Re: A Brazilian Marxist's take on Sex and the City
Car.os wrote: As carrie Bradshaw must renounce tabagism for romantic love's sake, and Xena renounce Gabrielle for the Greater Good's, so Gibson's Christ must willingly embrace the most senseless torture in order to redeem Mankind (remember, by the way, that there were some very popular early heresies who, opposedly, made the Passion a sham by proposing that what had been crucified was Christ's ghost, and not the real Christ, as God cannot possibly suffer physical pain). It's in this pedagogy of suffering, perhaps, that reside the most obnoxiously reactionary traits of Mass Culture; as there is something akin in it to the acceptance of Taylorism and Henry Ford's social experiments by the working classes... Oh, for sure. You nailed it. My favorite part of xena was the Gabrielle stuff. As for SATC, the first couple of seasons were OK, but you're so right about the stultifying happy endings. I mean "radical" solutions included 1) an interfaith marriage, 2) an interclass marriage, 3) an older woman/younger man "marriage", and 4) a cinderella marriage. Marriage, marriage, marriage, marriage. Yawn. As for the Christ blood gore. That's truly scary. Because essentially what it says is "if they could do this to god, what have you got to complain about? How far will you go to prove your righteousness? How many of your children will you sacrifice?" This is bad, bad, bad. The horror before the horror. I hate to think what that might be. Joanna
A Brazilian Marxist's take on Sex and the City
> Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2004 10:52:56 -0500 > From: Louis Proyect <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Subject: [Marxism] Sex and the City > I would also have to confess that I became a big fan of this show over > the past few months. I too, Louis, I too...But in my case that had perhaps more to do with the fact that I begen watching the show justly after I had watched my last Xena episode, therefore I had some kind of a craving for a women-centered show. Well, I believe S& TC fares badly in comparision. Since I wrote I whole book on Mass Culture centered on Xena, I think I should be able to explain the reasons for my particular preferences. What made for me the charm of Xena was its unbalenced character, the fact that the abduction of the heroine as a lesbian icon by the show's fandom left its writers and producers threading on very thin ice in their attitude towards postmodern petit-bourgeois radicalism, eventually failing to justify their (conventional)closing of the show by making Xena dye for the Greater Good - and heterosexual morals. Nothing of this kind is to be found in Sex and the City, which is the usual portraying of the _via crucis_ of four dysfunctional females struggling towards their final - and willingly - acceptance of monogamy and family values, admittedly with some good jokes in-between (most of them, by the way, vernacular and leaving me somwhat at a loss as far as prompt understanding is concerned). As far as I'm concerned, my interst in S & TC began to flag somewhere during the third season, when character Carrie Bradshaw decided to quit smoking in order to get back her romantic interest Aidan ( a good decision prompted by the most obnoxious, priggish reasons, to say the least). Those who, like Adorno & Horkheimer, resume Mass Culture under the notion of "mindless entertainment", seem to me to be unaware of the element of the pedagogics of suffering that's to be found in it, or better, what Gramsci called the ethics of Fordism, that's to say the huge amount of _internalized repression_ the lead-characters must self-inflict in order to arrive at the happy ending - the same pedagogy of suffering that seems at work in Mel Gibson's late cinematic rendering of Ultramontane Catholicism. As carrie Bradshaw must renounce tabagism for romantic love's sake, and Xena renounce Gabrielle for the Greater Good's, so Gibson's Christ must willingly embrace the most senseless torture in order to redeem Mankind (remember, by the way, that there were some very popular early heresies who, opposedly, made the Passion a sham by proposing that what had been crucified was Christ's ghost, and not the real Christ, as God cannot possibly suffer physical pain). It's in this pedagogy of suffering, perhaps, that reside the most obnoxiously reactionary traits of Mass Culture; as there is something akin in it to the acceptance of Taylorism and Henry Ford's social experiments by the working classes... Carlos Rebello -- The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Sex and the City
