Cultural Analysis

My roommate and I started watching Sex and the City this week and we just finished the first season. It is a very popular show that premiered in 1998 and concluded with two movies in 2008 and 2010. Neither of us had watched more than a couple of episodes before, so we decided it can be a fun bonding activity. The show follows the female lead – Carrie – who is a New York journalist writing about sex and relationships. A typical episode has her exploring an article idea of some kind while going to fabulous parties, talking with her girlfriends (Charlotte, Miranda and Samantha) and analyzing her encounters with her love interest – Mr. Big.

At the time the show aired, it was a relatively new way of portraying women, showcasing a shift in society where women became more independent and earned more money. While that was a curious shift, what I found more fascinating were the ideologies the show perpetuated. The first one is the perpetuation of the mythical norm. This can be seen in many aspects of the show. It is worth mentioning that Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte are all representations of the ideal well educated, beautiful, successful woman, but the grand proliferation of the mythical norm is seen in their choices for romantic partners. Throughout the first season, they all date white, heterosexual, rich, well educated, successful, able-bodied, fit men. 

In fact, Mr. Big (Carrie’s love interest) is the personification of that norm. He is a successful, rich businessman (who is also white, heterosexual, Christian and able-bodied). Throughout the show there is also the running idea that he is out of Carrie’s league. This further supports the dominant social hierarchy – the mythical norm is at the top and everybody who are not a representation of that are ranked based on how many of the desired characteristics they have. As Carrie is a woman and someone not as rich (as evidenced by her admitting to having some financial trouble), she places lower on the hierarchy.

Further, a very noticeable aspect of the first season is the glaring lack of people of color or people with disability. As far as I noticed, there were no people who are members of those groups that had a significant enough appearance in the show (by that I mean either a speaking role or appearing for more than a couple of seconds in passing). Further, there seemed to be no representation of people who are not wealthy or good looking. Finally, the few times there were people of ethnicities other than American represented (notably, all of them also Caucasian, just with an accent), they were shown in a very stereotypical and overly sexualized way. That exclusion and underrepresentation of all groups of people not belonging to the idealized majority (white, wealthy and thin), reinforces the message about power structures based on race and socio-economic status.

The show also prescribes ways to signal belonging to the desirable mythical norm. Fashion, partying and shopping are recurring elements in the show. Spending money, in general, seems to be shown as a symbol of belonging to the depicted majority. This reinforces the ideology of capitalism, sending a message to the audience stating that if they want to be part of that group, wearing the brand-name clothes and using shopping and partying as coping mechanisms are the ways to go.