had been tricked/forced into seeing it by their wives/girlfriends. I expect George is in a demographic all of his own.

I love the comparison of SATC and Auf Wiedersehen though. They should do a one-off special combining the two.

Auf Wiedersehen Pet was the closest male equivalent I could think of. It is, after all, about male friendship, ageing, sex, pleasure, the idea that you cannot, in fact, have it all. That there are compromises which must be made. About the shredding of hopes and illusions. It’s not such a bad comparison.

Now I want to hear George’s thoughts on Seinfeld.

Starring Salma Yaqoob, Yvonne Ridley, Soummayya Ghannoushi and Lindsey German in Sex and the City.
Starring the eponymous George Galloway Respect (George Galloway)

Now there’s an argument for the burqa if there ever was one…

Auf Wiedersehen Pet was the closest male equivalent I could think of.

That’s only because you are not old enough to remember Hogan’s Heroes.

“Now I want to hear George’s thoughts on Seinfeld”

A product of the Zionist control of the media, the people of Marx and Einstein are “apparently” represented by Olmert, Sharon and a comedien.

He’s pretending to like it because he thinks it’ll help him get in with women. Mrs Mike has a vaguely creepy Uni friend who does the same thing with Moulin Rouge.

A friend of mine described it thus:

“It’s as if someone has taken the Bratz movie and left it in the sun for 40 years.”

I always liked the Family Guy take on SATC “Is that the show and three girls who go shopping with their mother? Pah” - Not sure which one was meant to be the mother though, but the ambiguity makes it even better.

“Yes, SaTC is ‘depressing’ and all sport is mindlessly boring, action films are snoozaramas. The cultural czars have spoken.”

Oh come on, Linda, that is weak. We can disagree about the merits of a TV show without throwing accusations of cultural elitism around. Anyway, the analogies don’t hold, because not all romantic comedy (or whatever) is being dismissed out of hand, just this tawdry example of it. You can love competitive sport and still think that watching the heats of the all-England over-60 lacrosse championship would be an afternoon wasted.

It’s not so much a case of cultural elitism, but rather the royal writ: ‘I J. Meredith have pronouced this show tawdry and depressing. And so it is. Coz I say so.’

Hence , ‘I L. Grant, lay down the accompanying rule. Sport is dull. Case closed.’

Another stunning cultural insight from Galloway to further alienate the snobbish Guardianistas. He really is burning his bridges here, whehay!

It hardly chimes with the writings of Lindsey German on gender either. More water under the bridge.

So he’d like to know Carrie “carnally” eh? Just book into the same hotel the next time she’s on a Greek island then.

Yes, what women really need is a series about women who define themselves by what they sit on.

Snoresville - if all sex was like this I’d never do it.

“It’s not so much a case of cultural elitism, but rather the royal writ: ‘I J. Meredith have pronounced this show tawdry and depressing. And so it is. Coz I say so.’”

Oh stop it. Blog comments boxes are just like that. It’s kind of taken for granted that these are personal opinions being expressed rather than some kind of ex cathedra pronouncement. This isn’t the place for a scholarly disquisition on the dramatic and aesthetic qualities of Sex and the City.

Anyway, I am only still banging on about it because I think you might be the real Linda Grant (you know what I mean) and I like the idea that I, J Meredith, might be talking to you (oh how postmodern we have become).

I’ve seen that bloody awful and morally degrading programme on TV a few years ago - it could possibly even be a factor in why I don’t have a TV set now (although that would be to overstate its importance)

Above all, and in common with other things, it did make me feel as though I were born and living in the wrong century and civilisation. If it didn’t overly make me sound like Ignatius J. Reilly, I’d say it were time to take a stand for mediaeval values, or something.

Yes, you are talking to the real Linda Grant. And the entire problem with blog commenting in general is that it allows people to advance trenchant, one-dimensional opinions about complex phenomena they usually know little or nothing about, and there is absolutely no reason for someone not to advance their opposite.

I like Carrie too, I just preferred her when she was lead singer of The Who.

“And the entire problem with blog commenting in general is that it allows people to advance trenchant, one-dimensional opinions about complex phenomena they usually know little or nothing about, and there is absolutely no reason for someone not to advance their opposite.”

No, the problem with blog commenting is that it tends to degenerate into abuse. I’m no expert on Sex and the City but I know enough about it to know that I don’t think it is especially complex and that it isn’t very good (largely for the reasons given by others on here with the addition of the large amounts of horrible, toe-curling writing, especially those bits at the end (go on, admit it, you hate them too). I have watched it, after all, and it is only a sitcom. Of course there is no reason for someone not to advance the opposite opinion, but then there is no reason for someone not to do that in the pub or any other forum. The difference is that it is less likely , in my experience, to be Linda Grant.

Well, why don’t we agree on this. I’m no expert on football but I’ve seen a match or two and I know enough to say to say that it sends me and very many other people I know to sleep after five minutes of watching it. It’s a pointless expensive activity and only true dimwits watch it.

This reminds me of that time I got into an argument with Timothy Garton Ash because I didn’t like Ant & Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway.