Back in 1994 Candace Bushnell began writing a column in Arthur Carter's weekly NY Observer called "Sex and the City". Since Carter's upscale salmon-colored publication was being given away for free on NYC's Upper East Side at the time, I would pick it up to satisfy my unquenchable reading addiction. I was also curious to see where Carter was going with his NYC paper, which seemed to be modeled on his Litchfield County Times--an outlet for coverage on antique auctions, debutante balls, yacht races and other WASP foibles in Connecticut. I was puzzled at the time why Arthur Carter would also be the publisher of the Nation Magazine, a journal that I had a strong identification with in the late 1980s and even sent donations to from time to time. Of course, it is much clearer to me in hindsight that Carter was part of a process to shift the magazine to the right, where it now sits as a kind of Kerberos of liberal orthodoxy. I remember Bushnell's column leaving me cold at the time. It was a hodge-podge of fictionalized references to the nightlife of Eurotrash, investment bankers, models and freelance writers that she had access to. Her columns left me cold because I had some familiarity with this world as well and what I saw left much to be desired. Escorted by an old friend from Hollywood and the Catskills, I had spent enough time in Nell's (a trendy disco), the Hotel Chelsea (a Warhol hangout) and art galleries to know that these were not places to have an intelligent conversation, which for me is the ultimate aphrodisiac. Bushnell's columns were transformed eventually into the highly acclaimed HBO series, which had its final episode last week. Co-Producer Sarah Jessica Parker played Carrie Bradshaw, who is loosely modeled on Bushnell. The three other lead characters were single females who like her were on a nonstop hunt for sexy men, great restaurants and drop-dead designer clothing. You never find any reference to the other NYC in this show. The stars never take subways, they are never confronted by homeless people and they never worry about AIDS. In other words, their NYC has about as much connection to the real thing as a Woody Allen movie, or its antecedent in another troubled time, the movies of Fred Astaire. I would also have to confess that I became a big fan of this show over the past few months. I will explain why momentarily. For people who had been watching the show for a long time, especially women who identified with the four co-stars, the final episode was a major event. People gathered together to watch it together. The New York Times reported: >>What better way to mark the end of "Sex and the City" than a ménage à 50? Across New York, people commemorated the end of the cable television show that romanticized New York City for six seasons by massing together and tuning in. Bars pushed "Sex and the City" parties. Friends gathered at one another's apartments. Out-of-towners bereft of cable posted desperate messages on Internet bulletin boards. One party that captured the spirit and meaning of the show could be found inside a loft on West 49th Street. Fifty women, some in their 20's and some in their 50's, some friends and some strangers, piled onto couches and sat on the floor to watch the last unfurling of a television show that seemed always to be about them. They got slightly drunk on wine and pomegranate-red Cosmopolitans, laughed at the same moments and cried through the ending. Some hooted and others clucked when the main character, a sex columnist named Carrie Bradshaw (played by Sarah Jessica Parker), decided to abandon her boyfriend in Paris and return to New York with a recurring love interest, known, until last night, only as Mr. Big (played by Chris Noth). The show's final punch line - that Mr. Big's name is John - drew shrieks all around. As people trickled into the cavernous white loft, they marveled how, over its six years, a show that began with jokes about oral sex and orgasms had become such a part of their lives. "It's a sad night for us," said Jalande James, 29, who organized the party at the rented loft as part of Just Us Girls, a social network for women in New York. "We've lived with it for so long. When I moved here from Florida, I knew nobody. I'd watch 'Sex and the City' and think, 'Oh my God, they have such wonderful lives.'"<< In Preston Sturges's "Sullivan's Travels", a screwball comedy made in 1941, the eponymous lead character is a Hollywood director who has become highly successful making comedies, but who is frustrated with the studio's refusal to allow him to make serious films about the working class. In other words, Sullivan appears to be a fictionalized representation of Sturges himself. Sullivan decides to go
Re: Sex and the City
