My friend Paula has a shoe fetish and will typically juggle two or more dates in one night. My other friend Tangela can meet a man at a professional event and within minutes of being introduced convince him to take her out for an expensive dinner that same night. Do these characters sound familiar? No, they aren’t secondary characters from the popular television program turned movie, “Sex and The City”, they are real women who live right here in Harlem.
Even though the “Sex and the City” characters have never set a pair of their Monolos on the ground past 96th Street, doesn’t mean that real uptown girls can’t relate to the bittersweet tales of fashion disasters, love gone wrong, and addictions of all sorts suffered by the four alpha females portrayed on the screen.
One of the oft-cited criticisms of the show is that women of color weren’t represented on the show. This shortcoming in terms of diversity didn’t seem to affect the show’s ratings, however. If anything, it opened up a market for producer Mara Brock Akil to pitch her idea for a comedy about 4 black girlfriends in L.A. called “Girlfriends,” who faced the same struggles as Carrie, Amanda, Charlotte and Samantha on “Sex and The City”. The show ran for 8 seasons—two years longer than “Sex and the City”.
Last week, The New York Times ran a piece called “Sex and the Rest of the City” that investigated whether the show appealed to women of color who live in neighborhoods the four high-brow women on the show wouldn’t dream of visiting, nevertheless live in (despite what Parker says in a recent Daily News article.
The Times article found that the show has a cross cultural appeal despite the fact that the characters spend more on a pair of shoes than some people pay in rent. What regular women could relate to where the personal problems faced by the characters. “Race is not a factor. It’s a girl thing,” says one respondent from the Times article. Other women were simply enthralled by the glamorous lifestyle the women live and saw the show more as a fantasy or escape from the drudgery of their own daily drama.
According to the only Harlem resident quoted:
“I think the ‘Sex and the City’ women do portray the single life in New York City for the most part,” said Alkia Thompson, a 36-year-old single woman who lives in Harlem and plans to see the movie Friday night. “ ‘Sex and the City’ is my little fantasy. When I watch it, it gives me a chance to get away from everyday life. I can escape into their world.
“I mean, who can afford Jimmy Choos? I can’t even afford one pair! But the way New York City is changing now, you’re going to need a lot of money to live here. I don’t mind changes like this, but I don’t like the fact that people are being pushed out.”
So, did you get to see this movie this weekend? What appeal does it hold for you?
Photo credit: Vibe Vixen
Brigitte
June 3, 2008
Great article, thanks for linking it.