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Comment from eva
Date: June 11, 2008, 5:36 pm

I have trouble understanding why someone who writes as well as Claudia La Rocco feels the need to have watched either SATC as a series or as a movie. And why pull poor E.B. White into this sick, solipsistic series?
When SATC first premiered, a friend of mine, a very well-read young woman who had served in the Israeli military and had a great career, said to me: “Have you heard about this awful new series? It’s unwatchable.” How could I disagree?
Everything I have read about it (and there is so much nauseating press on this) has confirmed that my friend’s judgment was correct. I find the notion of Carrie Bradshaw very sad.
New York, for us, was never primarily about fashion. It was certainly never about people like Carrie Bradshaw.
It was about people like Hubert Selby Junior, E.B. White, the young Joan Didion, Sylvia Plath. It was about Tony Kushner. It was about old Jewish bubbies at the Y who dispensed motherly advice in the sauna. It was about The Ramones, and Lou Reed. It was Jimmy Breslin and Norman Mailer. It was even about Madonna sleeping on peoples’ couches and going to danceteria before she “made it.” It was about gay men who knew more about Dante and about Livy than they knew about fashion. It was about struggling and it was about the mysteries at the Metropolitan Museum. It was about so many wonderful things that a quartet of sad, vapid, narcissistic, materialistic women can’t touch.
Bleep fashion. Bleep Carrie. Bleep Claudia for even giving it press.
We want the real New York back.

Comment from eva
Date: June 11, 2008, 5:37 pm

Give us back Bella Abzug.
Send Carrie Bradshaw to Singapore.

Comment from Claudia La Rocco
Date: June 11, 2008, 5:50 pm

Congratulations, Eva, you’ve won the award for backhanded compliment of the month! I am glad you think I write well, even if you feel I have appalling taste (you’re not, alas, the first) …

well, what to say in response? A few things come to mind, in no particular order:

1. I do not know to which “us” you refer, but New York is many (often conflicting) things to many (often conflicting) people - that’s what makes it such an incredible city, no? Mightn’t it just be possible that the show resonated with some people living in this grand city, whether or not it was a New York we recognized? Woman can’t live on Plath and Dante alone … candy is nice, sometimes, too …

2. I have a smart female Israeli friend who served in the military, too (though I’m not sure how well read she is - L, are you well read?)! And … wait for it … wait for it… drum roll … she is the person with whom I watched the SATC movie! I’m not kidding - she liked the series, thought the movie was “eh”

3. I like to think that SATC might have been one of E.B. White’s naughty pleasures …

4. Bleep me??! What kind of thing is that to say to a girl? How about giving me the old Bronx cheer instead?

5. I’m just being playful, Eva - hope I’m not offending you. I like playful. At its best, SATC the series was quite playful. The movie, sadly, is inert and self-serious and pretentious. No thanks. But playful, I’ll take.

6. I do not (gasp) like Normam Mailer’s books very much. There. I said it.

Comment from eva
Date: June 11, 2008, 6:03 pm

Claudia,
The great thing is, you don’t have to like Mailer’s books to appreciate the tumbler of vodka he pitched at the head of Gore Vidal.
(And no, you’re not being bold to announce you dislike Mailer. I didn’t gasp. I hear it all the time.)
Seriously, though, have you tried “The Armies of the Night”? I think it’s better than Capote’s “In Cold Blood.” And VERY relevant for our time. At the time of the march on the Pentagon, most of the country was in favor of the war. And yet thousands of people march on the Pentagon. How does that compare to today? Why? Is the vapidity of the SATC crowd a factor? Why was NYC roiling in the 60’s and 70’s and why is it so painfully bland now? Do you think Joan Didion would be blandishing about SATC as you are? Dagnabbit, Claudia, pull yourself up by your bootstraps, you don’t have to disgrace yourself in this manner!
Anyway, I get your point about candy. But what’s really kind of unnerving is how omnipresent the series and film have become.
What’s even more unnerving is the media insisting that the high box office returns for the film somehow means that the show boldly represents single women in general. It’s time for the silent majority (I always posit myself as part of the silent majority, no matter how unreasonable my stance) to say: we reject Carrie Bradshaw. We reject the omnipresence of that Parker woman and her ghastly omnipresent husband.
The best revenge? Did you see the cover of Vogue? I don’t think they like her very much there….