Come on, this show was narcissism on the runway, where every woman was an Imelda Marcos wannabe (not that I begrudge women their shoes. I even pay for them willingly, if their the right shoes to be worn at the right time). But this show. Hackneyed, unimaginative, not just self-absorbed, but culturally absorbed. Appropriate response would be The Contours "First I Look at the Purse." - Original Message - From: "Louis Proyect" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Thursday, February 26, 2004 10:52 AM Subject: [PEN-L] Sex and the City
Re: Sex and the City
schanoes wrote: Come on, this show was narcissism on the runway, where every woman was an Imelda Marcos wannabe (not that I begrudge women their shoes. I even pay for them willingly, if their the right shoes to be worn at the right time). Of course it was about narcissism. So what. The real question is whether it was amusing or not. I find P.J, Wodehouse laugh out loud funny even though Bertie Wooster makes Carrie Bradshaw look like Rosa Luxemburg. Louis Proyect Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Re: Sex and the City
Fair enough. Not amusing, that was the point. No more amusing than having to sit next to a bunch of overpaid junior Wall Streeters with too much disposable income at their tender ages, and listen to them worry about next year's bonus. dms - Original Message - From: "Louis Proyect" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Of course it was about narcissism. So what. The real question is whether it > was amusing or not. I find P.J, Wodehouse laugh out loud funny even though > Bertie Wooster makes Carrie Bradshaw look like Rosa Luxemburg. > > > Louis Proyect > Marxism list: www.marxmail.org >
Re: Sex and the City
This is the tragedy of Lou Proyect. Smart, funny, and stylish - if only he could cut as much slack for people on the left he doesn't always agree with as he does Carrie & Bertie. Doug dmschanoes wrote: Fair enough. Not amusing, that was the point. No more amusing than having to sit next to a bunch of overpaid junior Wall Streeters with too much disposable income at their tender ages, and listen to them worry about next year's bonus. dms - Original Message - From: "Louis Proyect" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Of course it was about narcissism. So what. The real question is whether it was amusing or not. I find P.J, Wodehouse laugh out loud funny even though Bertie Wooster makes Carrie Bradshaw look like Rosa Luxemburg. Louis Proyect Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Re: Sex and the City
Please, not this. On Thu, Feb 26, 2004 at 11:42:42PM -0500, Doug Henwood wrote: > This is the tragedy of Lou Proyect. Smart, funny, and stylish - if > only he could cut as much slack for people on the left he doesn't > always agree with as he does Carrie & Bertie. > > Doug > > dmschanoes wrote: > > >Fair enough. Not amusing, that was the point. No more amusing than having > >to sit next to a bunch of overpaid junior Wall Streeters with too much > >disposable income at their tender ages, and listen to them worry about next > >year's bonus. > > > >dms > > > >- Original Message - > >From: "Louis Proyect" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > >> Of course it was about narcissism. So what. The real question is whether > >it > >> was amusing or not. I find P.J, Wodehouse laugh out loud funny even though > >> Bertie Wooster makes Carrie Bradshaw look like Rosa Luxemburg. > >> > >> > >> Louis Proyect > >> Marxism list: www.marxmail.org > >> -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
Re: Sex and the City
I can see it on the back of a book by Louis: "smart, funny, and stylish..." Doug Henwood, author of After the New Economy. Michael Yates - Original Message - From: Doug Henwood To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, February 26, 2004 8:42 PM Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Sex and the City This is the tragedy of Lou Proyect. Smart, funny, and stylish - ifonly he could cut as much slack for people on the left he doesn'talways agree with as he does Carrie & Bertie.Dougdmschanoes wrote:>Fair enough. Not amusing, that was the point. No more amusing than having>to sit next to a bunch of overpaid junior Wall Streeters with too much>disposable income at their tender ages, and listen to them worry about next>year's bonus.>>dms>>- Original Message ->From: "Louis Proyect" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>>> Of course it was about narcissism. So what. The real question is whether>it>> was amusing or not. I find P.J, Wodehouse laugh out loud funny even though>> Bertie Wooster makes Carrie Bradshaw look like Rosa Luxemburg.>>>>>> Louis Proyect>> Marxism list: www.marxmail.org>>
