Dear Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda,
Sex and the City 2 did not offend me. You did not make me think less (or more) of Muslim culture. You did not make me think less (or more) of Dior, Gucci or Manolo Blahnik. You made me laugh and you showed me that women “past their prime” can still get work in Hollywood. You made me envious for more girlfriends and appreciative of the ones I’ve got.
Sure, you rocked some fugly frocks, but that’s what you people do. And besides, I wear cutoff denim shorts on the weekends. What do I know about fashion?
Underneath the razzmatazz, your movie was filled with realistic and honest exchanges between girlfriends, which is why I’m delighted by your little television-turned-film enterprise and why millions of women all over the world love you. You live fantasy lives and wear fantasy clothes. You’ve been dumped, cheated on, proposed to, knocked up and told you were too old, too sensitive, too forgiving and too unforgiving. The most inspiring thing is you treat each other well, which as a message, never gets old.
Now. I know folks like Roger Ebert called you “flyweight bubbleheads” because you dared to make a comedy about women and for women that was bawdy and outrageous. But I guess male film critics don’t take kindly to middle-aged women in short skirts and high heels mucking up a a genre dominated by men. Bawdy outrageous comedies are supposed to be about men and for men, starring Seth Rogen.
How unbecoming, to slide a raucous summer movie steered by a nearly all-female cast into movie theaters, where it must compete against such quality cinema as Russell Brand’s Get Him to the Greek.
Tsk, tsk, ladies. Don’t you know your place? I mean, look at Miss Scarlett Johansson. Her rear end gave such a good performance in Iron Man 2, which Ebert loved. Message to moviegoers: there’s nothing bubbleheaded about an asshole in a rocket-propelled robot suit.
Ebert paints Sex and the City director Michael Patrick King as a simpleton, which I suppose makes Jon Favreau a film auteur.
Carrie: I’m sorry Ebert ripped on your narration and suggested the dialogue with your husband was unrealistic. I suggest when/if you film Sex and the City 3, you amp up the realism by casting a Vodka-swilling, electric whip-wielding Mickey Rourke. His gold teeth and collagen lips oozed the kind of Shakespearean dialogue you can only get on a Bazooka Joe wrapper.
Samantha: I’m sorry Ebert called you a “sexaholic slut.” Since you deliver the best and most hysterical performances in the movie, the least he could have said was that you were a funny sexaholic slut. Oh well. Grain of salt. Grain of salt. If it makes you feel better, Ebert called Iron Man 2 hornball Tony Stark “cocky and egotistical,” which I know is barely a consolation coming from His Royal Filmness, since he bestowed one star upon your movie and three stars upon Iron Man 2.
Oh, and about that slow-mo sequence of you girls walking over sand dunes in haute couture camel-riding attire. I accepted that the background was likely CGI-enhanced and promptly got over it. Why in his review of Iron Man 2, Ebert applauds the use of CGI in what was essentially the most absurd scene in the movie (Rourke slicing race cars in half with his electrified lasso) and then snidely chides Sex and the City 2 for digitally rendering the Abu Dhabi desert, tips the hypocrite scale in new and impressive ways.