Comment from eva
Date: June 11, 2008, 6:18 pm

And by the way, if you’re going to respond with something about Mailer stabbing his wife, let me just say that I know I speak not only for myself, but for many people across the country who would prefer to be stabbed by Norman Mailer than to be forced to witness YET ANOTHER billboard with Carrie Bradshaw’s/Parker’s face on it. And many of us in this category have to pay for our own health insurance. But even with that stark reality, we’d take the knife in the gut and the uncertain chance of getting to the ER in time than more of the SJP media frenzy.
It’s not that I dislike her looks. I USED to like her looks. But that was before I had her face shoved in my face 24/7. It is a media onslaught through which not even Nicole Kidman’s face would fare well.
Please. Claudia. Go back to writing about bunnies.

Comment from Claudia La Rocco
Date: June 11, 2008, 6:22 pm

I will endeavor to not disgrace myself in the future. But I can’t make any promises.

Let’s just agree to disagree on this one, Eva, and call it a day. Norman ain’t going to be stabbing anyone anytime soon.

Comment from eva
Date: June 11, 2008, 6:37 pm

Was it too hard to answer the six questions I put forward?
I’ll repaste the questions as first asked:
“Seriously, though, have you tried “The Armies of the Night”? I think it’s better than Capote’s “In Cold Blood.” And VERY relevant for our time. At the time of the march on the Pentagon, most of the country was in favor of the war. And yet thousands of people march” (sic- I meant marched) “on the Pentagon. How does that compare to today? Why? Is the vapidity of the SATC crowd a factor? Why was NYC roiling in the 60’s and 70’s and why is it so painfully bland now? Do you think Joan Didion would be blandishing about SATC as you are? Dagnabbit, Claudia, pull yourself up by your bootstraps, you don’t have to disgrace yourself in this manner!”
I look forward to your answers. Hey, don’t blame me - you’re the person calling herself “culturist.”

Comment from katie
Date: June 11, 2008, 6:46 pm

uh, okay. Eva.

NYC in the 1970s was veering into financial ruin and bankruptcy. And that financial mismanagement that helped contribute so much color was followed by a social decay so deep that people thought it would never recover

plus, what about the outer boroughs?
they rock. or roll. or whatever “trying to be hip” phrase you used. or are you like the women in Sex and the City, women who don’t leave manhattan and have never been to a cultural event that doesn’t appear in the New Yorker or the NY Times?

i hesitate to comment, since you seem like the kind of person needy about being right, that you’ll comment us all into a coma.

cheers!

Comment from Claudia La Rocco
Date: June 11, 2008, 6:47 pm

Sigh.

1. Yes, I have.
2. I see protest every day, just depends where you look.
3. Times change, reactions change.
4. I do not think SATC has much of an impact on politics. If so, we would see better dressed politicians.
5. I think you are engaging in nostalgia.
6. I think Didion might, even if to tear it down. She has written beautifully about fashion.
7. Goodnight, Eva, I am heading out to a show now. I might have a cosmo after.

Comment from Counter Critic
Date: June 12, 2008, 7:22 pm

Gues who…?

Umm, hi Eva. Just want to point out a couple of things.

First, you’re giving way too much credit to SATC. (It also sounds like you haven’t even seen the show. And I quote: “Everything I have read about it…has confirmed that my friend’s judgment was correct.”)

For most people, the show is entertainment. A sometimes touching, sometimes ridiculously exaggerated version of NYC. It fulfills fantasy as much as it mirrors certain realities.

What really gets me going about your very first comment, though, is the stray shot you take at gay men living today, namely a criticism of gay men who aren’t interested in literature.

I have to admit, I fell into the trap too, years ago, when I first came out. I thought being gay was a sort of enlightened state of being. One night out at a gay bar will erode that fallacy pretty quickly.

There’s definitely a tradition of philosophical/artistic gay culture, and while this should be honored and celebrated, reading Dante has never been a prerequisite for sucking cock. Pardon my French.

What bothers me most is the condescension that gay men who aren’t artistic aren’t worthy of the gays of yore who apparently survived only on Proust, chinoiserie, Tchaikovsky, modern dance. You’re not the first person I’ve heard utter this bellyache.

I once heard Penny Arcade bemoan that AIDS had killed “so many individualized gay men.” Right, as if gay men today don’t have enough problems with guilt, now they have to feel guilty about surviving AIDS and being boring. Guilting gays into making their lives more artful is simply stupid.

The bottom line is there’s no training course for being gay (thank Christ), and just because a gay man might not take interest in avant garde art or Susan Sontag (whom I adore reading, btw), doesn’t make them less of a gay. It’s a reverse prejudice to project this expectation of intellect on an entire group of people, and to disparage those who don’t fit into your expectations.

