Sex and the City

For our “Sex and the City” presentation, we all did equal parts to ensure the success of the topic. We aimed to incorporate Butler, Barker, and the four women on the show to give the class an idea of how television influences gender, the viewer at home, and urban spaces. For my contribution, I had the idea of making the virgin martinis since they serve as such an important social activity for the women on the series. Martinis are another friend of the girls and one could argue, “Sex and the City” made the Cosmopolitan martini famous. I also wrote the quiz which I thought would be fun for the class. It allowed individuals to find out which character they identified with in a fun and quirky manner. I chose the video clip that we showed at the beginning to illustrate who each character was. The clip demonstrated that one can make the point that any of the characters are radical but at the end of the day, they are all searching for “the one.” Each member of our group wrote questions for the presentation. We all had a specific character to analyze and write a question about. My character was Charlotte. I defined who she was and then discussed her role in the group and society. We also each wrote a question based on the Barker text about urban spaces and television. Everyone participated equally and we all had a fun time putting it together.

Keyword: The City

“Sex and The City” follows the lives of four new age women through life in New York City. But could one argue five friends? New York City can be argued as the fifth friend in the series. Without the city, the show would not have a point of view. Each woman represents a strong female perspective in a whirlwind atmosphere in New York City. In Barker’s text, the social construction of space in an urban world is gender specific. For example, “home is regarded as the domain of ‘private’ and the feminine” (Barker 377) yet each woman in the series is not defined at all by her home life. Carrie is a well known columnist and author, Samantha is a successful publicist, Miranda is a strong business woman and Charlotte is a creative art dealer. Their home life is not focused on, but their sex life sure is. At one point in time, sex was not for a woman’s pleasure at all, yet in this series the woman are in the drivers seat, narrating the show and calling the shots. As Carrie points out in this clip though, many of these successful woman are alone. Could it be that Barker is right in that “paid work [is] the domain of men, connoting the primary values of toughness” (Barker 377). Possibly, strong, successful women are not a man’s fantasy and therefore the reason why many hardworking women in big cities like New York end up marrying their career or their respective city.

As Miranda points out, to a working woman, their is no need for a man. She says, “You can’t talk to them, you don’t need them to have kids with you, You don’t even need them to have sex with you anymore as I have just very pleasantly discovered.” All the woman really needs is the city she lives in. The city becomes her man, her lover, her fair trade for a successful busy life. But maybe the city only becomes what she needs to comfort what she does not have? Rob Shields points out that “the notion of ‘the city,’ the city itself is a representation” (Barker 403). If that is true, then maybe for the women of “Sex and the City” New York provides them an out, an easy answer to the big question, Why are you single? Oh, you know it’s so hard being a working woman dating in a big “city.” Therefore, the city becomes the 5th friend, the constant companion, so if one is ever alone, honking cabs and bright lights can keep them company.