Skepticism

No, STAR WARS is my Star Wars

This blog post is doing the rounds today. It’s a review of Sex and the City 2 by a man who doesn’t know anything about it. It contains this sentence:

First off, ladies, I get it. It’s your Star Wars. The opening credits make your tummy tickle the same way the Star Wars theme, to this day, gives me a boner. I understand. A pair of expensive shoes worn by Carrie is just like a metallic bikini worn by Princess Leia. Bonerfreakingopolis.

Let me address this. WHAT THE ****  ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT, DUDE? I’m a lady. You know what my Star Wars is? It’s Star Wars. The same as YOUR Star Wars. Star Wars doesn’t have a freaking gender certificate next to its age rating. Millions of women have seen Star Wars. Millions of women love Star Wars.  I bet you don’t own a copy of the novel entitled Lando Calrissian and the Starcave of ThonBoka. I do. I bet you didn’t own a Darth Maul that lights up when you twist him. I did. I got rid of him because Darth Maul is a bit shit, but still. I bet you don’t own every copy of the comic Star Wars Tales AND a page of the original artwork from the George R. Binks story by Tony Millionaire. I DO.

And I, my male friend, am not alone. Here’s a little tip for you:

Women are not the Borg*

*This is not a Star Wars reference. I will assume you already know that because I haven’t decided up front what you do and don’t like based on your gender. That would be sexist.

Related Articles

126 Comments

  1. Only recently I had to point out – to a guy – that what he smugly tried to call a Sarlac [sic] pit was actually the Great Pit of Carkoon…

  2. Total idiot.

    I stood in line for three hours on the last weekend in May, 1977, to see Star Wars for the first time.

    I stood in line the next day to see it again, and then I stood in line the NEXT day, dragging my boyfriend’s mother to see it as well (“I don’t get it”).

    I’ve never stood in line that long for anything since, unless you count the bathroom at the last University of Texas football game I went to (all those drunk sorority girls had to do their bulimia thing, I guess).

    It was wonderful, marvelous, astounding and outstanding. Nothing like it had been done before. It was all new and exciting and shiny.

    I bought the complete boxed set on VHS, and then bought it again when they came out remastered. And then bought it on DVD. I had the soundtrack on VINYL, and then on CD.

    I took my sons to see the 20th anniversary re-leased in 1997, having big arguments with them about whether to see it NOW or wait two hours for the other theater which had the really cool sound system.

    They started watching Star Wars when they were 2-3 years old. It is part of their heritage.

    For the record, I’ve seen approximately four episodes of Sex and the City, one of them the very last episode because I was invited to a Cosmos party. I did not see the movie.

    I am WOMAN.

  3. I agree. Star Wars was one of my dating questions. I don’t think I ever went out with anyone who didn’t like it.

    On a related note: I noticed that Sex in the City II is the number one movie in the UK last week. Can you account for this appalling statistic?

  4. Alright, screen name created to comment…I didn’t even know about that book before today! This makes me sad. How did an entire trilogy of books sneak by me? Also, you totally rock! That is all.

  5. Applause Tracy. I clap for my wife who has never seen a moment of any Sex in the City, and my daughter who’s a lot like her mum, and every woman I love and care about who would rather see a Dr Who rerun than a SitC movie.

  6. Well, I think I will be clubbered for this. But I laughed myself silly reading the thing, and even said “Bazzinga!” a couple of times.

    I kept thinking that I know people (women and gay folk) for whom this is indeed their Star Wars franchise and who actually feel the jitters when they hear that awful salsa like theme song.

    SATC was successful because it appeals to a sector of the general population that would love to be like them (shallow and frivolous) and that per se, is a sad commentary of the status quo.

  7. COTW for AmateurScientist!

    @KimoJones: A slow clap is regarded the same way in many parts of the USA, too. Usually accompanied by a smirk and/or rolling eyeballs.

  8. @Gayskeptic: I remember when SATC ended, all my friends, who were gay, were so bummed. I was like, “Really? Suck it up.” I was a superhuge fan of ST:TNG (and btw, @Tracy King: I love the Borg reference!). I was a kid when ST:TNG ended, and I sat on the couch and didn’t move once it came on. Was I bummed when it ended, yes, but not that bummed. I got my lamenting over with BEFORE the series finale, so I didn’t have to be distracted by the sorrow.

    But, I saw one episode, and was bored out of my skull. I’m allergic to chick flicks. I’ll break out into hives, I’ll start itching and sneezing. My throat will swell, I’ll get gassy and have an upset stomach. It’s not pretty.

  9. I anticipate a new meme of saying “X is my Star Wars,” much like that old “X is my Anti-Drug” thing a few years back.

    Oh, and regarding the slow clap: I think it can go either way, even here in the US. That’s why I like to mimic the “Orson Welles as Charles Foster Kane” clap (seen here: http://bit.ly/4ihZEi ) to express my approval.

  10. Ugh. That is extra annoying because I hate those women with a passion. A PASSION!

    Sooo I guess because I am female I didn’t collect all of the Episode One Pepsi cans when they came out. Or go to all of the midnight showings (Revenge of the Sith was awful, but sitting infront of some boys playing MTG made me feel like I had died and gone to heaven.) Or I guess my nickname wasn’t Darth Maul in High School (I STILL don’t understand that one though. I think it’s because a classmate thought I looked like a Star Wars character? (although not Darth Maul — Padme)

    I hate one of my FEMALE coworkers because she actually has the Star Wars Christmas special. THE FREAKIN CHRISTMAS SPECIAL!!!

    I also hate George Lucas — which I am sure we all do by now right? One sentence: Han stepping on Jabba’s tail. *barf*

    As a side note: one of the most annoying things to happen to me was when I was walking through the university campus and a student selling magazines stopped me and said: “Hey, I am guessing that you read a lot of magazines. Would you like to order a Cosmo subscription?”

    WTF?! Uhhh, no buddy — just. no.

