Still Waters Run Glossidently

What self-respecting girl doesn’t love Sex and the City? I believe the first time I watched the show was in boarding school, either during study hall on a “bathroom break” or after lights-out, with a towel shoved under a door so that we wouldn’t get the dreaded “7 to 7” punishment. Either way, it involved five of us huddled in someone’s room about a lap-top, watching sheepishly, yet with the kind of intensity and fondness usually reserved for mothers watching their slumbering, new-born kin. I, hopelessly nerdy and raised in a culture where they edit out the kissing between man and wife in such risqué features as “Free Willy” and “Home Alone II: Lost in New York”, was starry-eyed and hypnotized by Samantha’s flagrant use of sexually explicit phrases, by the prevalence of oral sex, and the casual partial nudity. It felt like that time in middle school when we all watched that movie “Wild Things” at Amy Dickens’ birthday party and pretended to care about the plot line when in actual fact, we were secretly roused and delighted that such movies exist.

The ingenious brain-child of Michael Patrick King followed me to Harvard, where hours were whiled away watching one of my best friend’s complete SATC DVD set (shoutout: Becky Hammer, HLS '09). O, how frequently traversed were those stone steps of C-entryway by a boxer clad co-ed, running from second floor to fourth floor, season 4 clutched in her grubby mitt. O, but how many course packs remained unread, calls unanswered, and parties unfrequented because of the siren song of the opening credits. How many meetings unattended and 11 AM classes slung by the wayside because I woke up at 10:59 AM, awakened my roommate who had class at 9 AM, and promptly popped in season six, disc 1. How many e-mails written to lovers and friends and TFs, alerting them of your inability to make it to the rendez-vous/dinner/meeting, because of the ol' you're-getting- over-a-nasty-cold-what-with-the-change-in-the-weather-and-it's-flu- season-and-who-knows-you-might-need-antibiotics-in-fact-you're-on-your-way-
to-UHS-right-now excuse, followed by a jaunty click of the mouse to send the lie along on its merry way, a double click on your Ibook DVD player to make the
screen larger, and 12 clicks on your cell to order cheese fries from Tommy's. For pick-up.

Many's the time I've wondered why I graduated with a degree in Biology, when among my supposedly knowledge-infused unmyelinated neurons, there remains but the faint tune of that French rap song they play in the series finale. Why was I wearing a cap and gown when my glial cells were kickin' back, with their feet up on the barcalounger, mulling over their failed relationships? Do you get a degree in slacking to the tune of a Jimmy Choo and witty, yet sexy, banter over a cosmopolitan?

I'm exaggerating. But if you made a pie chart of my time expenditure in college, I think you would be disgusted (and rightfully so) with the amount of time spent watching TV on DVD. I'm not displeased with the fruits of my college career, but I sure know that I didn't join a hell of a lot of clubs or attend X amount of stimulating guest lectures or make Y more friends, all for the sake of vicarious living. I blamed it on the ungodly schedule of the Harvard pre-med, but in actual fact, for the average Bio-er, I managed to get away with not studying too much through clever course selection and the ability to cram a semester's worth of material and class into two days during reading period. In actual fact, it is because of HBO that I was never part of Model UN or the Asian society at Harvard...that big one...what's it called?

Which led me to wonder/begs the question/got me thinking...when the men have come and gone and in a city of so many people and at the end of yet another failed relationship and when you can't ever know if you can forgive if you can't forget and if no one knows when enough is enough or what we are all waiting for...why the hell do I like Sex and City so much? (If you don't get the references you probably should stop reading here).

I have asked myself a series of questions and have come to what are not the conclusions:

1) Is it because of the message it gives to independent single women that we can be successful, smart, sexy, and still find the time to accessorize? No, not really. In fact, the words "smart, sexy, successful, and single" are beaten to death throughout the show and one starts imagining what would happen if one actually referred to herself by some/all of these adjectives in the presence of anyone with half a brain, sense of humor, or sense of irony. Ostracization, awkwardness, and a sickening feeling that you have shattered one/all of the six pillars of self-esteem you so carefully have built for yourself would inevitably ensue. If you need a TV show to make you feel like it's OK to be single, maybe you should look for a boyfriend.

2) Is it because of the enduring ties of friendship that are formed and bound and maintained? Not so much. The friendship in the show, though endearing at times, seems to be fueled by love for shopping, alcoholism, lunching together, narcissistic tendencies, and, of course, untiring whinging about the opposite sex. One wonders what these women would discuss if not blow jobs and bad kissers or what would happen to their friendship if, horror of horrors, someone tried to cut back a little on the spending or didn't have 19 exciting new sex stories to share over fruit at brunch. As anyone who has ever had a real friendship knows, cocktails and mutual sluttiness do not a friendship make.

3) Is it because of how the show revolutionized the way women talk, think, and do about sex? Not really. That's probably why many women love it, but after an episode or two, the message is across: women can talk about sex in explicit terms and that's OK. Good stuff.

