First Word

This was an HBO series aimed at modern young women that is now available on DVD. It was a six-year sensation spanning the new millennium.

The framework of every episode of the series is the same. The dating escapades of four girls are shown. (They are 30-something but the publicity refers to them that way as do the “girls” themselves.) Then the four get together for drinks or brunch and talk about it. This cycle repeats over and over again. The romance column that one of them writes based on the friends’ experiences makes the thematic repetition plausible.

Each of the four friends is a personified stereotype: there is the Uptown Girl, the Tomboy, the Slut, and the Den Mother, the latter playing the role of the writer as well.

The Uptown Girl (“Charlotte,” brunette played by Kristen Davis), though no less promiscuous than the other girls (except of course, the Slut) is squeamish about obscenities — she withers cutely whenever the others let one rip –, dresses prep, and melts at any mention of the word “love,” whether the object should be human or canine. She dreams of a wedding, kids, and happy family.

The Tomboy (“Miranda,” redhead played by Cynthia Nixon) is a successful lawyer, and her problem is finding men that are superior to her and thus worthy of being her husband. Of course, she is hip and modern, so she wouldn’t put it that way. She is “looking for her equal.” What she gets is a bartender.

The Slut (“Samantha,” blond played by Kim Cattrall) is dogmatically opposed to keeping one man for very long; eventually, at 40-something, she falls in love and begins to change her tune. But it took many years to get there, and it is not certain that the change will stick.

The Den Mother (“Carrie,” dark dyed light, played by Sarah Jessica Parker), as writer, takes on the role of narrator or chorus, who by voice-over provides omniscient commentary. Not only does her column set the theme for each episode, but she is also the one in which each girl confides when one-on-one consolation is needed.

Men wander through the series like errant cattle, but exactly one man spans the series from the very first to the last episode: “Mr. Big,” played by Chris Noth, the on-again, off-again main beau of the Den Mother. He is rich and suave. But his lack of a real name is indicative of his fundamental instability and “inability to commit” as girls say.

At the outset, it must be questioned whether four girls of this range of personality and interest would really have bonded so tightly. We can see the problem in one episode where the Uptown Girl has lunch with her old sorority gals from Smith. When she one moment decides to break out of the etiquette (read: hypocrisy) and starts talking like the Slut, she immediately becomes ostracized by her fellow uptown girls. But this is a problem she too would have had to face at some point in the past from her own personality, in having the Slut as such an intimate friend. And for a while in the episodes, she does wince and cringe at the Slut’s vulgarities. It is surely a stretch to think these two would be close friends. The Slut would not likely be so loyal and faithful even with girlfriends. Likewise, it is unlikely that the Tomboy would have become intimate with any of the others. So the fundamental premise of the show is dubious.

In addition to the girls and their love-interests, two of them each have a pet faggot that they lead around town to emote with: the Uptown Girl has her Anthony, and the Den Mother has her Stanford. Like a couple of rival poodles, the faggots hiss and yap at each other. However, they also function as a meme for a more sinister agenda, as I will argue.

The general consistency of the characters brings about a kind of affection for the main players that is analogous to real-life. You feel like you are getting to know real people. Gradually, you can’t imagine life without them. So willy-nilly, one is drawn into taking another episodic draught.

The script, though uneven in quality, is sometimes quite clever. Just often enough to overcome the repugnance of the frequent obscenity, not to mention the continual dishing-up of flim-flam faux-sophistication, there are poignant scenes that are truly affecting, some moments of true insight, and some moments that will trick a hearty belly-laugh out of you. A few examples must suffice to illustrate. (Throughout, I will indicate [season#/episode#] in parentheses.)

• Carrie (the Den Mother) is spending a day in a back-woods cabin with her Regular Guy Aidan, when Big, now a rival, shows up (4/10). There is great tension between the guys. Aidan goes out and bangs a basketball against the house in obnoxious manner. Carrie tells Big he should go out and talk to him. “What should I say?” Big asks. Carrie: “I don’t know. You’re a guy, he’s a guy, there’s a ball; figure it out.” So Big goes out, and it leads to a full-scale fight. Carrie hops around, distraught, as the guys roll in the mud. But the fight clears the air, and the guys become friends as a result. Carrie is flummoxed. This is outside her comprehension.
• Brooke only dated A-list guys. “We were anxious at her wedding to see which one made the cut.” (1/9)
• On the way to a friend’s baby shower, the girls pile into the car, a convertible. But no one is in the driver’s seat (1/10).
• On a peradventure, Carrie drops in on Big, only to find the apartment emptied of all furniture, and Big about to move to California. There is a portable phonograph, and he plays Henry Mancini. They dance. (4/18)

The first observation must be of the show’s treatment of women. It quickly becomes clear that is it extremely liberated in one way, but extremely stereotyped-traditional in another. Let me explore this aspect first.