  11. @Tracy King:
    I am probably exposing my ignorance, but what is “the borg” anyway? Is it just short for cyborg – as in all women don’t come from the same robotic blueprints? You say it is not from Star Wars but imply that it is something that, if you were like him, you might think that a man wouldn’t know.

    I wouldn’t go see that movie if you paid me to. And not just because it looks awful, which it does. I am angry at the whole entertainment industry. I haven’t gotten over the news that “Better Off Ted” was cancelled.

  12. @James Fox: Weeeelll, there’s nothing inherently wrong with people liking SitC if they want to. It wouldn’t be my personal choice of something to watch, but I don’t want to look down on the women that choose to watch it. I may think it’s lame, but I’m sure some SitC fans might think Doctor Who is lame.

    In the case of the article Tracy brought up, the author’s mistake was assuming that women do and do not like certain things. I think it’s equally a mistake to assume that women should or should not like certain things. I suppose an argument can be made about messages to young women etc, but what message do we send to young women when we reward certain “correct” (typically male-oriented) things over “incorrect” (typically female-oriented) things? [Note: used the phrasing “oriented” to indicate marketing, not necessarily real-life preferences].

    Pink toys are another example of this. While it is vapid marketing to promote Scrabble as a girls’ game because, hey, it’s pink now!, it’s also (imho) wrong to discourage a little girl from liking it just because the marketing behind it was nonsense. I despise the “just add pink” method of girlifying toys, but I don’t know how I feel about my daughter getting extra claps because she chose regular Scrabble over the pink one.

  13. So I read the article, and it seems that this male author knows more about the Sex franchise than I (a woman) do. It sounds like someone running the website had an idea to feature a review written by someone who knows little about the movie, and by default they decided to ask a man. How utterly unsurprising.
    And hell yeah I like Star Wars!

  14. @geek goddess: I, too, remember standing in line for the opening day of Star Wars, and in later years dragging my husband to the sequels and prequels. And yes, I bought the tapes and still watch them.

    I watched the original Star Trek from episode one on TV, and all the sequels of that I could get (only over the air, sigh, no cable).

    As for SATC, never saw even one episode. Give me Buffy the Vampire Slayer any day. It’s got to be much more sexy to see her beating up the bad guys.

  15. @Kimbo Jones: Could it be that an obsession with matters shoe and relationship pathetic is not an unreasonable barometer of your overall maturity or priorities? Not that I think maturity is necessarily reflected in a taste for fantasy and SciFi; but perhaps a reasonable perception can be gained by knowing someone’s tastes. I’ve always been chuffed that my wife preferred Data over Ralph Lauren.

  16. I can see the parallels between SitC and Star Wars. Both seem to involve aliens that look a bit like us but lead lives so different from anything we’ll ever experience it can be kind of fascinating.

    Still trying to understand why the male reviewer would think we’d prefer it to Star Wars, though. He must not know very many women. Loser.

  17. I just came here to say if you haven’t read both Roger Ebert’s and Andrew O’Hehir’s review at Salon they are both worth reading.

    http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/andrew_ohehir/2010/05/26/satc2

    http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100525/REVIEWS/100529986

    Bonus: The O’Hehir review starts with a star wars reference.

    I totally can’t wait for the rifftracks to come out for this movie. It could be Plan 9 levels of entertaining.

  18. @FlameTest: BLASTPHEMY! BURN THIS PERSON AT THE STAKE!

    The Borg are a villian race (?) in Star Trek. They are basically a futuristic version of vampires. They come in, assimilate a species (turn them in to more Borg, which, yes are basically cyborgs) and learn new technology from their knowledge. They have a collective concioussness ruled by one queen. All their ships are geometric shapes-cubes and spheres. They seek to be perfect, combining the best technology with the best of all species.

    They have been known to choose not to assimilate races that they deem inferior to their current state.

  19. @James Fox: It could be, but what if people just want 2 hours of mindless fun entertainment?

    I guess my main, uh, “concern” I guess, is that I’ve been noticing a trend (and maybe this is confirmation bias, I’m not sure) about things that are typically considered “male-preferred”: Women tend to be rewarded for preferring them too, but the same thing isn’t true in reverse. People go so far as to proclaim their hatred for these goofy “girl” things and their love for these “guy” things.

    I acknowledge that some “girl” things are just objectively bad and some “guy” things too (again, here, I’m referring to marketing). And I suppose in a male-normative society it’s likely that “girl” things may be of generally inferior quality and perhaps that’s why they get so much flak. I dunno.

    But I have to wonder: what’s wrong with liking both? Why is it considered a braggable characteristic to hate “girl” things in some circles? Rather than acknowledge that preference should be (and often is) gender-free, I feel that there’s a push towards more traditionally “guy-esque” preferences, further contributing to a male-normative preference base.

  20. Short shameful confession: I like Sex in the City. The first three seasons, anyway. I like the writing, didn’t much care for any of the characters, but interesting topics were raised that my wife and I would talk about. We both laughed ourselves silly on many occasions. I do not think this style can work at movie length, however, and since my favorite reviewers agree I will give the movies a miss. I think a movie-length version of Coupling would have similar problems so I don’t view this as an indictment of the series.

  21. @infinitemonkey: oh. Well, ok, but does liking Star Trek have something to do with gender assumptions? Maybe I should stop worrying about what it meant and make tracks before the torches get any closer.

  22. I LOVE Star Wars. I have been a fan since I first saw Darth Vader through all that smoke at age 9. I was 10 when the films were re-released at the cinema and I begged everyone I knew to take me. I spent my bank holiday weekend rewatching the films!

    Oddly, I quite like satc too. However, it is really not my Star Wars. That is, and always be Star Wars! I like it in a different way – it’s shallow, and happy, and it doesn’t take much brain power to follow it. Would I line up for hours to see it? No. Would I buy 2 different DVD sets so I could have the original and the remastered versions? No.

