Girls Just Want to Have Fun
Women suffer through interminable summer movies centered on the kind of comic book heroes that delighted little boys. Now recast as “thoughtful,” “complex” Incredible Iron Bat Guy Men because they suffer and struggle. They are now soulful. And dark. We have to listen to all of the critical excavation of depth and subtext in the big summer bang-bang, kapow, muscle-bound multiplex product. And one summer, a movie comes along that women like. It’s called Sex and the City . Women eat it up, partly because it treats female friendship and relationships and infidelity and marriage with the earnestness they deserve. But also because like a drink of water offered to a dying desert traveler, it is blessed, sweet relief. But are women allowed to enjoy the escapist pleasure of a summer movie? Hell no. We get writers who use film criticism as a venue for their erotic fascination telling us Sex and the City is shallow and insipid. These women are too old. Superficial. Too into shoes. And closets