Feminism with a Twist

First generation feminism was suffragism: the female vote was needed to bring about the temperance and peace that men, due to their characteristic vices, were unable to achieve alone. The 19th Amendment, just after WW1, was the culmination. Second generation feminism was exemplified by Simone de Beauvoir, with her “despite our differences, let’s affirm our brotherhood.” I take de Beauvoir as a particularly tragic emblem of intelligent feminism. Though clearly the superior intellect, she worshipped and served her hero Sartre, did his laundry, didn’t ask for marriage, and looked the other way at his frequent dalliances. She was rewarded by Sartre leaving his fortune to one of his unofficial concubines. Third generation feminism was the 60s generation, Betty Friedan, bra-burning, careerism, and general antagonism toward men. This posture proved not to be appealing at a primal level to their daughters. Sex and the City exemplifies the reaction, which I dub fourth-generation feminism. Let me unpack this a bit.

Many of the differences between the sexes are re-embraced and celebrated: the girlish love of fashion, experimenting with new “looks,” rolling of the eyes heavenward at typical masculine foibles, girl-talk, and throughout an unbashful acknowledgment of the natural longing for a meaningful relationship with a man. Indeed, even man-exploiter Samantha at one point breaks down, tearfully lamenting that nothing matters if you are all alone, if there is no man in your life (3/10).

It is frankly assumed that women are not supposed to be mechanically handy. At one point, the Uptown Girl takes up with a man just because he is a handy-man, and can fix her household problems. Another time, the main curtains at the Slut’s apartment fall down (3/10), and she bemoans that she has just broken up with a man: now she will have to call someone. (The thought of getting out a drill and screwdriver and fixing the curtain herself is not entertained for even an instant.)

It is assumed that women are apolitical — Carrie admits she has never voted (3/1), and later in that same episode, it is hinted that single women just “want to be rescued.” Every week, the girls pour over the engagements listed in the NY Times — it is the “girls’ sports page” (3/3). In a gender reversal scene, Charlotte blusters that she can’t play a boy because she is not good at math (3/4). Carrie at one point falls for a woodworker, and when she helps him operate a booth at a fair, she proudly repeats “I’m his booth-bitch” over and over again (3/9). So woman as man’s helper resonates primally. And when the Tomboy’s relation with the bartender starts to take off, she exults when the stage is reached that she does his laundry (3/7).

Despite the sexual liberation that is presumed, the writers cannot help but fall back into the view of woman as the dispenser and controller of sexual favors. Carrie “lets” the Yankee “get to first base” (2/1). Another time, she gives her best “lean in and kiss me” move (2/16). Charlotte lets her “best #1 have it all” (5/5). Numerous other times, this same reality seeps out, despite themselves.

Yet through all that, there is the obligatory testiness exhibited if ever it should be hinted that a woman should give up her career for marriage or family. The girls scoff when Charlotte wants to quit her work (4/7). Carrie is reluctant to let Aidan help with her computer (4/8). Periodically, digs are taken at married life using now-married former friends as the foil: it’s not all it’s cracked up to be, as the painful baby shower episode makes clear (1/10).

Through it all, individual choice is the rallying cry. Abortion is ratified as a right (4/11), though, happily, declined in the event. But that’s my choice!

Thus, the best of both worlds is offered.

Arcs and Themes

Since Seinfeld, the fashion in television has been to create “arcs” and “themes.” By theme I mean a common motif that stiches all the sub-plots of an episode together, usually cleverly reflected in the title. Arc refers to a story within the epic that spans several scenes, with a beginning, a build-up, and a letting back down to a conclusion. The effect is to create interest that spans episodes, creating cohesion and mutual-reinforcement of the themes.

Although the Den Mother is the narrative center of the series, it seems to me that the main arc of the series is exemplified in the story of the Uptown Girl. As showcase WASP, she reflects the instincts most natural to a young girl. Her debasement is the main story. But before unpacking this, several other themes should also be revealed.

The Racial Arc

How did they get away with producing a show about four girlfriends that all glow pink? How could a liberal show not insist on having a Negress or Oriental, or at least an out-of-the-closet jewess as part of the circle?

To some extent, the Slut-character made racial uniformity necessary at the outset. Suppose there had been a Negress in the circle. Then she would either have to be the lusty one — stereotyping! — or not — incredible!

Or perhaps the motive was simpler. Fashion is a big part of the design of the program. Each girl wears an astonishing number of different outfits within each 20 or 25 minute episode. (Real brand names are dropped continually, so that either the show is itself nothing but a grand extended infomercial, or certain fashion designers and shoe-makers got a lot of free publicity.) It is well-known (whether celebrated or lamented) that white girls are favored to model fashions. This is not due to prejudice on the part of the magazine publishers, but purely serving up what the customers want.

