Today's 30-somethings are more self-aware and more narcissistic. In 'SATC', we see ourselves, writes Quentin Fottrell.
IT'S ABOUT a lot more than the clothes, pornification of $500 shoes, rampant sexual adventures and subliminal orgasms of multiple product placements for luxury goods companies. In fact, Sex and the Cityhas actually done more than most to promote bad fashion, as women try and fail to emulate its overdressed look of bold floral prints, ill-fitting hats and giant Triffid-like accessories.
The movie, which topped the US box office last weekend, was panned at home and abroad. The New York Timessaid: "A little Botox goes a long way in SATC, but a little decent writing would have gone even further." That's true. The script wasn't nearly as sharp as the series. It didn't have the oneliners or the gorgeous wordplay such as "expiration dating" or "flying the co-op".
But I remain a fan.
As the Irish girlfriends poured into Cineworld on Friday afternoon, I was struck by their sense of camaraderie.
Sarah Jessica Parker has a yoga-toned body, an army of stylists and airbrushers, but she is not a conventional beauty. The girls in Parnell Street were of all shapes and sizes, but had a self-confidence that said anyone can be beautiful, regardless of labels, weight, age or relationship status.
SATC has had a following of women and gay men over the past 10 years because we found that message inspirational. We are also more overtly emotional creatures than heterosexual men. The series was always more about the passionate friendships of your 20s and 30s than glamour and sex. Fans invested in the four main female protagonists because they were each other's salvation.
Most of my generation's parents were married with children by 30. We were not. We rented in our 20s and set up house in our 30s without the three-piece suite or the wedding ring. And then what? We waited. We partied. We bought stuff at Habitat until it closed its doors (that's okay - we'd bought quite enough already). And we had another kind of family: the non-nuclear family of friends.
There is a scene in the movie when Parker's Carrie Bradshaw trudges through snow on New Year's Eve to see a bereft Miranda. She tells her: "You are not alone." We have all had those New Year's Eves.
In the series, Miranda said the real tragedy was the 35-year-old single woman walking alone behind her mother's coffin. At the last moment at the funeral, Carrie stood up from the pew and took Miranda's arm. Some of us have been there too.
Carrie says we have fun in our 20s, learn the lessons in our 30s and pay for the drinks in our 40s. We Irish had fun in our 20s, but learnt the lessons and pay a hefty mortgage in our 30s. The party is officially over. Some got burnt. But those in their 40s, who came of age before the property boom, may have got the best of both worlds (so they can still pick up the tab for the drinks).
Of course, we are not as sophisticated as the glamazons in the glittering metropolis of this celluloid New York. At the Smithwick's Cat Laughs Comedy Festival in Kilkenny last weekend, I asked the barman at Langton's for some lime for my GT. He plonked a large plastic bottle of MiWadi on the counter. "A slice of lime!" I yammered. For all of our prancing and preening, we still love our MiWadi. Thanks be to God.
This clash of civilisations also featured in the stand-up. Maeve Higgins said her friends now stored leftovers in the fridge rather than eat out. "They use something called cling film," she said. Colin Murphy spotted a girl arriving late . . . with wet hair. "Could you not wait for your GHD hair straightener to heat up?" he asked. Little Miss Less-Than-Perfect was mortified, but everyone else got the joke.
That's the thing about being part of a collective following of a stand-up comedian or pop-culture phenomenon: we can be featured stars by proxy. We get picked out of the audience for our moment in the spotlight. We hear familiar details about our lives that make us laugh, important things that don't matter, mirrored back at us. Sometimes, stuff happens. But if we are lucky, we are not alone.
Those girls at Cineworld are hopeful romantics. There are worse things that you could be. That's why Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte and Samantha kicked Indiana Jones's ass at the American box office. Though it's not all about them, either. Nor is it about their token gay friends Anthony and Stanford, who barely get a look-in in the movie. It's far more about the people in the cinema.
We are the Do-Re-Me-Me-Me generation. Today's 30-somethings are more self-aware and, yes, more narcissistic. In SATC, we see ourselves. We are reminded of our carefree youth, the deaths of family members as we get older, the stormy relationships, the struggles to be who we are and the open road ahead to where we want to be. It's okay if the movie gets one star. Because the other four go to us.