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Reading "Sex and the City" (Reading Contemporary Television) (Paperback)

by Kim Akass (Editor), Janet McCabe (Editor) "Once upon a time, there was a tantalising TV show that embarked on a cynical yet hopeful journey to find that elusive spectre of Manhattan..." (more)

3.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)

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Product details

Paperback: 288 pages
Publisher: I B Tauris & Co Ltd (31 Dec 2003)
Language English
ISBN-10: 1850434239
ISBN-13: 978-1850434238
Product Dimensions: 21.1 x 13.7 x 2 cm

Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)

Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 67,835 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)
Popular in this category:
#13 in Books > Music, Stage & Screen > Television > History & Criticism

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Product Description

Review

"...the editors have managed to mirror the show's fine balancing act between breezy and serious... 'Sex and the City' - and this book - illustrate not only that feminism is alive and well, but that good writing by and about women is too." -Cathy Dillon, Irish Times "Finally, a respectable academic companion to a guilty pleasure. This collects 17 scholarly articles about the iconic HBO show Sex and the City and is a guaranteed page-turner for those who enjoy nothing better than a mesmerizing essay by Foucault, followed by a luxurious wallow in Vanity Fair. Both film studies professors, Akass (London Metropolitan Univ.) and McCabe (Trinity Coll., Dublin) have assembled a compilation of topical, interesting, and entertaining (for academia) writing about some of the dominant, nonviolent issues of our day. Truly, this is essential for the intellectual fashionista! Highly recommended for academic and large public libraries." -Andrea Slonosky, Library Journal "offers a range of perspectives and methodological approaches" "The strength of the collection lies in its engagement with debates key to the study of contemporary popular culture" "genuinely illuminating piece of cultural and textual analysis" "The serious attnetion to a popular media text that this collection represents might constitute an eually serious threat to the institutions which produce it."- European Journal of Cultural Studies

Product Description

HBO's hit series "Sex and the City" has a huge international fanbase and has picked up major awards. This critical celebration of the life and times of Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte and Samantha looks at the series as a new departure for TV comedy drama. It discusses its position in an increasingly complex television landscape and pioneers innovative approaches to the study of contemporary television culture. The book explores among many other issues female fandom and fan culture; fashion and fashion journalism; male archetypes and the search for Mr Right; third wave feminism; sex and the single girl and indeed sex and the citizen. The book includes a full episode guide, reports from the "Sex and the City" Manhattan tour and a map of "Sex and the City" New York.

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Inside This Book (Learn More)

First Sentence
Once upon a time, there was a tantalising TV show that embarked on a cynical yet hopeful journey to find that elusive spectre of Manhattan Island: Mr. Right. Read the first page

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	70% buy the item featured on this page: Reading "Sex and the City" (Reading Contemporary Television) 3.2 out of 5 stars (4) �7.91
	12% buy Sex and the City 2.6 out of 5 stars (21) �4.98
	8% buy Sex and the City: Kiss and Tell 4.0 out of 5 stars (8)
	5% buy Reading "Desperate Housewives": Beyond the White Picket Fence (Reading Contemporary Television) �7.92

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Customer Reviews

4 Reviews

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3.2 out of 5 stars (4 customer reviews)

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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting, but sometimes gushy, responses to Sex and the City, 11 Nov 2007

By	cathy earnshaw (Berlin, Germany) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

I think whether you like the book 'Reading Sex and the City' really depends on what you expect of it. It might be ideal for fans who want to read about aspects of the show in more depth but will, I think, disappoint those who were hoping for analysis with a little more bite. The series has received such glowing press in the USA, where it has been gushingly f�ted for portraying "smart women [who] aren't afraid of their femininity or their appetites" (Los Angeles Times) and who are "anything but desperate...They're well-dressed, well paid and sexually gratified!" (Newsweek). Against the background of its tremendous global popularity and these rave reviews, this collection could have shaken the boat with some thrilling counter arguments, but criticism - and sometimes critical engagement - is kept to a minimum in this anthology. Marketed as a "critical celebration" and packaged in girly pink hues, the editors even include a recipe for a Cosmopolitan cocktail, a list of all major sites in New York from the series, and gossipy stories of the SATC tour. Instead of exposing, for example, the disingenuousness of making Carrie have a size zero body whilst never portraying her exercising and pretending that her favourite food are sugar-rich cupcakes from The Magnolia Bakery, we get an article on 'being in love with Sarah Jessica Parker' and a homage to the Manolo Blahnik shoes made so famous by the show.