However, regardless of what the initial motive was, that the story was both racially pure and self-conscious about it is proven by the first inter-racial encounter (2/4): “as Samantha looked into the Pakistani’s hopeful eyes, she realized, sometimes it’s better to be alone than to fake it.”

The producers soon saw to taking care of this little defect — though of course keeping the pretty white girls as the exclusive display bodies for the fashion.

In 3/5, the Slut falls for a Negro. In view of what has gone before, the shock is palpable. They heap it on by including a date at a nigger-disco, where extreme (i.e. obscene) dancing takes place and guns are checked for at the door. But the writers with one stroke recover the status quo and add to the humiliation of the white girl by having the Negro’s sister take her aside and forbid further contact between them — “he’s my blood” she says — a phrase that would have been forbidden to any of the white friends.

It’s probably not a coincidence that in the same episode, fag-kissing is introduced: miscegenation is felt to be a perversion, though not acknowledged as such; the faggotry becomes a correlative wedge.

The producers break the ice with the Slut, but they finish it with the Tomboy: Miranda gets the ticket to take the ultimate fall here. They show her lusting after a mixed-race couple in a BBC soap opera “Jules and Mimi” (6A/2). Then, life imitates fantasy when a big Negro becomes the next tenant in the condo complex (6A/9). Miranda is instantly smitten.

This is nothing less than the public degradation of the beautiful White woman, justified by our Established Religion of Orgasm.

In the end, Miranda dumps the Negro in favor of her rekindled bartender flame. But the meme was thoroughly planted.

Sexual Deviance

The pet faggots serve a very specific function. They ratchet up the level of sensual perversity, so that the girls can follow in their wake and it seems a little less shocking. The faggots are like the fulcrum of a lever, by which the perversity can be leveraged into position.

To understand why, it needs to be pointed out that the lead writer and executive producer, Michael Patrick King, is a declared homosexual, as is the show’s founder, Darren Starr. Knowing this is key to understanding the show’s peculiar tapping into feminine sensibilities combined with masculine energy. This combination was probably the secret to the show’s success.

Yet it is also the key to understanding the perversity. A faggot is neither wholly feminine nor wholly masculine. He rejects the latter, and tries to embrace the former, but without the proper credentials. The faggot is given over to his lusts, and the “return spring” is stretched out and useless. Where a normal person still subject to common grace will feel an urge after a binge to return home, the faggot has simply established a new starting point.

Thus, the self-deception is self-reinforcing. It is a culpable desire to corrupt, but for that it is not necessarily fully self-conscious. Faggotry is perverseness come into its own. It is a seed that has mutated, and organically brings forth its crooked trunk.

This is why having a homosexual at the helm creates a situation that cannot be remedied.

The Blasphemy Arc

The ease and frequency that our Savior’s name is used as a cheap ejaculation, or an expression of shock and disgust, is shocking and disgusting.

This is not so much an arc as a crescendo.

It started infrequently, and from the mouth of Mr. Big initially, so that it could have been taken as another sign of his worthlessness. But it slowly increases in frequency.

First it was Big (1/1) then the Tomboy (1/3) then Big or anonymous men (1/3, 4, 11). Then, the Tomboy again (2/1). Not until 2/4 does Carrie do it. But once she starts, it picks up steam.

It is the old frog in the pot of water heating up slowly.

The Uptown Girl rarely, perhaps never blasphemes explicitly. Why Cynthia Nixon acceded to being the point-girl for the blasphemy I cannot guess. Her persona resists having her baby baptized, though she finally acquiesces (5/2). So it would seem that she is projected as goy atheist. But we can go further with the Den Mother, who swears like a sailor once the stage is set. Sarah Jessica Parker is what is known as “half-jewish,” i.e. she had a jewish father. By the rabbinic rule, that does not count. However, she is frequently covered as a jewess by jewish media outlets, and Wiki quotes her “I always just considered myself a jew.” She is married to Matthew Broderick who did have a jewish mother, and both identify themselves as “cultural jews.” In other words, jews.

I submit, this is more than just a coincidence. The Den Mother persona is seemingly religiously apathetic, but then why the blasphemy? The jewish connection shows itself in many nooks and crannies. Parker grabs every single opportunity, no matter how subtle, at self-promotion, both on and off the set. And significantly, she alone never once shows nipple, which is a kind of oblique proof that the public nudity is indeed a kind of humiliation that the prima donna will by no means submit to. Parker is the least pretty of the foursome, though they do their best to primp her up and at the same time usually make the Tomboy look severe in order to have at least one favorable contrast. (Much later in the series, there are some shots in which the Tomboy is shown to have some excellent natural beauty that had largely been hidden through a kind of inverted magic of makeup and hairstyling.) If you stare at Parker’s visage in freeze-frame, without all the mincing and prancing, she has a gaunt, semitic face that sometimes resembles a death mask. Yet she is always the “it” girl.

