After reading Katerina’s post on Sex and the City and in honor of SATC’s opening debut today, I felt I had to give my two cents on why so many women will be flocking by the millions to see our favorite gals this evening and maybe throwing down a Cosmo afterwards.
I have not only read Candace Bushnell’s book which the TV series is very loosely based on, but I have watched every single episode twice of Sex and the City (thank you Netflix). I guess you could call me a fan.
If you don’t watch SATC because you like it, watch it because it will make you feel morally superior. I realized initially that is exactly why I was watching it. I got a real high–sitting on my sofa nursing my new baby for hours on end–watching shallow Carrie and egotistical Samantha make terrible relationship decisions and mistakes. Evidently I am not the only one who gets this joy. The comboxes are filled with “and that is what women get for living like immoral men.” Oh the joy I had comparing my life to their morally decrepit and emotionally vacant lives. Somewhere in the middle, though, I realized THAT was the point. Carrie gives us a clue in the very first episode that the dating scene in Manhattan is cynical and vicious. To each to their own and yet . . . that is not what SATC is all about.
At some point I started realizing that even though our worlds were very apart, I could relate to Miranda. Her struggle to be her own person and yet learning how to surrender to love. I mentioned this to my comadre and she said, “Don’t you think that is the point, RCM? We all can relate to these women and have each one of them in us at some point in our life.” And she is right. Though the women’s methods are dysfunctional and imperfect, they still reveal a deep yearning for Love. And even though they each start out wanting selfish Love, they each end up learning selfless Love. I would venture a guess that most of us when we first marry are pretty close to these ladies. We may think we are selfless but in reality most of us are motivated by lust. It is only after time and some pain/sacrifice in our relationship, when push comes to shove, that the lust fades away and married love reveals itself to us.
For super control freak Miranda (my favorite character), it is her child that converts her. And as a new mother, struggling to overcome Myself as I spent unexpected hours and hours allowing my daughter to nurse when she wanted, I could so understand Miranda’s final surrender to her son as she realized she was now a mommy for real and her pre-mommy life didn’t exist anymore. And that was ok.
Samantha’s conversion is a man who loves her unconditionally. She doesn’t want to love him and, worse, she doesn’t want him to love her unconditionally because it will mean she will have to respond to it. Over time, she gives in and his unconditional love makes her a better person. How many of us struggle to allow ourselves to be loved for who we are? As Samantha struggles with her mortality when she faces cancer, I could understand her struggle with vulnerability as I was ill and all of sudden could no longer care for my own family. I had to learn to let others care for me–cook my food, watch my daughter, walk my dog, clean my bathrooms. Like Samantha, most of us are so proud and despise vulnerability. How many husbands and fathers could handle losing a job and having to search for another one? Most of the ones I know don’t do well when something like that happens. How many of us do well when a loved one suffers? We are Samantha. Proud and self-centered.
Charlotte: I love Charlotte, too, especially because she thinks of herself as one way and yet lives a completely disjointed life. It is only her love for her second husband, Harry, and her conversion to Judaism that Charlotte’s actions and words merge. Who she wants to become is fulfilled in married life and her new found faith. If this isn’t a Catholic message, I don’t know what is.
And then we have Carrie. Carrie reminds me of what Dorothy Day calls “The Long Loneliness.” She is the epitome of a deep longing in our materialistic culture. Christians will criticize SATC this weekend, and yet, these ladies represent OUR society and even our own lives. How many of us upgrade items we have? Do we really have to upgrade? What type of vehicles do we drive? Clothes, name brands? Most of us participate in materialism because we are searching for something–community, God, wholeness. Carrie happens to do it in a different way and yet most of us are not that far removed from her sentiments. Even Christians experience loneliness at some level, though, hopefully we find better methods of coping than Ms. Fashion Queen.
My absolute favorite scene in all of the SATC episodes is the one where Miranda searches for her mother-in-law who suffers from dementia. She finds her mil eating out of a trash can and Miranda takes her home and bathes her. Self-sufficient Miranda bathes her disliked mother-in-law because she loves her husband so much she doesn’t want him to know his mother ate trash. It is this surrendering to sacrifice, motherhood, family, and Love that motivates women like me to love Sex and the City despite the raunchiness.
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