Ella Taylor reacts to the reactions to her review of Sex and the City
by LA Weekly
June 5, 2008 1:41 PM
By Ella Taylor
I caught a lot of flack, most of it out of New York, for my negative review of Sex and the City. Outraged fans of the show and the movie accuse me variously of being “morbidly obese” (just pleasantly plump, I swear) and style-retarded (well, one does try); too young to appreciate the four shopaholics and a sexist, ageist cheap shooter for calling them middle-aged (I’m closer to assisted living than all four of them put together, as my comparisons to The Mary Tyler Moore Show will attest ); a bit angry (too right); and (did I dream it, ‘cause now I can’t find it?) a real bitch.
None of which has changed my assessment of the movie as a flabby shadow of its TV that reeks of disingenuous mixed message. Still, attention must be paid to the passion with which its fans defend SATC the show and the movie. I think one of the reasons is that, like Bridget Jones’s Diary (a movie I defended), The Mary Tyler Moore Show (which I loved as uncritically as today’s fans do SATC) and, in its retrograde way, Our Miss Brooks, SATC expresses the loneliness of urban single women, a potent contemporary theme in an age of hooking up. Only it glamorizes, and so trivializes that loneliness by gussying it up with endless partying and designer labels few of its audience can afford. That’s not cultural commentary — it’s pandering through advertising.
Read Ella Taylor's review of Sex and the City, with comments, here.
Her review also appeared in our sister paper, the Village Voice, with more comments, here.
Photo Craig Blankenhorn/New Line Cinema
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Comments
There are 3 comments posted for this article.
hmm, 10 total comments between 2 papers counts as "a lot of flak"? From this writer's defense of herself, I was expecting blood and guts, but all I get to read are 10 comments? Surely, LA Weekly has other things to publish than this clearly insecure writer's justification of her words. I think SATC should be applauded for showing that films about women can open at number one and we need more of them.
Posted on June 5, 2008 8:15 PM by lv
here's a negative review from WITHIN new york and it agrees with you-- "The Lying, The Bitch and the Wardrobe." ha:
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/cinema/2008/06/09/080609crci_cinema_lane
Posted on June 6, 2008 12:22 AM by Rena
p.s. you are a lovely, thin, middle-aged, relaxed critic who dresses well. and if all i have to look forward to when i get older is being a shopaholic, I may as well start sawing off my shotgun now.
Posted on June 6, 2008 12:27 AM by Rena