FROM THE ARCHIVE
21 Things We Love About Sex And The City
To celebrate the release of the movie everyone's talking about, we've unearthed this fabulous feature from the nether regions of our archive. It's everything we absolutely loved about the TV show.
1. Samantha Jones
Considering Sex and the City was conceived by a gay man, from the characters, Samantha Jones can be most identified as a gay man in female attire. She discusses the particulars of gay shagging - anal, oral, rimming, even frottage - on a regular basis. Currently she's going out with a hunk who looks like a Calvin Klien model and has been used on Absolut Vodka billboards with the title 'Absolut Asshole'.
2. Anthony Marintino
Although Charlotte's former wedding planner only appears for nano-seconds at a time, he's the second best reason to watch SATC. He's Will & Grace's Jack turned up several decibels and he delivers quick-fire sex advice so blunt it would make your toenails curl. The part has been so successful that actor Mario Cantone has been offered his own spin-off sitcom.
3. Carrie Bradshaw
Although Carrie's entire life revolves around relationships, for the most part she can only be described as single and fabulous - which is kind of how gay men, in relationships or not, like to see themselves. Carrie's queer charm lies in the fact that she's a serial monogamist with serious shopping issues. Pretty gay, don't you think?
4. Miranda Hobbs
Easily the most realistic of SATC's characters, we have a soft spot for Miranda because, unlike the others she appears to find it difficult to cope with the vagaries of men and single life in the city. Such is her lot; the writers made her a single mother to put icing on her already overloaded cake. She's the easiest to identify with on a human level.
5. Charlotte York
Some of us Irish queers may have a soft spot for Charlotte, but she represents a particularly American more, the New York society WASP. Her neurotic adherence to perfect, if conservative interior design and her desperate adherence to a particular social etiquette may endear her to some, but generally it's the little-girl-lost thing that gets to the heart of us.
6. Bunny MacDougal
Like a Cruella De Ville Trey's mother swept in and out of Charlotte's life, trying to wrestle control of her son away, complete with the bitchiest put-downs this side of Dynasty. Her tendencies to barge into the connubial bedchamber and sit beside Trey during bath time put her relationship with him in a very weird light indeed.
7. Stanford Blatch
It's hard to believe Stanford - the plainest gay man in the history of television - finds such hot boyfriends on the New York scene, a place obsessed with chiseled male perfection. For a while he floundered around with personal ads and the internet (his chatroom name is Rick9Plus), but last season he found love with Marcus, a man with abs good enough to grate cheese on. It's the ultimate gay fantasy.
8. Harry Goldenblatt
Was there ever a nicer divorce lawyer than Harry Goldenblatt? And has a heterosexual marrying kind ever looked more like today's approximation of a middle aged gay man? It's the shaved head, and the fact that he's so Goddamn... nice. Charlotte had to change her 'religion' to marry him and, like it or not, we're reading that as a gay subtext. Okay?
9. Magda
When devoutly Catholic Magda came to work as Miranda's housekeeper she replaced the dildo in the bedside locker with a statue of the Virgin Mary. Since then, although she drives Miranda nuts, she's been a fixture in the flat. She's a mass of disapproving looks and shrugs, but Magda has a heart of gold. She's the mother figure of the show.
10. The men in Carrie's life
As opposed to Samantha, Carrie represents the flagrantly heterosexual single in the city, but unfortunately she keeps ending up with 'gay' men. Mr Big stepped right out of a gay porn fantasy and proceeded to break her heart because he couldn't commit. Aidan's second name was Shaw (what other Aidan Shaw have you heard of?) and proceeded to break her heart because she couldn't commit. Berger stepped right out of a shaving ad (the next best thing to gay porn) and proceeded to break her heart because he couldn't commit. Her current flame, Aleksandr is played by a man who used to be a ballet dancer in real life. Need we say more?