4) Is it because of the relationships on the show? I enjoyed them, but it can't explain the obsession. I'm not a machine. I too was rooting for Carrie and Big, for Steve and Miranda. Of course, also did I utter gasp after gasp of delight when Miranda turned to Big and said "Go get our girl". It was obvious to me that Carrie and Big are perfect for each other. But it is obvious to me if to no one else that Carrie and Big are perfect because of matched and unequaled selfishness, high-maintenance behavior, and rampant enjoyment of the high-life. Nothin wrong with that, but it don't exactly make you swoon.

I turned to another angle: maybe the show is character-driven and is made so irresistable to me because of the charming, every-man-like main character, Carrie Bradshaw. But let's face it: Carrie is kind of a grotsky little bi-atch. I was certain while watching the show that her grotskiness and her bi-atchedness were givens and was therefore shocked to find commentary and commentary, interview and interview zoom by with no reference to this by MPK or Sarah Jessica Parker. Apparently they are unaware. She smokes, she cheats, she lies, she whores around, she thinks she's charming as all get out, she's too cutesy, and worst of all, she is utterly self-absorbed in her friendships. I guess she could be the every-man. But only if the every-man is a full-on grostsky little bi-atch. But yet, she is "the glue that holds the group together" and the other women, truer to themselves and more honestly flawed, are merely "foils". And don't get me started on her job. Let's be honest. Carrie Bradshaw collects an apparently very decent salary for writing a weekly, mediocre blog. She is a blogger, that is all. She is paid a mint at a sweet job where all she does is troll around her apartment by day and troll the streets for men by night. She spends half an hour writing trite questions on her labtop about men and sex and becomes famous and rich for it. It's like Angelina Jolie becoming Goodwill Ambassador to the UN because she is famous and pretty and enjoys traveling. It's just kind of annoying.

This realization (that I find the characters pretty annoying at times) led me to wonder if the reason I love ths show so much is because the characters are constantly getting slapped in the face? Now, this is something I cannot criticize. The pie-in-the-face that is delivered to all the characters fairly regularly is indeed delightful. But it is not the answer.

So what is?

Sex and the City appeals to me because it is glossy and decadent. It is, in a word, glossident. It is a spiked, rated-R, Pixar fairy-tale for women of this age. It is the Chocolate Room from "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory", the Lost Boys from "Peter Pan", every page of InStyle, the sheen and shine of "The Incredibles", every layout in Vogue, every laugh in Friends, the shoes from Barneys, frosting at Magnolia, the lifestyle of Town and Country, the steam at Elizabeth Arden, the library from Beauty and the Beast, and summer at the beach in the Hamptons. Blended together, fitted neatly in a plush pink binder, and served with a side of crack. And that is why I like it. Nary a show can match it for this, so fastidiously detailed and extravagant is it in all the right ways. Its very fiber is composed of blatant and unapologetic materialism with full make-up, Chanel accessories, and air-brushed within an inch of its life. Indeed, every season reveals a fresh new face, fully recovered from a fresh new chemical peel until the final, glittering Season Six emerges in all its glory, absolutely stunning and so glossident you want to reach out and touch it. It is like Fawkes, the phoenix in Harry Potter, emerging from the ashes. It is well done to the point of being overdone, but you love it. You've fallen down the rabbit hole. This ain't technicolor anymore, baby.

The transition to the transcendental season 6 is palpable. Carrie went from looking like a recovering heroin addict with frown lines and lurid gray eye makeup to a ringlet-tressed, satin-skinned goddess in the most glossident clothing one could e'er imagine. Miranda went from looking like a man with all the wrong haircuts to absolutely beautiful, with all the right shades of eye shadow. Charlotte went from looking annoying and gorgeous to just gorgeous. Samantha hit peak in season 4 and then just kind of got old. But she was still glossident and her wardrobe was delightful. The costumes and props seemed to multiply as the seasons wore on, not only in number, but in lushness. Who got tired of watching Carrie pick out a shoe from her masses of Manolos? When she spreads the boxes out on her bed, you are accosted by the palate of colors--electric blue, plush red, dark green, deep purple, shining silver. The shoes are works of art, and there they are, nesting in soft, glossy paper in their hard, glossy white boxes. Nesting glossidently. What about when Charlotte wanders about her ridiculous apartment? When she is clipping lilies on that large, oak table in the foyer of the apartment, perfectly dressed, perfectly tressed and wearing a diamond ring (probably a blood diamond, but whatever), while the sun shines through the perfectly furnished set, who can resist? There is ne'er another word to use but glossident. When Samantha, outfitted in a bright blue silk top that is ruched about the waist and is simultaneously outfitting Smith in Yves Saint Laurent and D&G, it is just too glossident. And when Carrie undoes a huge, silken black bow atop a shiny white box to reveal that bright pink, Oscar de la Renta, crepey dress, it is glossident as balls. Who could get tired of those apartment sets, stunning earrings, pale-green crushed velvet dresses, canary diamonds, Pucci scarves, or Fendi baguettes and the air-brushing, oh the air-brushing? Maybe you, but apparently not me. That show is a feast for the senses, and that's the way I like it.