    Star Wars is what made me a geek. Nothing can ever replace that honour. And if it could, it certainly wouldn’t be 4 bitchy, skinny women with more money than sense!

  23. @infinitemonkey: “They have been known to choose not to assimilate races that they deem inferior to their current state.”

    I did not know this? Is this from TNG? Is it canon?

  24. @Kimbo Jones: Yea, this is such a concerning topic! But hey, I loved ‘Room With a View’ and ’Pride and Prejudice’ with Kera Knightley so there ya go.

  25. I don’t know who’s worse: this guy who’s making this very sexist, misogynistic comparison between Star Wars and SatC2, or the women to whom his comparison actually does apply!

    You know they’re unfortunately out there, those women who put womankind to shame, just like these men who put mankind to shame.

    Oh yeah, @AmateurScientist: indeed COTW… sex and geekdom, perfect combination.

  26. @davew: I, too, enjoyed the first 3 or so seasons. It was a funny show with strong women who really cared for each other and who were frank about sex. What’s not to love? But then it started to get trite. And now it’s just banal and full of ridiculousness.

  27. I take offense to that guy’s comment. I am a woman and I too, love Star Wars and I absolutely hate Sex and The City. Generalized statements like that really get on my nerves cuz everybody is different. Gender does not make a difference in personal preferences. So you’re a girl or so you’re a boy, whoopdefuckindo!

  28. I do find it ironic that Sex And The Shitty (the movies and the show) were written by a man. The fact that he was a very gay man is irrelevant. I always found the show to be nothing more than a self-indulgent bloated waste of time. Ironically I always found George Lucas to be a bloated self-indulgent waste of time (A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back are excluded from my comment due to them both being movies made out of unicorns and awesome, while Return Of The Jedi is nothing more than a stupid Ewok bonfire circle-jerk. Sorry, just my humble opinion).

    Now if you will excuse me, I must get back to watching Brian Boitano teach me how to make yummy treats. Eff the stereotypes.

    Great post Tracy :-)

  29. But, but, but…the Ewoks totally make Return of the Jedi! I’ve never really understood why people don’t like the Ewoks. Yeah they’re silly as hell, but they’re supposed to be.

  30. A pair of expensive shoes worn by Carrie is just like a metallic bikini worn by Princess Leia. Bonerfreakingopolis.

    Um, no. The equivalent of a half-naked woman would be a half-naked man. Geez, my genitals care about sexy male humans, not shoes. Men and women are the same freaking species! And I won’t even touch the straight privilege in this garbage.

  31. Hi there!

    [sigh]

    This is where I should keep my big mouth shut, huh?

    I don’t mean to defend this guy, really I don’t. And I’m not defending him. Not really. But for me, back in the ’70s, when Star Wars came out? No girl would have ever admitted to being a Star Wars fan. I mean, sure, they knew what it WAS, and had probably SEEN Star Wars. But no girl was ever “into” Star Wars. Even through high school, if you actually had [gasp] a girl over your house, and the two of you were alone in the bedroom, and she looked over at that far wall and saw a great big Darth Vader poster, she would look at you as if you were something they just scraped off their shoe.
    (I’m assuming. I’ve never actually had something this embarrassing happen to me. In my case, it was a Wolverine poster)

    Then at some point in time, it suddenly became … okay … for girls to like Star Wars, and Comic Books, and Role-playing games. Things like THIS: http://www.somethingpositive.net/sp12272001.shtml started happening.

    Some nerds were against it. They felt violated. How DARE women enjoy the same things that we do!? Some nerds went the opposite route and turned into Sleazy McFeely Casanovas, trying to mack on anything in a short skirt with a Badtz-Maru iron-on. It just seemed to be a huge social phenomenon that just happened.

    Maybe it was the community where I grew up. Maybe I was just clueless. But I can understand the analogy. When I was a lad, girls weren’t into Star Wars*. I don’t mean to generalize, that’s just what I remember. :( I think the only thing this jackass author is guilty of, is being so out-of-touch that he doesn’t GET that girls, oh yes ACTUAL GIRLS can like Star Wars, too.

    Which … I think is a good thing. [shrugs]

    * (and I’m probably wrong about that, too. If you’re a girl, and can remember seeing “A New Hope in the theater and had all the action figures, and used to quote Obi-Wan on the playground, and grew up as a Star Wars fan, please let me know what a d***head I’m being)

  32. @FlameTest: No more than science fiction in general. Its usually assumed that girls aren’t in to science fiction, or science. That’s boys stuff. How the existence of this blog proves that wrong.

    @DataJack: No, Voyager. Seven of Nine pointed out that the Borg had encountered the Kazon before, but chose not to assimilate them, as they had no benefitial culture, technology, or genetic adaptation.

    Have I earned my Star Trek Admiral Dork rank yet?

  33. @teragram42: “I can see the parallels between SitC and Star Wars. Both seem to involve aliens that look a bit like us but lead lives so different from anything we’ll ever experience it can be kind of fascinating.”

    COTW

  34. The Buffyverse is my Star Wars.

    Because unlike the writing for the Star Wars universe, I like well-written dialogue and a smaller percentage of infuriating continuity lapses.

  35. Way to go! What a dipshit he is! The only thing in our society that should be gender specific is undergarments and bathrooms!

    I’m a guy who loves Star Wars, Star Trek, Monty Python, but also loves Jane Austin books and Merchant-Ivory movies just as much.

    Every time one of these idiots pops up their head, we need to smack it back down like a wack-a-mole.

  36. @Draconius: In the 70s how far along was the women’s movement? What social pressures were in place for gender-normative likes and dislikes compared to today? To apply 70s-era norms to *today*, as the author of that review may have done, is somewhat absurd. Being out of touch may certainly be a valid explanation, but generalizations of this type just aren’t a good idea especially considering the supposed gains we’ve made against sexism. (And that goes both ways – it’s ok for guys to like SitC and not like Star Wars.)

  37. By “slow clap”, I think Rebecca meant what is commonly referred to over here as a “golf clap”. Polite applause, without making a scene.