The fact is that more and more gays are coming out of the closet, every year, and they’re taking the social risk to be open about it, expanding the general population’s attitudes toward homosexuals, they’re signing petitions, they’re marching in rallies, they’re daring to come out in high school, they’re doing as much as they can to stand up for individual rights in this country, and they’re doing it without Dante. And fuck Livy. Who the fuck is that anyway? Oh, crap, I think my gay-o-meter just dropped five points.

My guess is that the rest of your appraisal of NY’s past is marred by the same close-minded, nostalgic snobery as your belief that a gay man is only worth anything if he’s creative.

Maybe that’s the best part of Broke Back Mountain, now that I think of it. Neither of those characters is a painter, or a poet, or a drag queen, or anyone whose life is devoted to entertainment (this includes the fine arts, honey). But we still identify with their situation, and ultimately support their right to human dignity. And I don’t recall either of those cowboys ever whipping out a copy of The Inferno.

Comment from eva
Date: June 12, 2008, 7:53 pm

Katie,
Lived in the “outer boroughs” for years, preferred it to Manhattan, thanks for asking.
There was no doubt a lot more going on in NYC in the 1970’s than most people think. Try reading “Ladies and Gentlemen, The Bronx Is Burning: Baseball, Politics and The Struggle for the Soul of the City” - I guarantee you it will give you a deeper understanding of that period. It also helps put the political atmosphere in NYC (and to me that includes the “outer boroughs” as you put it) in perspective.

I didn’t mean to harp on the seventies in particular - the reality is that New Yorkers throughout the 20th century have been much more politically active and socially engaged than they are now.

I appreciate that you disagree, but I find it very sad that so many women are drawn to SATC. It’s a wildly stereotyped view of women that many of us find offensive. If a man had written the original series, would he have been accused of sexism? And it frankly worries me that it is so popular with women (or so the media insists…)

And Claudia, with all due respect, “Times change, reactions change” isn’t a terribly well-reasoned or even considered response.
Yes, I know Didion appreciates fashion, I think she actually started at Vogue. But she’s obviously moved beyond it. I like fashion and worked in the industry, it’s a big part of the city’s economy. But fashion is but one part of New York, and you have to worry about a show that portrays women as fashion victims somehow gaining “meaning” among a large group of women.

And I will absolutely question the media’s outsized fascination with fashion and “candy” as you put it PARTICULARLY when they write about it in a manner that manages to avoid thinking about what our relationship to it means in the broader context. And why we are giving it so much time when there are so many other things tearing at our country right now?

Why is it that there isn’t a show with four prominent female characters that is rich and thoughtful? Something along the lines of “The Wire”?

Sadly, if there is a show focusing on women, they must be, in large part, socially unconscious airheads, and utterly removed from the realities that confront ordinary women in New York. And Carrie Bradshaw is a writer? What on earth does she write?

Why are we being force-fed ideas through the media about what we ourselves are like? Vapid, materialistic, solipsistic, lecherous, politically disengaged… I guess if you claim the shows are “ironic” you can continue to spew out as much corrosive sex stereotyping as possible.

I actually think men, and particularly gay men, are now confronted with the same issue - a market-driven media that is more than happy to tell them exactly what they need to buy or wear or think in order to fulfill their gender-based roles. Enough with that. I think the marketing has been particularly vicious in its targeting of gay culture, and it’s sad to see gay men as obsessed with their body fat levels as women once were obsessed with their own waistlines. Give us pudgy Kushner and blatantly fat Abzug any day over Carrie and Samantha. Bring us real life, not fake froth.

“We dream of cities as we dream of sex…” was a great line from an early V.S. Naipaul novel, “The Mimic Men.” The two paragraphs that follow said more about men and women, gay and straight, than an entire 30 minutes of any SATC episode.

