"Sex and the City"

For the "Sex and the City" presentation, I was responsible for generating Chapter 12 Barker questions and Samantha archetype/character trait questions. We decided as a group to all read and discuss Chapter 10 and Butler's piece as well, and incorporated all three subject matters together. My Samantha questions focused on her fierce personality and pointed out how she is also dedicated to her friends. I also took the Samantha group (although they were really characterized by our quiz as Carrie) and tried to facilitate their mini-discussions. I bought the cups and umbrellas for our apple-tinis and Cosmopolitans.

My questions were:

Barker defines postmodernism as: (a) cultural style marked by intertextuality, irony, pastiche, genre blurring and bricolage (the rearrangement and juxtaposition of previously unconnected signifying objects to produce new meanings in fresh contexts); in what ways does "Sex and the City" fit this definition? How does it differ?

Barker discusses place and space. Place is the socially constructed site marked by emotional investment, whereas space is dynamic and based on social constructions constituted in and through social relations of power. Consider this: "Attempts by some women to 'reclaim the night' are essentially spatial practices" (Barker, 377). What do you think this means? How do the women of "Sex and the City" fit into this?

How does the culture of "Sex and the City" influence the show? If it were set in another city, would the show have been as much of a success? Why or why not? (See Barker, 386) How does this TV setting affect its fans?

Samantha is s a sexual tigress, with a nonchalant attitude toward love and relationships, but who eventually falls in love and commits to a relationship. Is her symbolism of powerful feminine sexuality portrayed well throughout the show? How has this influenced women in our modern culture?

Samantha has been quoted saying, “I will wear whatever and blow whomever I want as long as I can breathe and kneel.” But she is also loyal to her friends, outspoken, confident, a survivor of breast cancer, and quite successful in business. How would you define her character archetype?

Carrie Bradshaw Falls in Dior

Barker identifies cultural economics as a branding for a city, associating it with desirable 'goods' (386). This includes the culture industries, including film, tv, ad agencies, and the music business. The fashion industry, an ever-present figure in "Sex and the City," is a character in an of itself throughout the entire show's run. From Jimmy Choos to Dior to Manolos, the four girls wore name-brand only and never wore off the rack. With the show set in New York City, a hub for theater, fashion, Wall Street, US history, international commerce, etc., the girls are at a cultural center. Each of the girls has a well-paying job, so they are able to afford high fashion. That being said, fans of the show and followers of the characters' fashion believe that the couture is easily accessible, or at least aspire to have the taste in fashion that Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte, and Miranda each possess. There are four aspects of the feminine represented in the show, and so the fashion presented can appeal to different views of femininity throughout the nation and globe.

Carrie's fall in Dior is not only funny, it makes the idea of the store more tangible. The general public who may live paycheck to paycheck in the suburbs may trip and fall in their local Wal-Mart; for Carrie Bradshaw, a published writer, to fall in the middle of "high-class" Dior in New York City, well that makes the store seem almost normal and attainable for those who don't make six figures.

The culture of New York City and that of the girls is transmitted through the show, across the globe, into our living room television sets, and influences our own economics. With this show came a rebirth in high-class couture and design, cultivating a generation of modern women who (want or) have the high-paying job, family and/or friends, and the matching handbag and high heels.

Slaves and Fools for Love

Slaves and Fools for Love

The characters in Bret Easton Ellis’s The Rules of Attraction engage in promiscuous sex, an excess of alcohol and drugs, and a series of unrequited romances. The recurring ideas of sexuality, college life, love, and bourgeois lifestyle shape these students in their academic as well as social lives, so that the product of their lifestyle is their dependence on and abuse of each other. The Camden students merely act on their upper-class upbringing, devoid of any true responsibility, and therefore engage in cyclical, hedonistic acts in an effort to express and validate themselves (sexually and otherwise).

Paul’s open bisexuality and confidence in sexual prowess embodies untraditional masculinity. Barker in Cultural Studies defines modern masculinity as being associated with “performance orientation… manifested in grandiosity… and deep feelings of inadequacy and depression” (302). Paul subscribes to his privileged upbringing in that he wants outside students to know that he attends a pretentious school (Ellis, 122) and therefore only partakes in relationships that would benefit his social standing; however, with these loveless relationships he subjects himself to perpetual disappointment. Foucault’s History of Sexuality discusses the power that sex has over individuals and societies. A sexual power struggle arises in the relationship between Paul and Sean, and Foucault maintains that “pleasure and power do not cancel or turn back against one another; they seek out, overlap, and reinforce one another. They are linked together by complex mechanisms and devices of excitation and incitement” (Foucault, 690). This sexual game between Paul and Sean feeds off the pleasure as well as the ambiguity that arises in their interpretations of what happens between them (Ellis, 83-4).

Additionally, the relationship plays into the “peripheral sexualities” that Foucault discusses, which came to be correlated with a combination of both sexes found in one person (Foucault, 687). Foucault goes on to say that sexuality has evolved into another way for people to identify themselves as individuals (689); neither Paul nor Sean claim to be homosexual or bisexual, but Paul’s actions identify him as bisexual with leanings towards homosexuality and Sean’s apathy identifies him with ambiguous sexuality. Their sexual relationship may be deemed a perversion, but this is only aided by the bourgeois culture: Foucault claims that “society succeeded only in giving rise to a whole perverse outbreak” (689). Perhaps Sean’s understanding of the sexual experiences with Paul differs from Paul’s because of Sean’s confusion and/or shame regarding the sexual perversions.

