Sex and the City: Is this feminism?

It’s not just a movie, said Scott Bowles in USA Today, it’s a “nationwide ladies’ night out.” This weekend Sex and the City sashayed onto the big screen, complete with its sassy, signature mix of cosmopolitans, Mr. Big, and, of course, $700 Manolo Blahnik stilettos. Once again, hopelessly romantic Carrie, vampy Samantha, cynical Miranda, and prim Charlotte are lunching, gabbing, and pursuing carnal satisfaction in giddy Manhattan. Most men—and many feminists—are mystified by the enduring popularity of this ’90s retro fantasy, one in which the all-girl lunches are endless, clothes and sex are the whole point, and Sept. 11 apparently never happened. Nonetheless, the movie grossed $55.7 million, an opening-weekend record for a romantic comedy, as women, “who made up 85 percent of the audience,” dressed up like their favorite characters and flooded theaters. “We’ve been waiting years for this,” said Patricia Ackerman, 42. “This is our Indiana Jones.”

Count me among the puzzled, said Michael Gove in the London Times. Sex is a “dated’’ throwback from a vapid decade, and I can’t see why women ever saw its four stars as feminist icons. They remain “thin to the point of anorexia, hairstyled to catwalk perfection, and on trend to the point of exhaustion.” Choosing what to wear is the extent of their intellectual life. Carrie and company go to pieces without boyfriends or husbands, yet once they find them, the men become “captive animals to parade, and then dissect, in front of others.” This movie should never have been made. Its continuing celebration of consumer goods, lust, and superficial mindlessness “is not just out of date but plain bad taste.”

You just don’t get it, said Bobby Hankinson in the Houston Chronicle. Yes, the characters can verge on caricature, and their longing for both independence and the perfect man are contradictory. But what intelligent woman doesn’t have these “conflicting emotions” from time to time? Once you get past the brand names and the bed games, the heart of Sex and the City is the enduring and warmly supportive friendship among Carrie, Miranda, Samantha, and Charlotte. They know that no matter what life or men may throw at them, they will always be loved. My girlfriends and I can certainly relate to that, said Cathleen Falsani in the Chicago Sun-Times. It’s this celebration of “true love’’ among women, not the shoes and the man-talk, that’s “drawing us to the multiplexes in droves.”

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