sex and the city and me and the city

OK, here's the confession. I can't wait to see Sex and the City 2. This is no big deal unless you know me. Because, most likely, I am one of the least likely SATC fans you could meet.I mean, I consider stiletto shoes to be an evil plot foisted on vulnerable women by men who thought it would slow them down. Barefoot is my shoe preference. If an outfit isn't made of denim or t-shirt material I feel like I'm in costume and my boutique of choice is AmVets. So what is it about Carrie and Samantha and Miranda and Charlotte that calls me?





I refused to watch the series when it first came on HBO because the little bits I saw of it looked like it was a series about women in search of men and little else. Yuk. Then, one night, bored and finding nothing on the 427 channels TimeWarner provided, I chose an old episode. Then another. and another. I watched for hours. This was actually good stuff. Funny. Sexy. Touching. Silly. Fluff. Fantasy.

And these women had lives and careers. A writer, a lawyer, public relations, an art historian. Huh. The men they partnered with were interesting, sexy, flawed. And they are grownups. Imagine.

I think women escape into this movie just like some men escape into comic book characters and action figures and alien fantasies and shoot-em-ups. It is hard for me to take seriously the smug dismissiveness of a grown man holding a ticket to Spiderman 3 or Dark Knight. Same, same, same. The girls are my comic book. For a couple of hours I can watch an existence so alien from mine that it makes Avatar look like real life.

Besides, I can identify with Miranda's reluctance to be domesticized, Carrie's struggle with love and art, Samantha's desire to feed her desires her way and Charlotte's family fantasies that bump into real life. It's women's work dressed in shimmery fabric. Add in hysterically over the top ridiculous, funny stuff like trying to answer a cell phone while riding a camel through the desert and I'm there. I get it.

One of the things I love most about women is our ability to laugh at ourselves and our lives. You have to. And I intend to..at the multiplex in my city. I'll be the one in jeans and an old shirt, shoes kicked under the seat, big grin on her face.