In Rachel Baker’s Sigmund Freud for Everyone, one of Freud’s patients sought his guidance regarding a physical ailment of hers. A governess working for a young widower, she had to educate his two young daughters. In a session, Freud asked her if she loved the widower. She responded, “‘ it hurts my feelings to be in love with someone who considers himself superior to me, and who will never notice me’” (Baker, 51). Freud’s ideas of repression emerged from here, and he conceded that if hidden feelings are not dealt with, they can manifest in various ways, ie, obsession (Baker, 51). Sean’s confusion and rejection of homosexuality seemed to manifest itself into his obsession over Lauren, who he had falsely idealized as his admirer. Ultimately, he (like Paul) pursues relationships doomed to perpetual disappointment.

In Cultural Studies Chapter 2, Barker identifies culture as values, norms, and material or symbolic goods within a society, and Camden student identify their culture by their commodities. Jean Baudrillard’s The System of Objects how there are now so many objects by which people can personalize themselves. He dictates that advertising’s control over society creates a moral code, “[creating] a hedonistic morality of pure satisfaction” (Baudrillard, 410). The Camden students’ attendance at sexually-infused parties, pervasive with drugs and a lack of parental authority, allows for this hedonism to occur, thus perpetuating their sexual sharing cycles and spats. These students define themselves based on the people they have slept with, the drugs they enjoy, their preference for beer, the major they are registered to but disinterested in; as Baudrillard puts it, “people define themselves in relation to objects” (413). Commodities identify the three main characters: Lauren’s emptiness post-abortion defines her mundane existence (Ellis, 268), Sean’s departure from his family’s expectations explains his disappointment (Ellis, 47), and Paul’s relationship with the “slutty” Sean simplifies his existence (Ellis, 81).

But while these students ravage each other, painstakingly isolating themselves from one another, their culture cannot be deemed consumption; the authority-free, sexually liberated, intoxicated youth create the playground for consumption of one another. By giving everything to them, society cultivated this generation of upper-class yuppie youth into hedonists with latent morality.

Works Cited

Baker, Rachel. Sigmund Freud for Everybody. London: Popular Library, 1963. Print.

Barker, Chris. Cultural Studies: Theory and Practice. London: Sage Publications. 2008. Print.

Ellis, Bret Easton. The Rules of Attraction. New York: Vintage Books. 1987. Print.

Rivkin, Julie and Michael Ryan, eds. Rivkin, Julie and Michael Ryan. “The Politics of Culture” Literary Theory: An Anthology. Malden: Blackwell, 1998.

Rivkin, Julie and Michael Ryan, eds. Baudrillard, Jean. "The System of Objects." Literary Theory: An Anthology. Malden: Blackwell, 1998.

Rivkin, Julie and Michael Ryan, eds. Foucault, Michel. "The History of Sexuality." Literary Theory: An Anthology. Malden: Blackwell, 1998.

Nelson, Desiree
English 313H
MW 1230

Ethnography – Simi Valley Town Center Mall

I observed the Simi Valley Town Center Mall for about an hour on a week day evening, in various locations of the mall. I expected to see couples and young families with their children. I found that the mall is definitely more of a social venue, since more people had some sort of companion.

While sitting in the child’s play area, I watched couples walk the long way down the mall corridor as well as the families in the play area. I saw a middle aged male putting a shoe on a young boy while talking on his cell phone. The adult never looked at the boy except at his feet.

A young couple with a single female had two children in the play area. The male from this couple watched while sitting his date played with the two children. The caregiver of these two children occasionally jumped in to play with the children. When the three adults got up to leave, the young couple was looking at each other while walking forward; the female with children walked to the left of them, talking to them.

A young couple, probably in their twenties, were talking and laughing together as they walked. They looked only at each other. The male had his arm around the female’s shoulders and she had her arm around his waist. He carried a bag in the hand draped over her shoulders.

I moved to the center promenade once all the families left. I saw a young couple dressed in sweats walking into Bath and Body Works. The male trailed behind, with his hand on the small of her back and both looked forward. I then saw another young couple dressed for a night out – male in collared shirt, nice jeans, and white sneakers; female in nice black jacket, jewelry, and high heeled boots. They were holding hands as they walked, talking to each other. Then they entered Abercrombie and Fitch. A Latin couple, probably aged 30 walked past the center promenade, each carrying a shopping bag. They talked together but neither looked at each other nor engaged in any physical contact. My last observation was of a young Asian family that consisted of two daughters, mother, and father. The older daughter trailed behind, texting, as the mother walked with the younger daughter slightly behind the male leader of the family.

I noticed that of the couples I observed, the males and females were either so “in tune” with each other, or so radically distant. I found it interesting that I saw a dad with his son as well as a mother with her two children; to me this means that both parents take a parental role in our modern times. However neither parent that I observed was engaging completely with their children. In fact, the young mother played less with her children than her friend did! And the dad who never once looked at his son while putting on his shoe really irritated me. Maybe he was on the phone with the child’s mother, or it was an important business call, but it indicated to me that families are very busy these days and have little time for “play”.

Additionally, all the females I saw fit into our cultural expectation of femininity – dainty appearance, makeup, feminine dress. I think the location – a mall that offers family events as well as romantic ambiance – caters to young couples. The stores sell items that the youthful generation buys, and every time I go there I see more couples than single people – if there are people without companions, they are at least with another couple. This tells me that as a society, we are more inclined to be part of a partnership than to be a lone person.

It seemed to me (and my mother, who came along since she enjoys people watching) that the older couples looked around more but the younger couples seemed to look “through” their surrounding environments, or focused on each other. This tells me that the older couples actually look at the world around them, whereas the younger couples focus on themselves. It also appeared to me that the females were leading the way. I think this is because the mall is associated with shopping, which is an activity primarily enjoyed by females. Overall, I saw traditional demonstrations of relationships and was not very surprised at my observations.