In short, the meme is planted that the jewess holds court with the eager shickse babes. And the jewish princess plants the seed vigorously that blasphemy is acceptable.

Ladies, you must realize the deeply sinister manner in which this most serious of all the sins depicted in the series is normalized.

The Religious Arc

Charlotte the Uptown Girl falls in with a Hasidic (1/6) and the voice-over intones, “Daddy’s little Episcopalian princess in the arms of one of God’s chosen people.” But as with the racial arc, it is at this early stage assumed that this can’t really work, and they go their separate ways again.

Later, Carrie spots Big going into Park Avenue Presbyterian (1/12). While talking about it with the girls, the Uptown Girl gushes “it’s one of the best churches on the east side.” By this, she clearly measures it by the haut fashion. Indeed, in that same episode Charlotte goes to see a fortune teller! So much for “good church” having something to do with the gospel. This episode is the last of Season One, and it ends with the rumination that faith means belief that a man will show up that is sure “she is the one.”

Faith?!

All of that is bad enough, but the religious rape scene is yet to come.

Earlier, Charlotte had gone her separate way from the Hasidic. In between, she meets (3/7) and marries (3/12) a fellow WASP that turns out to be impotent. Worse yet, his family is filled with — you guessed it — hypocrisy. So Charlotte is set up to reject everything that defines her as a WASP. The divorce is only the beginning.

Finally she is seduced by a jew that is just the opposite of her: noisy, ill-mannered, and rude. (But, rude in a good-natured way of course.) He gets her with a gush of words — chicks love that — but some time after she falls, he admits that he could only marry a jewess (5/7).

Charlotte is indignant that he would use her body that way. And here for a brief moment we see the lie of the sexual revolution. The female is always going to believe herself “used” when a man does not have marriage as even an option. This is an inescapable sexual asymmetry. Earlier, Carrie threw a fit for the same reason when Big announced his engagement to Natasha (2/18). She had been reconciled to the breakup because of Big’s confession that he just wasn’t the marrying type. But now he is engaged to Natasha after just five months, when Carrie’s affair had lasted two whole years! Why?

Her fury is only mitigated by fantasizing that it was really Big that could not tame her. But that is a desperate salve for a bitter and galling wound.

But back to Charlotte’s being so used by the jew.

Does she get her brother to kill the lustful seducer and pretender? This is the biblical first line of defense for women. But no.

She converts to judaism (6A/3).

And this is not just pretend-ignorant Hollywood religious interchangeability. No: Charlotte is self-conscious, at one point chiding Harry that she has given up Christ, yet he can’t even give up the Mets (6A/4).

They marry, and she carries out the rites while he watches baseball.

This must surely be a Hollywood jew’s bed-time fantasy being acted out. Jew seduces shicksa but would not consider marrying her. So she converts, and she does all the silly religious stuff while he gets the best of both worlds.

Conclusion

This is a series encompassing upwards of a hundred episodes, so I have had to skip over a great deal of material. Although it is uneven, there are admittedly scenes in which a great deal of skillful craft shines. The cinematography, set-design, fabrics, furniture, and outdoors scenes are often breath-taking, worthy of an A-grade feature film. The same can sometimes be said of the music.

I can well understand much of the appeal of the series. Indeed, it is probably obvious from this review that my “relationship” to the series is a love-hate one.

Moreover, it would be easy but unhelpful to rail against the debased sensuality that is the centerpiece of the series. One thinks of C. S. Lewis’ comment, “desperate competition.” The evil of the girl-porn is only in the second or third place the lasciviousness. Indeed there is something absurd, unbelievable about girl-porn. One wants to say, c’mon; you don’t believe this. They’re trying too hard to seem credible against every natural instinct. The harm done by girl-porn is not so much flagitiousness as the improperly interpreted henid.

Women need to realize that a show like this is a deliberate exploitation of their natural vulnerabilities. One of the hallmarks of a strong person is being aware of one’s weaknesses. Not being so aware makes one weak: enemies can attack without any resistance. The manipulation here is not just to sell shoes and outfits, but to corrupt and degrade everything they have that is worth preserving. Homosexual-style sexual perversity is added to the basic promiscuity, race-mixing normalized, and above all, Christ is trampled on and rejected blasphemously. All of this is done with an insidious cunning that only jews and homosexuals could even pretend to.

The title of the series could have been, “How to rape, spindle, and mutilate the shicksa.” It is done by stealth, snake-like. It took me a long time to realize what it was about.

Try not to watch it. But if you cannot resist, then go with eyes wide open to the intentions of evil men.