    Or, it might just be the latest STD she has acquired.

  38. @primowalker: Haha, that’s interesting. My husband and I are always perplexed when there’s single bathrooms that are designated men/women. I can understand some people being uncomfortable with multiple stalls (though for me if I’m in a stall, who cares?), but a single? I just use the one that’s available.

  39. @Kimbo Jones: In Japan restrooms were ofter unisex, which made my mother rather uncomfortable. Often they weren’t even a room, just a single wall, which made me uncomfortable. On one trip she was very happy to see separate male and female doors.

    They both led into the same room.

  40. @Kimbo Jones:
    I think you are absolutely right and I’m glad someone else thinks that too. Admittedly, I’m not a fan of Sex and the City, but I don’t judge people who are. It has some positives that people are forgetting, like showing single professional women doing well in their lives and careers. Solidarity between women, instead of competition. And of course encouraging women to talk about sex and sexual health.

    I totally think that women liking ‘male-orientated’ things is praised. Women who prefer watching Desperate Housewives and other ‘female-orientated’ things are considered less intelligent and/or more shallow than women who prefer ‘male-orientated’ things like watching sport. I don’t think that’s fair. I bet if we took the male-orientated porn industry and compared that with Grey’s Anatomy, Grey’s is going to come out looking a lot less vapid.

  41. GOOD GOD PEOPLE!
    They are movies, not worth this much chatter….

    OK. I feel better and will now step down from the pedestal where I was judging you all.

    Star Wars is will live on for hundreds of years. Sex in the City will be a forgotten trend in 20 years.

    Sums it up.

  42. Hi there!

    @Kimbo @Marilove: … aaaaaaaand that’s exactly what I was thinking as I walked away from my computer and into an interminable meeting which gave me plenty of time to think about how incredibly stupid I just sounded.

    That was EXACTLY the reason that girls didn’t play Star Wars in the 70s. It was a BOYS thing, and it would have been as shocking as a boy picking up a Barbie Doll and playing with it. They were less enlightened times. [nods]

  43. @Kimbo Jones:

    Yes. This.

    I remember seeing Star Wars in 1977–I went with my mom and brother to see it in Chicago. And I loved it. And that year for Giftmas I got a stuffed Chewbacca toy, which I still have. I collected all of the Star Wars trading cards, which I don’t have now. :(

    These days I don’t really consider myself a Star Wars fan. I definitely prefer Star Trek and other sci fi TV shows to the Star Wars franchise.

    I think I’ve seen one episode of Sex in/and the City. Which is it–“and” or “in”–anyway? And I haven’t seen either of the movies, nor do I intend to do so. It’s just not my thing.

  44. Coincidentally I was just watching The Fairly Odd Parents episode “The Boy Who Would Be Queen”


    [Scene]
    (In a beauty salon)
    TRIXIE: If only I could meet a boy confident enough to admit he likes Kissy Kissy Goo Goo! I’d go out with him even if he wore a stupid pink hat.

    GIRL TIMMY: Really? But I’ll bet he’d NEVER come in here.

    TRIXIE: Well, he should! If boys did more girl stuff, then girls would be able to more boy stuff!
    [/Scene]

    I can laugh at divisive, racist and generally dark humor, but Siedell’s article didn’t even make me smile. I can’t help but feel this was just an ignoramus beating his chest trying to sound superior, but trying to hide it under the guise of being “funny”.

    PS: “WHAT THE **** ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT, DUDE?”
    Do I have to be a Skepchick Premium Member to see the hidden word?

  45. I don’t think he was saying girls shouldn’t like Star Wars, but I will:
    girls shouldn’t like Star Wars.
    Star Wars is over-rated cack in six incrementally more irritating installments of bad acting, plodding storylines and hideous dialogue.
    Sample: “We must get capture her alive. Oh look, she’s getting away. Stop her. No wait. Set your guns to stun. We need her alive blahblahblah ok now let’s go. We’ve not wasted any time at all have we? No I think we have been very economical with our pre-chase dialogue and taken care not to say very obvious and pointless things. Oh dear, our laser guns are no match for these squeaking cave-teddies.”

  46. @Draconius: dude. i’ll tell you about one girl i know who liked star wars in the ’70s: my mother. star wars was my parents’ first date. being working class people, they didn’t have money to spend on toys and posters and paraphernalia, but they raised 4 nerdy kids on a steady diet of the holy trilogy. we wore out at least 3 sets of vhs.

  47. @Kimbo Jones: gendered single stall bathrooms are probably my biggest pet peeve.
    there is a bar in minneapolis with a truly unisex multistalled bathroom. it has the much more civilized, fully walled stalls, but the sinks are communal. i honestly don’t see a problem with this type of system. like you, i don’t get what the big deal is.

  48. I saw the first SW movie in DC, with about 30 science fiction fans, male and female alike. No one I socialised with at that point would have thought it odd that the ladies liked SW – and no one was surprised when several higher-pitched voices yelled out at Han Solo’s claim that he ‘made the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs’. [‘That’s distance, you idiot!’]

    The Biophysicist used episodes if SatC to exercise – they were half an hour long, just right for a couple of miles on the treadmill and there was a lot of T&A, which made trotting uphill less boring. The only one he didn’t hate was Samantha; Carrie he dismissed as whiny, immature and predicatable, Charlotte as an uptight WASP and Miranda as too time-consumingly neurotic.

    Unlike FlameTest, I would see the movie if someone paid me to. I think $500 is a nice round number. Then, as I do not wear Manolos, I could go out, buy some more books, a bookcase to put them in, a new airbrush and a couple of pairs of flip-flops. And not the $900 Chanels I saw at the Bal Harbour mall in Florida.

    [Is anybody really that insane? Plastic flip-flops whose only concession to couture was the Chanel logo. Couldn’t have cost more that a buck to make in some underprivileged third world country.]