11. Samantha's Lesbian Phase
In the fourth season of SATC, when every possible heterosexual coupling for Samantha had been exhausted, the powers that be decided she should turn to women. Samantha began dating Maria, a female artist, telling the girls that lesbian love has opened her eyes to the "joys of making love with an emotional connection". Considering it took four episodes for Samantha to get "sick of too much talk and not enough cock", it was all a bit tokenistic, but at least we got to see Kim Cattrall and Sonia Braga get hot and sticky together.
12. Charlotte's Lesbian Phase
Sick of not being able to forge empowering relationships with men, Charlotte came across a bunch of 'power lesbians' at an opening in her art gallery. She quickly became enamoured with the trouser-suited group, but when it was discovered that she wasn't a lesbian, she was immediately dropped from their ranks. Was it enough to see Charlotte flirt with idea of girls together? It's your call.
13. The Clothes
Whoever came up with the idea of using SATC as a kind of televisual fashion shoot was a genius. Jimmy Choo and Manola Blahnik for shoes, Chanel for bags, Thierry Mugler for power dressing and spice up your jeans-and-tee look with a Gucci jacket. Having said that, anyone who wears a tutu on the street in daylight deserves to have a bus splash her.
14. The Sex
Promiscuity is the order of the day. After a decades of televisual Americans pretending they only did it in the missionary position once a week and twice at weekends, SATC came along and told it like it was. Shock! Horror! People get up to all sorts of shenanigans and generally nobody is the worse for it. Now it's routine to watch Samantha take it up the ying-yang, or wherever.
15. The Reverse Agesim
Anyone under the age of 25 is dismissed as a pointless, pouting child in SATC. It is intrinsically understood that you get sexier and more interesting as you get older. As Samantha said, "I'm 45 and I'm fucking fabulous."
16. The One-Liners
Try these for size: "I'm a "trisexual". I'll try anything once." (Samantha); " Blowing you is like getting my teeth flossed." (Samantha again); "Is your vagina listed in the New York City guide books?" (Charlotte to Samantha); "All the good ones are straight... even the gay ones." (Stanford); Miranda went out with an overeater and he overate her (Carrie).
17. The Cameos
While the coolest of the cool lined up to appear in SATC our favourites were Candice Bergen as Carrie's Vogue editor; Heidi Klum playing herself; Margaret Cho as a fashion show organiser; Alan Cumming as the fashion designer 'O', and most of all, Geri Halliwell as Phoebe Kittenworth, an old friend of Samantha's (only because it proved our Geri couldn't act her way out of a paper bag).
18. The Tranny Episode
Officially titled 'Cock a Doodle Do!' the final episode of Season 3 confirms Samantha's status as a gay man in drag. She's just moved into a new area and can't get sleep because of the late-night cackling and ranting of the transsexual prostitutes outside her window. What follows is a queer cat-fight of epic proportions culminating in a rooftop party where all the girls sashay drag-style with their newfound tranny friends. It's as queer as fuck.
19. Darren Starr
The creator, producer, sometimes writer and director of SATC cut his gay teeth creating and writing on two of the most successful American dramas of the '90s, Beverly Hills 90210 and Melrose Place. He's the man who cast Tori Spelling in primetime TV and re-launched Heather Locklear's career. Refreshingly he doesn't deny any of the gay subtexts to any of the //SATC// characters.
20. Sarah Jessica Parker
We loved SJP long before she showed up on SATC. She made us giggle as a kind of younger version of Bette Midler in The First Wives Club and made us laugh out loud as Bette Midler's sister in Hocus Pocus, but her greatest queer asset is that she's a Broadway veteran. She's starred in productions of Annie, The Sound of Music and won a Tony for Once Upon A Mattress. The girl can sure belt out a showstopper.
21. The End?
With everything at the end of Sex and The City: The Movie pointing towards a sequel, it doesn't seem like there's any end in sight for the four girls. The film has made a shed-load of money and the studio execs will certainly want more SATC bucks rolling in. Watch this space...