Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Are You a Carrie, a Samantha or a Tyler Durden?

They're dressed like boy versions of Samantha and Charlotte! Neat!
There is one kind of man that I love to mock. And that's the guy who will go on about how much he hated Sex and the City, and how it was the stupidest show ever, and women got way too into it. Then he'll say his favorite movie is Fight Club.

Guys, Fight Club is Sex and the City for boys.

SATC had Manolos. Fight Club had the Ikea catalog.

Both SATC and Fight Club were about single people who form their own little urban family. It's just that one family was a little more violence-prone than the other. Both had all sorts of deep thoughts about city life, jobs and relationships. Both were, essentially, trite and fluffy, with neo-feminist/neo-masculinist philosophies as a cover for all of that fluff.


However, fans everywhere were silly enough to take it seriously. Women picked up ugly fashions and debated whether they were Carries, Mirandas, Samanthas or Charlottes. Men tried pretending to be badasses who could hate their lives with the best of them. And I daresay a few tried to make their own soap.

So, everyone, next time you "couldn't help but wonder" about "single-serving people," remember, we're all more alike than we are different.

15 comments:

Jo said...

HA! I like it. Very true.

HomeImprovementNinja said...

I hated SATC and I hated Fight Club (fell asleep). Fight Club is a bunch of homo-erotic ritualized violence interspersed with pseudo-intellectual wanna-be philosophical babble.

SATC glamourizes and fetishizes immature behaviour and impulsive choices that are devoid of real-world consequences.

Shannon said...

Jo, thanks!

Ninja, that was awesome. I think you just said it better than I did. Also, both depict extremely depressing lifestyles: who wants to live in an abandoned house/cruise the hipster clubs at 40?

Ibid said...

There's always gonna be something work of fiction like. Something that causes people to dress up in silly clothes, change their behavior, and spend endless hours talking about the subtle nuances. Sex And The City, Fight Club, Star Trek, The Bible... it's all the same.

Me? I'm going to Florida at the end of May and I'm not leaving until a Space Shuttle launches.

J said...

If anything, Fight Club is a commentary on modern society. SatC is what Fight Club was commenting on. I'm not sure I'd say they're analogous...

That said, SatC is awesome. And the girl I made out with this weekend called herself a Samantha (I didn't ask). The second she flipped me on to my back using just her legs, I knew she was telling the truth.

God that was a lot of fun.

Anonymous said...

And I always thought that Entourage was the man's Sex and the City...who knew?

Shannon said...

Ibid, let's just not tell anyone about the hours I devoted to Buffy, m'kay?

Justin, my legs hurt just thinking about that manuever! What i was trying to get at is that any guy who uses Fight Club as a philosophical template shouldn't bust on SATC (personally, I dislike both).

I have thoughts, you're right, it sort of is!

J said...

I've put on a few pounds, I'm probably up to about 140 or so now. She had well-developed leg muscles, probably as a result of practicing said maneuver ;)

I can't believe that this, of all places, is where I get to gloat about staying up until 5am making out with such a vivacious woman :) But I always knew I liked Samantha the best.

Also: Entourage rules.

I almost made the mistake of posting my age here.

Shannon said...

Justin, here to serve.

Mike H said...

I think Fight Club wins because it was way more realistic. The best part was when the guy shot himself in the face and not only lived, but could still talk. I totally believed that could happen.

Rob West said...

Shannon, I love your blog! You write about the coolest things! This is fun. But I'm afraid the Fight Club/Sex and the City comparison just doesn't stack up.

The trouble I have is the brainlessness factor. Fight Club, on top of everything else, thought-provoking. It's a very unique (if perverse) premise thought up by someone who is very creative.

With Sex and the City, however, it is entirely too plausible to believe that scripts for entire episodes were actually written by 12-year-old girls in text message format.

CARRIE: Ur dress is hawt!! Miranda u r teh sexx!!
MIRANDA: ty. OMG!! These are last season's Manolo Blahniks!!
CARRIE: :-O!! now beefy Latin tennis pro won't wan 2 hav sek w/u!!
MIRANDA: lol
CARRIE: miranda ur my bff! I <3 u!

Shannon said...

mike, that happened to me just last week!

Rob, speaking of 12-year-old girls, you kinda sounded like one at the beginning there. But it's awesome, and thanks!

I don't think the Fight Club thing is that novel...men LIKE to hit each other and posture and be macho and all counterculture. You could argue that SATC was novel in that it presented single women over 30, and didn't stereotype us as over-the-hill hags with 20 cats. (Now we're stereotyped as neurotic, materialistic, and skanky...so, thanks SATC!)

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