  49. @Shadow Of A Doubt: i won’t say i disagree, from an objective perspective, but, having been indoctrinated at such an early age, i find it very difficult to evaluate star wars objectively.

    i don’t love it because it’s a cinematic masterpiece. i love it because it’s part of the fabric of my life. in that way, it’s sort of like a religion, except without all the guilt and bullshit. for that reason, i don’t feel the need to throw star wars in the junk heap with catholicism :D

    it’s one of the few things i can still suspend my disbelief about, and i value that, in a strange way…

  50. I am about to have my geek card revoked (it’s okay, I haven’t paid my dues lately anyway) but I really don’t like Star Wars much. I have seen the original three all the way through once, maybe twice and found it to be, for the most part, second rate acting in a Flash Gordon rip-off with some messiah mythos thrown in and lots of technical googahs to make it look pretty. I have no plans to ever see the prequels. I just can’t be bothered. My opinion, just saying.
    I guess my “Star Wars” would be the Burton Batman (standing in line opening night), Monty Python’s movies (can quote them when appropriate, or not appropriate), or the Back to the Future movies (seen them like a million times).

    To quote Queen, “Jaws was never my scene and I don’t like Star Wars.”

  51. I’m not a huge fan of Star Wars either, in fact I’m probably one of the few people who enjoyed the prequel trilogy more. The basic Star Wars plot was fairly meh, but watching Palpatine in the prequels slowly manipulate the whole Republic right in front of the supposedly wise and insightful Jedi order was brilliant.

  52. Star Trek is my Star Wars

    But I’m also a SATC fan, I went to see the new one yesterday and I enjoyed it, but unfortunately a big glaring story line is a promotion of Suzanne Somers woo. So sad :( I wrote a blog post about it here (warning, spoilers): http://struckbyenlightning.wordpress.com/2010/06/02/sex-and-the-city-and-the-suzanne-somers/

    Back to the original topic…it’s fine if some women get “boners” when the opening credits of SATC roll, but he made the mistake that too many people seem to make, my making the leap from:

    1. Most SATC fans are women

    to

    2. Most women are SATC fans

    They make the same mistake when talking about men and Star Wars, because most of my guy friends could care less about Star Wars

  53. I have seen my share of SatC because my wife is a fan. I hated the first season when they had this dumb-ass gimmick of talking to the camera a la Ferris Bueller, but the show is not unwatchable and can be quite funny. Yes there are times when eyes are heavily rolled and the vapidness threatens to form a partial vacuum inside the TV but they did throw The Secret across the room in the first movie because it was boring.
    I understand that some see Star Wars as not very good but part of their childhood, I’d say the same about the Wizard of Oz. But then I love “Joe versus the Volcano,” so what do I know?

  54. Hear hear.
    I’m 21 years old and female, probably the target audience for that filth. I tried watching the show at the recommendation of my peers and decided I’d rather rub salt and lemon in my unprotected eyes for the amount of time I could be watching the show.

    However Star Wars is and always has been a huge part of my life. Those films are so ingrained into my youth and life in general.

    No shoes match that golden bikini.

  55. I thought “sex in the city” referred to getting a blow job in a used book store in San Francisco. Have I missed something?

    In other news: I was eight in 1977, and I was, for a while, best friends with the girl next door because she had every damn SW toy in the world. (I wasn’t exactly deprived, but she had me beat by a mile.)

    But that was then and this is now. Now, I find myself compelled to say that unless you HATE Star Wars and GRIEVE for what it once might have been, then you never really loved it, no matter how much swag you have.

    That, or you have a life.

  56. I’m also a huge Star Wars/Trek fan. I can be in another room when a TNG episode is running and be able to tell you which one it is from the first lines exchanged between characters (without seeing the video).

    I’m also a huge SaTC fan. It’s not that I’m vain or anything (at least I don’t think I am). I’m a proud dork/geek. I care nothing for shoes and don’t own anything fancy. I HATE shopping!!(makes my bf laugh sometimes) But I love sex and I like the story line. And it’s like a whole window into a world that is completely foreign to me (the fashion/glamor bit)!

    Generalizations are a bitch. People should try to avoid making them.

  57. @Kimbo Jones: The Wizard of Oz, while forever holding a place in my heart, is objectively the world’s biggest acid trip. Weird is weird, that doesn’t mean it can’t be loved.
    Some people love Rocky Horror even though it’s a bit shit, to each his own.

  58. @mslongjr: i continue to love star wars, though in order to do so, i must pretend that george lucas ceased to exist after 1985 or so. therefore i have no idea about these “prequels” and “re-re-re-re-releases” of which you speak :D

  59. so to sum up.

    random guy on internet makes a lame attempt at comedy review about a chick flick, using generalizations about women and stereotypes.

    random awesome skeptic blogger is upset enough to want to voice her dislike of “being told what she likes when it comes to movies, based on her gender”

    random guy actually never excluded women from liking star wars in his review.

    thread gets derailed.

    everyone is happy

    asshat makes a besserwisser sum up and things get awkward.

    how am i doing so far? :)

  60. I used to like Star Wars, but I no longer have any affinity for it at all, and quite honestly, I don’t know how anyone else could given how bad Episode I was.

    I had seen the three original Star Wars movies many times (the ones that come later in the series but were made first) I was never a *huge* fan, but I liked them well enough.

    When Star Wars Episode I came out in 1999, I actually saw it on the opening day (but not the first show of the day) Believe it or not, a girl I knew actually asked me to go and she had gone and gotten the tickets to it.

    It could have been a nice date and a good time, but the movie was so awful, I can literally say it was one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen. It was so bad afterward, neither of us felt like even doing anything. I think we both went home to take a long shower to get the feeling of being left dirty by the film off.

    It’s obvious that the damn Jar-Jar character was a poor attempt at a new character with some appeal to kids while keeping it relevant to adults (like Chewbacka) but it failed miserably. On top of that, the film wasn’t even any good to begin with and the kid who played young Darth Vader was a horrible actor.