Comment from eva
Date: June 12, 2008, 8:15 pm

Counter Critic,
Fair criticism of what I wrote about gay culture, I appreciate your comments, and where you’re coming from.
As for the show: I’ve had to watch SATC in the salons - for some reason, they think that’s what women want to watch. And so they play it on endless loop. And your nails are wet and you kind of have no option to read because that would wreck the nail polish. (And no, I wouldn’t get a manicure, but my colleagues thought it would be “fun” to give me a year’s worth of manicures and the salon wouldn’t let me trade it in for cash.)
So that’s my exposure to the show. I strongly dislike the show, and I’m really exhausted from being told by the media on another seemingly endless loop that “gosh, women just LOVE this show.” Ugh. Glad it’s entertaining, but… as a woman, I think it’s important to stand up and say “This show… really… does not represent me. In fact, as a woman, even as entertainment, even as CANDY, it sickens me.” It does not represent any of the women I hang out with, their range of experience in the world, et cetera.
Let me suggest that we put the shoe on the other foot for a moment - if someone did a show about four gay men, and they were grossly self-involved, narcissistic, obsessed with fashion, and the media kept insisting that “hey, gay men really like this, so it must be what gay men are like!” Well, I think it would become a little GRATING for you… Especially since the only other popular show about four women did not really vouch for the, uh, richness of women’s lives.
And I can almost sense your reaction as: “But that’s what you’re saying about gay culture by insisting that it was better when it was more culture-obsessed.” If that’s what you’re thinking, well, you’re right, and I’m wrong to have put that forward in the manner I did. But I do really worry about how body-obsessed gay culture has become. I think it’s part of a larger trend in the culture - across gay and straight lines. I just hear it as worse from gay male friends.
I don’t know what it says about us.
I think it’s led us to a lack of sensitivity about sex itself, again, across gay and straight lines. As someone else wrote, a lack of sensitivity to ‘the soul of sex’ - all the wonderful associations we bring to what you so freely referred to as “sucking cock.”
I definitely appreciate that being expected to know something about Dante isn’t and shouldn’t be a prerequisite for gayness. On the other hand, to be totally frank, I truly miss the many older gay men who initiated me into the parts of their culture that I shared. Whether it was an introduction to great black-and-white films, or Francis Bacon, or philosophy.
It was not a bad mantle, and if it’s not for you, that’s cool. But what worries me is that gay men, like straight women, are being herded aside from more thoughtful pursuits…. largely by a media that just wants us to buy more crap, more gym memberships, more… stuff that just gets consumed and so has to be continually replenished.
That is, if this is “culturist” I don’t want to know what “junk” is…

Comment from eva
Date: June 12, 2008, 8:18 pm

Counter Critic,
To sum that up:
The media would prefer that we focus on fashion.
Because fashion costs money.
And the NYPL is… free.

Comment from Counter Critic
Date: June 13, 2008, 5:07 pm

Hey, Eva.

I definitely hear you, and get where you’re coming from, and even agree with you.

There was a gay show that was supremely propular with gay men, called Queer As Folk. There were British (the original) and American versions. I couldn’t watch this show. It was highly superficial, like most shows that attempt to encapsulate an entire demographic of people, and it often represented the most viscious parts of gay culture. Yet, at the same time, I did see things in it that resonated in the gay world, even if they were more often the less dignified realities. So, while it didn’t represent the entire thing, it did represent a good chunk of the thing. I think SATC does this to a degree as well. We’re both right to stand up and say these shows do not represent us (at least not entirely), but that doesn’t mean the show doesn’t represent to a more realistic degree the lives of others, even if it’s just the fantasies of others. (I also think now there’s a show about four black gay men called “Dante’s Cove.” I’ve never seen it, but I can imagine it has all the same hang ups as SATC and QAF.)

In terms of the AIDS killing creative gays thing, I think this comes from a few places.

First, an most obviously, grief. When we lose something we love it’s very difficult to believe that we will ever find it again.

And by emphasizing lament for AIDS taking away the lives of creative gay men, in effect, it’s a reflexive devaluing of non-creative gays who died from AIDS. AIDS didn’t care whether you were an artist or not. It killed (and still kills) a lot of people, and the large truth of that is the tragedy, not that some were more worthy of life for their artistic contributions than those who were just plain old regular gays. I’m sure you didn’t mean this, but it is implied by what you wrote.

I know plenty of intelligent, educated, “individualized” (to use Penny’s word), artistic, visionary, distinct, cutting edge, anti-establishment, ridiculously hard core gay men. In my circles, there tends to be a lot of them. But that does not make me value any less my gay friends who are doctors, lawyers, advertising execs, or real estate brokers, and who don’t have an artistic bone in their bodies.

Part of the situation is that, since more gays are coming out than have ever before, you’re being exposed to more of them. And, since I can’t sincerely believe that gay men have a higher percentage of creative individuals than straights or lesbians (although sometimes it may seem that way), you’re going to be running into a lot more who are just simply more main stream in their personalities. I don’t think we can fault people for this. The bohemian life isn’t for everyone. We can certainly encourage people to expand their cultural interests and to view life from broader angles (leading by example, of course), but to consider those people who simply chose not to or are predispositioned not to, just doesn’t fly with me.

We need non-creative people just has much as we need creative people. And anyway, there’s so much creative shit going on in NYC, I don’t understand it when someone tries to down NYC today. I can’t get to all the things I want to. And young artists who move to NYC today are braver than any generation before them. They’re moving to one of the most expensive, money-centered cities in the world. They will have tens of thousands of dollars of student loan debt hanging over their shoulders. They will be prevented from living in a common center. And they will still make art. They’re here. They’re doing it. And we should be thanking them.