Two articles in the collection provide welcome relief from this rather uncritical, sycophantic material, though. Kim Akass and Janet McCabe brilliantly deconstruct the opening sequence of the show, demonstrating that it contains two classic patriarchal representations of woman as whore (Carrie's skin-like dress on the bus advert as well as its reference to her knowing good sex) and woman as madonna (Carrie in a virginal fairy princess tutu). Humour, they argue, is here used to undercut female investment in patriarchal constructions of womanhood. In her article, Joanna di Mattia defly unravels the roles played by Big and Aidan in Carrie's romantic fantasies. Big - his very name has phallic connotations, as well as referring to his height, wealth and social status - embodies the emotionally impenetrable phallic seducer. His anonymity is a tabula rasa onto which Carrie can project her romantic longings; she remains irresistibly wedded to the belief that she can change him. Aidan also has a telling name (he does, after all, come repeatedly to Carrie's aid); he represents the Mills & Boon rescuer, but Carrie's fantasy landscape is, Di Mattia argues, "too intense to become Aidan's wife".

But there are some key questions, provoked by the show, which this anthology doesn't address in depth. Men are objectified the way women traditionally are, reduced to types ("toxic bachelors" and "modelisers") and judged by their appearance (how tall they are, how big their cocks are). Isn't this a simple case of reverse sexism? With Carrie's screechy, little-girl-lost routine around men in mind, can we really talk of the show having a "progressive representation of relationships"? Doesn't the shoe fetishism of the characters repeat and reinforce one of the most clich�d notions of femaleness? And - perhaps most importantly of all - aren't the four main protagonists rather too racially, sexually and economically privileged for this show to be considered somehow "representative" of women?

It is undoubtedly welcome that a series based on female friendship has become so successful, but we should be wary of overstating its subversiveness. Ultimately, as one writer in this anthology concludes, 'Sex and the City' never seriously queries the pursuit of Mr Right. The old patriarchal fairytales still have currency here, then, although sparks of feminist enlightenment surface, albeit fleetingly, as in Carrie's question to the show's most hopeless romantic: "Charlotte, honey, did you ever think that maybe we're the white knights and we're the ones who have to save ourselves?".

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17 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Extremely interesting, 6 Feb 2004

By A Customer

this book makes you the reader think alot more about the issues covered in sex and the city and also how they are covered, i especilly like the essay about the show illustrating the male charachters as freaks. This book achieves exactly what it set out to do, puts the wheels in motion for the conversations at the watercooler. it is an extremely interesting read and i would advise any die hard fan to purchase the book immediately, because once i picked it up found it hard to put down.

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0 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Utter nonsense, 10 Jun 2008

By	Rod (Edinburgh, Scotland) - See all my reviews

The series is what it is - fluff.
I didn't find it funny at all.

This book just prolonged the misery by prompting me to look for deeper meanings. There aren't any. The characters still appear to me as one-dimensional whingers, ungrateful for the lives of luxury that they lead.
Having said that, the series is a run-of-the-mill US comedy. Slow paced and unfunny. The book doesn't save the series or add anything to it. In fact it amazes and nauseates me that anyone could enjoy the series so much that they would write this book. It amazes me even more that anyone would buy the book. The icing on the cake is that people even claim to like the book.

I think it's a tome that we'll see in second-hand shops everywhere very soon!

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4.0 out of 5 stars A Must Have
Anyone who is either a fan of the hit HBO series or an academic, even both this book is a must have. Read more

Published on 6 Jan 2005 by Sol Arbriel

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