    Since then I have never seen that movie again, not even part of it. I’ve never seen the other new Star Wars films (episode II and III or whatever) and I’ve never even watched the original Star Wars films again. It’s been more than 11 years since I’ve seen a Star Wars movie, and I have no desire to ever see one again.

    Yes, I am a man, and I detest Star Wars because of that one horrible two hours I spent in 1999. I’ll never forgive George Lucas for subjecting me to that. So I guess I break the rule of men liking Star Wars.

  61. also, i have to say, sex and the city was really good the first couple of years. it came out as i was breaking free of the religious bubble of my youth, and addressed female sexuality in an entirely new (to me at least) way that, along with my very tmi gay best friend, helped thoroughly dispossess me of any residual hangups regarding sex. yeah, the materialistic, shoe-idol worship gets old, but it really did revolutionize the way female sexuality is seen and discussed.

  62. @Egillvs: No, he didn’t “exclude”. He made a generalization about women’s likes. He also assumed that only ladies would watch and/or like this movie and that men like Star Wars, which generalizes what men do and do not like.

    It’s one thing to be subversive about gender stereotypes, but he was just trotting them out as if they are a given and themselves funny. Hey did you also know that women are terrible drivers and men are slobs? Bahaha- ugh.

  63. @Drbuzz0: Yes, I am a man, and I detest Star Wars because of that one horrible two hours I spent in 1999. I’ll never forgive George Lucas for subjecting me to that.

    THIS. This is why I never plan on seeing the last Indiana Jones movie.

    Is South Park right. Di-, did they really rape him? Indy… Speak to me Indy..

  64. OK, fine, since no-one else is saying it…
    The Borg are indeed from TNG, including a 2 episode season ender/opener (3/4) of Picard being assimilated into the borg, then rescued. they were also the main villain in the second TNG feature film. they were reused in other series, but they started with TNG. (and it’s Q’s fault)

  65. I feel it is a bit pointless to post this, but is it necessarty to say that the guy is not trying to make a point? Nor a statement? Or even say something that is true! He’s just making fun of the movie, not of women. Humor doesn’t have to be true, and if it is not funny to you you don’t need to point out it is based on false statistics because it wasn’t even supposed to be in the first place, he hasn’t even seen the movie!

    He’s not making generalizations, he’s just using them to make humor, and the only people who I’d understand being offended by the article are the ones that like Sex and the City. When he says it is “your Star Wars” he’s not talking about ALL women, he’s talking about women who, well, see SATC as their Star Wars. If you’re not part of that group (or even if you are) I don’t see why you should take it personal.

    It’d be like George Lucas taking offense and pointing out that Vader does not eat orally after seeing Eddie Izzard’s bit about the Death Star canteen. Just completely misses the point.

    Unless… the point of this post is also humor, but to me it feels you’re truly offended, and if you’re not, ignore all of the above.

  66. @Kimbo Jones: Really, I think that (that women are culturally rewarded for liking “man stuff”, while men are culturally punished) comes from a couple of different things. In the case of women liking “male” stuff, there’s an element of men regarding her as “one of the guys” and more willing to forgive them their particular passions.
    When the girl likes geek stuff, there’s a bit of that, plus… well, a good number of geeks went through a fairly large drought of female attention. Especially when they were in high school and their 20s, especially if they were hardcore geeks (Hi there!). Even though the girl geek:guy geek ratio is improving, guy geek still frequently remember the times when they were pariahs, or had to hide their hobbies to hang out with girls. A girl who is into their geekdoms, though… they don’t have to hide. And that’s enough to make anyone giddy.

    Now, on the other hand, you’ve got the guys who like “girl stuff”. First, there’s the censure for being perceived as feminine; Dan Savage talks about some of the letters he’s gotten where guys (or their girlfriends) are concerned that hetero sexual acts they enjoy indicate that they’re gay… because they’re perceived as “feminine” likes (he cites one letter of a guy, going down on his girlfriend, who likes his nipples stimulated at the same time… and wanted to know if that made him gay). His opinion is that hetero male sexuality in the US is commonly defined as “not a woman, and not gay”. Then, of course, there’s the dreaded “friend zone”. While it’s not a universal truth, being “one of the girls” is a good way, in most guy’s minds, to being exiled to the friend zone. One of the most crushing moments in my life was being described as someone’s “gay friend who happened to be straight”… even if you don’t have any particular designs, that’s a pretty rough one to hear… it’s an open negation of your sexuality, placing you (me), not just in the “friend zone”, but in the zone of someone whose sexuality will not conceivably intersect their own. It would be less damaging to be called “like a brother”, because that at least doesn’t carry the same negation of sexuality… an ambivalence, perhaps, but not the same level of negation.

    @catgirl: Thank you.

    @Chasmosaur: I actually blogged about that a while ago. IMO, Josh Whedon is somewhat taking the place of George Lucas, for a great number of geeks. A lot of the things that drew us to George with the first two movies (good dialogue, compelling stories, world-building) were gone by the re-release add-ons, and especially the prequels. Whedon, however, keeps those. You can watch Buffy or Angel or Firefly just for the dialogue; he can tell compelling stories, in an interesting world, and keep us wanting more (partially because people keep canceling his shows). Some of this, of course, comes down to the actors (though I’ll admit to being less enchanted with SMG as time goes on), but a lot comes to writing and direction… skills that George, if he ever had, has thrown away.

  67. @LinzeeBinzee: Unknown fact: a “Joe Versus the Volcano” (or JVTV) is a unit of measurement to judge the merits of 80’s star vehicles. Example: Masters of the Universe is worth 1/3 of a JVTV, while Back to the Future is worth 10 JVTV’s.

  68. I think it’s amusing that in the whole thread the biggest fantasy of the SatC franchise wasn’t mentioned.

    SatC presents this unbreakable friendship between four women, which is rarely seen in real life. Can any of us say we have 3 non-related platonic peers that we see as often and share our lives with as deeply as these characters do? I’d wager not many. It’s a nice fantasy, and it’s one of the strongest parts of the series that keeps fans coming back.