“It’s a pointless expensive activity and only true dimwits watch it.”

Well, I’d go two thirds of the way with you (although I suppose you could argue with ‘pointless’, it has a point in one sense but not another), but the last part is demonstrably wrong, isn’t it? And I haven’t claimed (has anyone else?) that people who watch SATC are dimwits. I know too any non-dimwits who like it. But then, I know clever people who admire Banksy, too.

We’ll see, I wouldn’t expect women would even want to take their men to see this film, even if their relationship is still at the ‘doing everything together’ phase.

Starring Salma Yaqoob, Yvonne Ridley, Soummayya Ghannoushi and Lindsey German in Sex and the City.
Starring the eponymous George Galloway Respect (George Galloway)

Now there’s an argument for the burqa if there ever was one…

You’re joking aren’t you? I think Salma Yaqoob is pretty tasty

Sex and the City? Wasnt that the show about three hookers and their mother?

Weiss - beat me to it

“Yes, what women really need is a series about women who define themselves by what they sit on. “

I honestly don’t know if you’re here referring to their, well, their womanly bits or to expensive designer chairs.

Of the times I’ve watched the show (usually the first 15 minutes before I can extricate myself unseen from the living room to the manly succour of my PC), I don’t remember the main emphasis being on material belongings and/or casual sex, but more on relationships. Doesn’t even Samantha settle down in the end? For emphasis on materialism, it doesn’t come close to the kind of bile we pump into kids.

I presume that, quid pro quo for seeing “Iron Man”, I’ll be one of those 1% of the audience bringing their wife along. Unfortunately, the trailer looks awful; a couple of unfunny jokes and a huge layer of schmaltz.

As for me, I prefer the red-haired one, but that’s really by default.

P.

The show did seem based on the existance of a rigid nookie class system. 3 of them wanted to exclusively hump millionaires and the other one was happy banging delivery drivers which was only acceptable behaviour in her circle providing it was meaningless.

I’m no expert on football but I’ve seen a match or two and I know enough to say to say that it sends me and very many other people I know to sleep after five minutes of watching it. It’s a pointless expensive activity and only true dimwits watch it.

I’d agree with this point when related to 99% of matches and 91 of the 92 league clubs. Just not Everton. In that sense football is all a bit like “Charmed” a series which I realised I had absolutely no interest in watching once Shannen Doherty left.

As for Sex and the City I did watch the very first episode - thought it was well-done and fairly lively, and never bothered to see another.

‘3 of them wanted to exclusively hump millionaires and the other one was happy banging delivery drivers which was only acceptable behaviour in her circle providing it was meaningless.’

Carrie was in love with Big, but had relationships with a failed novelist and a carpenter. Charlotte only wanted to marry someone who was Ivy League patrician WASP but when that marriage didn’t work out she married a bald Jewish lawyer and had to convert to Judaism to do so. Miranda married a bartender. Samatha didn’t want to marry anyone, and didn’t, she wanted to screw around as men do, but ended up falling in love with an actor half her age who wanted commitment

But don’t let the facts get in the way of a sweeping, illinformed generalisation.

It’s our generations “pride and prejudice” so it is.

“But don’t let the facts get in the way of a sweeping, illinformed generalisation”

After all, if that sort of thing caught on it could spell the end of the blogosphere.

“It’s our generations “pride and prejudice” so it is.”

Minus the wit, gracefulness and style. Which leaves … splurgh!

But don’t let the facts get in the way of a sweeping, illinformed generalisation.

Carrie’s shopping beyond her means also led her to have debt problems. One episode shows Miranda calculating that had Carrie saved money rather than spending it on shoes, she could have afforded the deposit she needed to buy her apartment.

The show was hardly the Sopranos, but I always find it watchable - if it’s on, I’ll watch it, but I don’t make a particular effort to seek it out.

I never really saw the alleged obsession with sex and shopping.

Would that have been a high class, high price designer furnature maker to the glitterati sort of carpenter or the usual sort?

“It’s as if someone has taken the Bratz movie and left it in the sun for 40 years”

That is absolutely perfect. I’ve watched a couple episodes and sometimes they were mildly funny, but overall I found the characters really (really, really, really) irritating.

My 6 year old daughter has begun to chafe at my No Bratz rule.

Yeah I liked the Bratz comparison. Reminded me of the speed with which my little nephew was able to distinguish adverts for boy things from adverts for girl things on the telly.
This looks like a girl thing…

Or even one great big advert for girl things if the critics are to be believed about the amount of product placement.

One of my colleagues went to see SATC last night and enjoyed it but said she was so engrossed in the story that she didn’t have time to really look at the clothes. She’s going again so she can examine the clothes properly.

I remember the last four American women whose adventures you followed and who were four different types that you could identify with were the March girls in Little Women. A different America, that, and a much nicer one.

One of my colleagues is going to see it tonight after work and came in this morning in a dress she’d chosen specifically to see the film in. I correctly identified it as being based on a design by Diane von Furstenburg but not actually by Diane von Furstenburg. So maybe I’ll enjoy the film after all.