In defense of Sex and the City

By now, we're well familiar with the charges against Sex and the City. It ruined New York City. It turned otherwise quality ladies into brand-obsessed slags dribbling pink cocktails down their giant-flower-festooned décolletage and shoveling overpriced cupcakes into their man-hungry maws. And, of course, it gave us a new brand of slut. The worst kind of slut. The slut who really, really just wants to have relationship talks and, of course, ultimately marry a rich man with an important job.

Three reasons to stop worrying, chill out with some Arbor Mist, slap down the price of admission, and enjoy the happy slag reunion without an ounce of shamePerhaps in light of these allegations, media coverage of the upcoming movie has not been particularly kind. Last week,Time Out New York Photoshopped duct tape on the mouths of the Sex foursome, promising readers a "Carrie-free summer." Radar took its own shots at the "vapid young women" heading to the multiplex. And even the forgiving articles seem accompanied with an eye roll. (See the New York Times' painfully titled "One for the Ladies—and Their Friends," which, the New York Observer aptly noted, painted female fans as so irrationally giddy about the movie premiere they were "totally freaking out and practically pouring Cosmo mix into their stilettos.")

So where does that leave fans of SATC, when expressing genuine, non-ironic excitement for the film is about as cool as joining a Diablo Cody fan club?

Below, three reasons to stop worrying, chill out with some Arbor Mist, slap down the price of admission, and enjoy the happy slag reunion without an ounce of shame.

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1. Sex and the City is modern mythology, with bad sex and good clothes.
Could Carrie afford that apartment? Or those shoes? Would four professional women gather together regularly to quaff white wine and discuss their pubic hair arrangements? No, probably not. But arguments against the "believability" of SATC tend to ignore the fact that entertainment doesn't have to be realistic to be relatable and resonant. (Just look at Star Wars, Star Trek, and other star-related franchises.) It's been argued before, but it's worth repeating again: Carrie and Co. weren't supposed to be like us or like anyone we actually knew. They were roles women could take on anytime—the slut, the prude, the kooky overfeeling narcissist, the brain. Sex's men were also archetypes—broadly drawn characters you'll find in nearly every woman's personal dating mythology. Get a group of ladies together to swap dating war stories and the featured players will inevitability include: a nice guy we couldn't commit to (Aidan), and a toxic bachelor who kept us coming back for more (Big). No, we couldn't dress like them, we couldn't have sex like them (without serious risk of infection), but we could feel their struggles against loneliness, irrelevance, and, occasionally, their glee at being the bawdiest bitches in the room.

Sure, some people believed it wholesale. Some women lost years of their lives arguing over who was the Charlotte and who was the Miranda. (Hint: No one ever wants to be the Miranda. Something about the hair.) But some people also believe the Da Vinci Code is real, that forwarding an e-mail will earn them a dollar from Bill Gates, and that sometime in the year 2012 we're going to be delivered into Jesus' arms while Kirk Cameron stays behind to battle the Antichrist.

Let's give the majority of SATC viewers a little more credit. Yes, even the TBS ones.

2. SATC made women be nicer to each other. At least for 30 minutes a week.
During college I participated in a kitschy ritual familiar to many "ladies of a certain age." We'd gather in our dorm lounge while the R.A. shook up some watery Cosmopolitans. (Even describing it now, it sounds like parody.) Then we'd flip on the TV. As soon as that familiar SATC theme started up, there was a observable change in the room—a collective sigh, like everyone had dosed on a pink, glittery Xanax. Watching the opening credits effectively released a valve on our bitchy, passive-aggressive girl culture. Somehow, suddenly, that girl who'd thrown a beer at your head last week, was passing the popcorn and revealing her mixed feelings about anal. Sure, it only lasted for 30 minutes. Then we went back to stealing each other's boyfriends and calling each other fat.