    Along with some humor and sex, of course.

    At the end of the day, it takes all kinds, and it does no one any good to demonize people who enjoy a certain form of entertainment. You don’t have to watch it with them.

    @geek goddess: That’s a pretty harsh stereotype of those women. At least they were at the game.

  69. @Drbuzz0: I remember watching the kid flying a ship into the Droid control ship, saying “Oh, no, R2. Aaahhhh,” as flatly as if he were reading it off an eye-chart, and thinking, “George Lucas saw that scene and actually said, ‘That’s perfect! Print that!”

  70. @Drbuzz0:
    … and the kid who played young Darth Vader was a horrible actor.

    Actually, I thought he did OK. There were several moments where he sounded almost exactly like Luke Skywalker in the original movies (mannerisms and speech-pattern).
    But yeah, there were equally as many moments where he didn’t reach the mark of adequate acting.

  71. @exarch: Hard to be a good actor with some of the tripe they were forced to say.

    @drfaustus: Why is that the threshold? There are lots of attempts to be funny that are offensive, lame, and/or annoying. He used a gender stereotype that’s not true to review a movie (he said “ladies”, not “SatC fans”). Laaaaame.

    This sort of thing exemplifies more complex issues at work. It’s not the article itself that’s so annoying, it’s the general attitude it represents. Not just towards women, but men as well.

  72. @Mark Hall:
    “A girl who is into their geekdoms, though… they don’t have to hide. And that’s enough to make anyone giddy. Now, on the other hand, you’ve got the guys who like “girl stuff”. First, there’s the censure for being perceived as feminine;”

    Right and I think a lot of that comes down to living in a male-normative society.

  73. @Mark Hall: “is opinion is that hetero male sexuality in the US is commonly defined as “not a woman, and not gay”.”

    Yep. As KimboJones said, that’s because we live in a male-normative, patriarchal society. I think things are getting better … slowly. Well, not necessarily better. We recently had that discussion about confidence with your body, and we briefly discussed how it’s now becoming more and more common for men to be shamed for not being “perfect”.

    Recently, on a stupid morning radio show, they were talking about men liking chick flicks. The woman on the show was like, “OMG NO! That means you’re GAAAAAAAY!” It was ridiculous.

  74. @carr2d2: I find it very hard not to consider the original movies ruined by the [redacted] because the [redacted] seem to prove that the things I thought were cool in the originals really were as stupid as the film critics back in the 70’s said they were.

    But such is the nature of love, and the love of having been in love, that I really wish I didn’t care.

  75. @mrmisconception: Is South Park right. Di-, did they really rape him? Indy… Speak to me Indy…

    It’s weird, but as much as I detest the Star Wars [redacted], I thought Indy 4 was mostly fine. I enjoyed it, saw it again to see if I was crazy, and still enjoyed it.

    I thought it was perfectly OK (and humorous) to put “ancient astronauts” on the same level as religious myth and legend. I thought Ford, Allen, and La Beouf played well together. I thought the movie had some pretty good commentary on McCarthyism and the myths of the Cold War (and of the American good-ol’-days).

    There was some stupidly bad science, but how’s that different from the first three movies? We’re already in a universe where Jewish, Hindu, and Christian magic coexist and work if you know the magic formula; where Indy survives impossible situations like a character in a Warner Brothers cartoon; so why get upset when (for instance) he survives a nuclear bomb test by climbing into a refrigerator, a stunt that’s obviously played for laughs?

    Which is not to say that Indy 4 is a movie that meets high standards. It’s a dumb summer action flick. But it’s a friendly, dumb summer action flick that doesn’t try to pretend it’s something it’s not. Unlike the Star Wars [redacted], it doesn’t lay bare the moral and intellectual vacuum of its predecessors in an attempt to combine high tragedy with the selling of Happy Meals.

    I suppose it just seems to me that if I can forgive Temple of Doom, then I can forgive Indy 4.

  76. @Kimbo Jones : Why is something as small as this even considered offensive? Or even worth getting bothered about? Specially when it is not the point and is not trying to provoke that at all. Tim Siedell is just a guy who basically started making jokes and word plays on Twitter, saying things like this:

    http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2010/05/getting-to-know-badbanana.html?p=4

    So maybe if you are his neighbour, homeless, Lady Gaga or Fred Astaire, and if you like Coldplay or have clumsy thumbs, and have a tendency to take things personal, then you would be REALLY offended by this guy.

  77. This is one of the better reviews of the film I’ve seen: http://whattamisaid.blogspot.com/2010/05/what-tami-said-can-save-you-8-my-review.html

    “Here is the plot of Sex and the City 2: Four privileged white women take a break from relentlessly moaning about their privileged lives to go on an Orientalist fantasy excursion to Abu Dhabi, where they are each assigned a brown servant to wait on them as they maraud through the country, dressed like assholes, exoticizing people, mocking culture, flouting religious custom, rubbing yams on their bodies and, on occasion, because they are our heroines, “saving” the natives with their American liberation and largess.”

    And it gets better from there :)

  78. @drfaustus: This “small” thing represents a much larger annoying issue: -isms. The level of annoyance here is with sexism in general, not necessarily the review itself – this is just one example of how pervasive sexism is. It’s so part of our culture that some people don’t bat an eyelash, or even notice, when it occurs. No one is opposing humour in general. Rather people are discussing the annoyance that garbage assumptions like this are still considered humour in and of themselves. The same would be true for any ism.

