The background to the series “Sex and the City”, originated from the book, a popular bestseller by Candace Bushnell, the newspaper columnist. Sex and the City is a show based on the lives of four single girlfriends who live in New York City. The four characters are very rarely seen at work, but they are wealthy enough to spend much of the on-screen time shopping, going to parties, lunching with each other and dating wealthy professional men.” (Bignell, 2008). Most women and their friends try to identify themselves with those four characters. But is it realistic for ordinary women to lead this kind of life, full of parties, sex, and expensive brands without any duties? Is sex really woman’s only concern? How can this affect young girl who is obsessed by this series and want to be exactly like the four main characters? There has been shocking news in May 2008 when a fourteen-year-old girl was so much influenced by the “Samantha” character that she lost her virginity the same year. “Samantha” is the oldest and most sexually confident of the foursome, who calls herself a "try-sexual" (meaning she will try anything once). This 14-year-old girl got hooked on series and totally identified with Samantha. She started to cheat on her boyfriend and did not have any problem to sleep with seven other guys in one week. She has even used exactly the same words in particular situations as Samantha used in the TV. This is called “monkey see and monkey do”. Portrays of women in “Sex and the city” have definitely some negative impact on young generation as well as middle-aged women who simply cannot afford Gucci handbag and not to do anything else than shopping and dating successful businessmen. http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/story?id=4895398&page=1
OK but what about the fact that Sex And the City was the first and one of the few shows that portrayed women as independent of men, intelligent, emancipated, without making a mockery of feminism. Doesn't it deserve recognition for that rather than pinpointing one case of the millions of viewers where the girl unfortunately wasn't smart enough to act according to her own moral standards and mimicked what she saw on TV?
OdpovedaťOdstrániťSex and the City portrays women as sexually free and curious as opposed to suburban Christian housewives who cook and clean and smile while picking up their husbands' dirty socks off the ground.
I think that SATC shouldn't be punished for being sexually liberal, on the contrary it should be praised. After all, the title itself suggests that there will be no reading of the Bible involved and only people who are ready to consume a little obscenity without turning into a prostitutes should watch it.
To your point about the surreal portrayal of their wealth and lifestyle to amount of work ratio, I personally think that fictional TV should not be a resemblance of reality and ordinary lives of common folks. We watch TV and movies to second handedly experience a fantasy, a dream. We, as critically thinking people should understand the distinction between fiction and reality and not subject ourselves to unrealistic expectations upon viewing someone else's fictional idealistic life on the TV receiver. Seeing these people shouldn't make us fall into depression because we don't have what they have, it should push us further and make us try as hard as we can to get it.
When analyzing media content I don't think we should work with the assumption that people are lobotomized robot monkeys but give them the benefit of the doubt.
Hi.
OdpovedaťOdstrániťIt is interesting that I can see a totally negative article about the TV show and a totally positive comment below that. There are some good points in both comments, but I think that we cannot clearly say if SATC had positive or negative impact.
Ivana, I have only one major critical comment – you should be careful with the use of “definitely” regarding impact. I doubt that there is clear evidence showing that the impact was this negative.
Karo, you made a good point saying that SATC showed women as strong and independent; it is often praised for that. However, Ivana did not exactly “pinpoint” the case of that girl. There really was some research showing that watching the show correlates with “unusual” sexual behavior - likelihood of SATC female fans getting pregnant or getting STD before reaching adulthood was much higher than that of other girls. This is not only a matter of intelligence. In adolescence, people are very sensitive to societal pressures and can be affected by a TV show. You also said that characters were “sexually free and curious”; this may be considered a positive trait, but they have been criticized for being shallow, too preoccupied with sex and not worried about its possible undesirable consequences. I know that the show was intended to entertain rather than to educate, but this criticism is not pointless, e.g. because it emphasizes that these TV shows are only fiction.
I believe that there are two sides of the issue and if we try to be objective, we should not forget about either of them.
Best,
Iva