Compare SATC with shows women rally around now: Gossip Girl's venomous social climbing, the sniping of The Hills' rhinoplastied stars. These shows draw viewers with nasty infighting, not the idea of female camaraderieBut there was something wonderful about the soppier, sappier, kinder girl universe SATC inspired. Compare it with the shows women rally around now: Gossip Girl's venomous social climbing, America's Next Top Model contestants iterating, then reiterating that it's not America's Next Top Best Friend. Today's popular female ensemble casts draw viewers with the promise of nasty infighting, not the idea of female camaraderie.

In an article from this week's UK Observer, Toby Young writes, "The sisterhood of Sex and the City—the notion that girls like Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda will always be there for each other, no matter what the cost—is a sentimental myth." And I'll agree that it was, in many ways, a fantasy. Be that as it may, SATC gave women permission to fall into that fantasy—to entertain Charlotte's idea that maybe, just maybe, we could be each other's soul mates. (Maybe the same way Entourage allows men to believe that their high school buds would remain steadfast bros, even if one of them rocketed to international superstardom.) Maybe it was lame. Maybe it didn't last. But still better than watching the sniping of The Hills' rhinoplastied stars.

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3. Sex and the City didn't make us relationship-obsessed. We already were.
On a long plane ride recently I indulged in just about the only thing that is more painfully embarrassing than loving Sex and the City. Which is, of course, admitting to reading Eat, Pray, Love. (Whatever. It was a long trip. I'd already read The Tipping Point.) In the book, author Elizabeth Gilbert talks to her psychiatrist friend, a woman who treated Cambodian refugees. Guess what was the first thing the refugees wanted to talk about? It wasn't, the psychiatrist said, the terrible atrocities they'd witnessed. It was their love lives: the bad breakup back in the refugee camp, the boyfriend who ended up marrying their sister.

The women were shinier, more hopeful versions of your sad old drunk friend who dresses like a 19-year-old, clutches her Gucci bag like it's a portal to a posher life, and thinks you'd love to hear her latest tale of fellatio gone wrong Perhaps the reason we love to hate SATC is because its tremendous success pinpoints—a little too well—the fact that whatever our life situation (and most of our situations are far less glamorous than those of the women on the show), "relationship" stories guide our lives in a profound way: Dating. Breaking up. Loneliness. Wanting love from people who are never going to give it. Being unable to stomach the saps who love us against their better interests. Like it or not, this is the shit we care about. The series merely reflected this, holding up its characters—male and female both—as small, self-obsessed black holes of emotional need that were, nevertheless, extremely likable romantic heroes.

In an episode from season two, an exasperated Miranda asks her friends the question critics had been pondering since the series premiered: "How did it happen that four such smart women have nothing to talk about but boyfriends?" It never became clear exactly how it had happened, only that the ladies really had nothing else to discuss. (Similarly, by the time in the series when Carrie got around to asking her crew, "Are we simply romantically challenged, or are we sluts?" It was already evident that they were both.) The women of SATC were single-minded. They were sex obsessed. Their dialogue surrounding sex and relationships was sometimes so pat and pun-filled that you longed for the subtlety of a Stanford Blatch side plot. But, still, they didn't spawn the Manolo-clad cougars perched in the meatpacking district. To the contrary, they are drag versions of those women. Art imitating life: a shinier, more hopeful version of your sad old drunk friend who dresses like a 19-year-old, clutches her Gucci bag like it's a portal to a posher life, and thinks you'll love to hear her latest tale of fellatio gone terribly wrong.

What SATC got was that sometimes you really do want to hear that story. That you'd even pay for the pleasure of hearing that story, so long as it could be detached from feeling sorry for your sad old drunk friend.

That's why we not-entirely-"vapid" women march on the multiplex, hungry for Carrie's bad rhetorical "In New York" questions, and Samantha's musings on reverse cowgirl. We're not trying to be like them. On a grand, overblown scale, they are trying to be us. And that, if perhaps not high art, is certainly great entertainment and worth the cost of admission.