    This reminds me of a recent discussion on Friendly Atheist where a journalist used the phrase “there’s no atheists in foxholes” and Hemant said to readers “if you don’t like this, write to him”. Several commenters appeared to say “guyz! I dunno what you’re getting so worked up about, it’s just a joke, we have bigger fish to fry, jeez”. So ignorant stereotypes are ok just because the context is a joke? The journalist responded to the feedback in a way that indicated he didn’t understand why atheists would be upset. Why? Because it’s perpetuates a stereotype of atheist beliefs (or lack thereof) and insults atheist soldiers. But that concept is so pervasive in American society that the journalist couldn’t wrap his head around why some people might find that offensive. That’s the great thing about being in a position of privilege – you get to ignore the things that don’t affect you and go “geez, guyz relax”.

    Again, as I said above, it’s one thing to be subversive in humour and address these issues within jokes, but just laying out offensive stereotypes as if they themselves are funny is annoying. The movie review doesn’t itself upset me – sexism upsets me, stereotypes upset me.

    @bug_girl: Awesome.

  79. @Kimbo Jones:
    Well, tbh, when I first read it I thought he was addressing the audience for SatC, not the entire female sex, and comparing their devotion to SatC with his devotion to Star Wars. So I assumed that Tracy liked both and was saying so in a humourous way; and opening up the comments to reaffirmations of belief in the transformative power of The Force.

    Surely he cannot really be saying that girls only like SatC and boys only like Star Wars? That would be depressingly moronic.

  80. @carr2d2: I certainly don’t think valuing films you first saw when you were young is wrong. But for me, watching Star Wars for the first time was one of the most disappointing experiences of home-cinema I have had because of the mismatch between reality and the way it was talked about.

  81. @mrmisconception – it’s not Flash Gordon, Star Wars is a rip of Isaac Asimov’s Trilogy Foundation. The central Empire, the artificial planet, the Traders out on the edges, trying to duck the Empire goons, the mind reading…

    @Elizabeth – hey, the stadium holds about 60K people, so if 25K of them are female (slightly more men go to them than women, from my personal observation) then those three dozen girls dressed up for a date but puking in the sinks is really a small number. I guess you had to have been there. One didn’t *dare* step out without your Greek letters, so it’s not like you couldn’t pick them out.

    I did some googling but could not find an article I read a few years back about SatC and its primary writers. The guy, a fan, said it was *really* written by gay men for gay men, played by women. The few eps I saw (the dark haired one was getting married to someone in a kilt) were ok, but nothing that drew me in.

    My dislike of the blog Teek was writing about, is that somehow SitC is supposed to be this radicalizing, culture-changing, all-new thing for *women*. Star Wars was all that, at the time, but not just for women.

  82. @Kimbo Jones: +1 Kimbo. That is the point I wanted to make: why is it considered so fashionable to denigrate women who like shoes and embrace women who like Dr. Who. For the record, I embrace both. I like the SaTC tv series (the movie sucked though), and I collect original dr. who target novelisations & star wars figurines.

  83. I would like to point out that my upstairs neighbor’s favorite is #1 (Phantom Menace)… but in all fairness, it was the 1st one he saw, 4 years ago when he was 6.

    He and his little brother seem to prefer the villains, BTW.

  84. @Kimbo Jones:

    and thus his review was a subpar attempt at humor, it’s not a crime to use stereotypes in your attempt at levity, it’s just sometimes not very funny, like in this case.

    @marilove:

    well upset enough to add in all capital letters “what the F*** dude” would in my book constitute “upset enough to want to voice her dislike”, but perhaps my grasp on the blogger rituals is as lacking as my understanding of women’s moodswings !

    (hope you notice that)

  85. @Elizabeth: I for one didn’t demonise anyone. In fact I didn’t mention the SATC movie in my post other than for context. If I was going to write about SATC2 I would watch it first.

  86. The more I read this, I have a feeling he actually was trying to be more funny than offensive.

    And, really, any man who can connect SATC to SW in that many ways has to have some cred.

    Just my thought and, much as I’m known for fangirl rage, there’s just too many SW references in that article for me to think he wasn’t trying to give us SW fans a little love.

    I’m just glad he didn’t say Twilight was our Star Wars. Then I would have had to kill him dead.

    I actually likened SATC to “female shopping porn”. Because who in the hell can wear those kinds of shoes and clothes doing the those kinds of things? ;-) (

  87. I didn’t feel like Tracy was passing harsh judgment at all on those who like sex and the city, more on the reviewer for his ignorant comments.

    That being said, Kimbo raises really good points and I’m inclined to agree with her. Some of the comments along the lines of shaming/putting down women who may be into more stereotypically ‘girly’ stuff while praising those who are more into the typically ‘masculine’ things is a very disturbing thing to me. Reading that someone feels proud that a woman they know doesn’t really like shoes or want to get her hair done or anything just makes me feel uncomfortable. I would hope that those I love and respect love and respect me for what I do, not what I choose to not do. I would hope that my boyfriend would appreciate that I spent all last weekend shooting bad guys on Red Dead Redemption with him, but be completely and at ease and SUPPORTIVE that I take 15 minutes to put on make-up before leaving my house, I get a manicure every couple of weeks and I have a serious weakness for a specific designer’s handbags. To me this sort of “everything opposite of traditionally feminine is good, everything that is traditionally feminine is bad” mindset is just as cloistering as when the reverse was enforced.

    I’m rambling but my point to people who are quick to condemn and judge women who do care about make-up, or shoes, or whatever else that isn’t Dr. Who or video games or dirt bikes or whatever else it is that was once almost solely the domain of men, tread carefully. Human beings (not just women, but men too) are complicated and many-layered creatures. There’s absolutely no reason a woman can’t love SATC AND watch Battlestar Galactica religiously. And just because a girl isn’t into something that is ‘traditionally masculine’ and is into something that’s ‘traditionally feminine’ it doesn’t make her some vapid dummy. One of my pals is just as into fashion and beauty as I am and she’s also fluent in Chinese and incredibly well-traveled and cultured, not to mention a great conversationalist when it comes to talking about global current events. I think it’s really important that instead of assigning arbitrary values to narrow likes and dislikes we step back and take into account the entire person before passing harsh (and most likely unfounded) judgment.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Back to top button