Sexism in the City? Sort of.

Actually, I've been writing this in my head for a few days, but Caitlin made me promise to write it on the internet. This one's for you, Caitlin. And yesterday was Father's Day, an appropriate occasion to write about patriarchy (yes, I called my dad, and no, he did not oppress me). Plus I got rained out of seeing Vampire Weekend for free in Central Park Saturday afternoon and had ample opportunity, on the soggy, Tokyo-esque rush hour subway ride home, to study Anthony Lane's review in the New Yorker. After all, once I was on the train I couldn't move my arms enough to hold the magazine any further than two inches from my face. And if there's a better distraction from wondering how much Aquanet you can breathe without dying or who keeps jabbing you in the kidneys and why, I haven't found one yet.

First things first. Anthony Lane, who broke up with you? When did it happen? Are you okay? Do you want to talk about it? I can tell you're upset, but comparing Sarah Jessica Parker to Audrey Hepburn isn't going to make anybody feel feel better. A lot of people have been calling you out on writing a sexist review, and they aren't wrong (even if they are dumb, but I'm getting to that part). The misogyny is blatant enough that even journalists with only the most rudimentary understanding of feminism are able to write whole articles on it - but like I said, I'm getting to that part. Aside from the much-quoted "hormonal hobbits" quip and the cringeworthy discussions of Kim Cattrall's unattractiveness on the big screen (deftly deconstructed at Jezebel), there are a thousand tiny things about the piece to demonstrate contempt, not only for these four fictional women but an entire idea of womanhood in the 21st century. Anthony Lane, you could probably even have gotten away with calling them hobbits if you hadn't addressed the actors in absentia as if you were speaking to a waitress who had brought you an overcooked steak:

“When Samantha couldn’t get off, she got things,” Carrie says. Look at the beam in your own eye, sister. ... When the wedding hits a bump (look out for Kristin Davis screaming “No! No!” at Chris Noth like a ninth grader auditioning for “The Crucible”), and the bridegroom veers away, our heroine’s reaction to the split is typical: “How am I going to get my clothes?” What, honey, even the puffball skirt that you wear to the catwalk show—the one that makes you look like a giant inverted mushroom?

Even then, it still might have been o.k.! Like I mentioned earlier, these women aren't real, and they are, to be fair, thoroughly annoying. But the worst parts of the review happen when the sneers are directed away from the screen, toward the women in the audience: an area that I've always assumed to be outside the film critic's jurisdiction. It's one thing to put down Carrie Bradshaw and her enormous shoe closet, but quite something else to slam the women who like that closet, even if it is bothersome that they're having fun while you're miserable:

The creepiest aspect of this sequence was the sound that rose from the audience as he displayed the finished closet: gasps, fluttering moans, and, beside me, two women applauding. The tactic here is basically pornographic—arouse the viewer with image upon image of what lies just beyond her reach—and the film makes feeble attempts to rein it in.

Decidedly uncool, Anthony Lane. As Ramin Setoodeh points out, the New Yorker review is one of many, many, many more vitriolic responses to the movie, and it does indicate something ugly about how we perceive women, and I am glad he spoke up! I just wish he were smarter. Telling every man who reads Newsweek and didn't like "SATC" that he only hates the movie because he's threatened by women about matches Lane's condescension to his female fellow viewers. And, if we truly can "all imagine" a lunch between Hillary Clinton and Carrie, then I think I know why she lost. But what's most troubling about Setoodeh's rebuttal is his fashioning of the franchise into a haven of sisterhood and female empowerment, a place where "women can love each other, and need each other, more than they do men" (this from Newsweek's print version) - placed side by side with Senator Clinton's campaign and the apparent unfairness with which she's been treated.

Lane overreacted, but I think I know what he was responding to, even if it was hard for him to articulate. It's the Third Wave's conflation of empowerment with entitlement, its insistence that women be heard, not because they have anything to say but because they are women. And that should be enough. If it isn't? Cry sexism, something Third Wavers like Setoodeh have done so often over so much banal bullshit that the word has lost all meaning. This is a feminism in dire need of radical rethinking. For one thing, it's created embarrassing, false, and by now mostly indelible (thanks Candace Bushnell) associations between femininity and consumerism, femininity and the barely clothed embodied, femininity and unreason. It's utterly depressing to think of Alice Paul going to prison so women could be free to get all teary-eyed over Sarah Jessica Parker getting teary-eyed over shoes. Also, people should be aware that this is a specifically privileged feminism, one for white middle-to-upper class Western women, who still haven't achieved wage equity but are unlikely to suffer from patriarchy by, say, receiving involuntary clitoridectomies.

But beyond that, it's this entanglement of frivolous victimhood with our consciousness of patriarchy. No, sexism isn't fair, and neither are a lot of things people are saying about both Senator Clinton and Carrie & co. Sadly, yelling foul isn't the way to win elections or anyone's respect - especially not when you bill a movie about weddings as emblematic of female empowerment. Not to get all Anthony Lane or whatever, but think this through, ladies. Otherwise we're headed some pretty stupid places. Here's some help: