Why should it be an either-or?

I am a huge Sex and the City fan.
It feels so laborious to be a SATC fan these days, especially post the movie.
All my guy friends avoid it like the plague, as if conceding that they like it, even the really witty and funny parts (yes, there are many such) would undermine their MQ (Maleness Quotient) somehow!

Samples heard across my test group:
- “I don’t want to see it, not even 1 episode, only women and gay men can like it. Yes”
- “4 women and only 1 of them hot, sitting perpetually around a table bitching about men, who would want to see that? Only women and gay men can like it”
…. And various combinations of the same logic.

I am tired of having to explain to them that SATC is so much more than just shoes, sex and fashion.
My female friends like it, most of them.
Some find it too far from their realities to connect to; some find parts of it farfetched. I am okay with any reaction you know, as long as you have formed your opinion after seeing at least 2-3 episodes.
Its like guys coaxing women who don’t like video games and find it just Wham - I blast you - Bham - I somersault and kick you – Splurt – your guts fall all over, to at least play Game ABC (super cool animation where you have to not only kill all the mutated zombies with golden bullets that you get by passing BrainDead phase, but the female zombies are also kick ass) or Game XYZ (it’s a strategy game, duh! It needs thinking, planning, cooperation, team spirit blah blah what have you!) I mostly try everything before I dislike them and I quite like the smart games. My opinion about the only blood and gore games is evident, I guess.

Coming back, I always thought I should write a Why everyone should at least see SATC before hating it piece.
I started seeing SATC when it was coming weekly on HBO, when I was in college. I liked everything about it! Starting from the title track with Carrie in her tutu to the premise of the show to the characters to their quirks to everything!
Now, the show is set in Manhattan with 4 women who are 30-something and looking for love. And I was a barely 20 (then!) South Indian girl, not yet quite looking for love (again, then!)
I was not one of them; my mores – sexual or otherwise – were not quite theirs. But I still understood them.

And it was not the fashion and gloss in the show that got me hooked. I am as far from haute couture and Jimmy Choos as can be. I am a decide-what-I need-go-buy-it-kind, not a grazer. I like shopping mostly when I have nice company and can go around various stores window-shopping, talking how you will never need that. The endless cycle (while clothes shopping) of removing what you have on, trying out the new one, seeing if you like it which mostly doesn’t happen, then going out to find some more really tires me. Actually physically tires me.
The Result? I have such a small wardrobe I can pack everything and then some, even for international travel, in 2 suitcases. I never have piles of unwashed stuff, its so little 2-3 machine loads will do! Ironing is never a nightmare. So, all in all, it keeps me pretty happy!

And it was not the sex either that had me hooked.
Sure, you have parts that elicit ‘Oh, sooo you can do that” sometimes!
But though it’s explicit in parts, it’s never vulgar. Its matter of fact, never contrived.

What I liked the most were the questions raised at the end of each episode.
They applied to a 20-something girl just waking up to how difficult it is to find love as well as it applied to been-there-done-that 30-somethings. Always pertinent, always observant.

I always saw how good a writer Carrie was, how go-getting Samantha was at her work, how intelligent Miranda was as a lawyer and how accomplished Charlotte was as a curator.
(Hell, even my mother liked Miranda. She isn’t a follower of the series, but in an academically oriented South Indian family, if someone studies in Harvard Law School and is in the top 3 of their class, like Miranda was, you like them. No questions asked!)

Credible careers for all characters established that they were not women whose sole aim in life was to ‘land a man’, a la Bridget Jones. Men were important parts of their lives but never all consuming obsessions.
Carrie many times mused that she may not be the marrying sort, Miranda wasn’t torn while deciding that while she wants Steve’s child she might not want Steve. And then there was Samantha, whose 2 great loves were sex and real estate, the horror - a diamond ring wasn’t in the list! Charlotte was the only one pining for the ‘perfect man, the perfect marriage, the perfect house’.
And the series had great fun in throwing her a curveball at every step.
You want the perfect man – take the seemingly perfect Trey, small hitch, he can’t get it up!
You want the perfect marriage – take the perfect wedding, the marriage itself will end in a quick divorce.
You want the perfect home – fight with monstrous mom in law to get it!
This I think was the only part of the series that I didn’t quite like.
First, heap all ‘conventional’ notions on one character and then systematically destroy each one. (I also don't like it when everything 'conventional' is shown as slightly loser-ish. Each unto his own, I feel.)

Now I morph into CuriousCat Freud – renowned psychologist!
Which character do I resemble the most?
It is not Samantha; I could never have such causal sex!
(Or maybe is it just a case of sour grapes? I know I will never be in positions to have 100,000 steamy flings, so I think I would not want them? No, I am too paranoid about where exactly things are going, what exactly is happening. I know, not too nice a trait to have, but what to do…) It could be parts of the other 3.
I am like Miranda in that I am a realist and mostly don’t have illusions about self/others/stuff in general (yeah, I get it, that could be an illusion itself! But seriously I am pretty ok, except for the bewildering question about how others don’t find me as fantastically fascinating as I find myself :))
I am like Charlotte in that I do want marriage, kids and the works, someday.
How am I like Carrie? Would I date a chronically commitment phobic person for 10 years? Sometimes I think that I should value the journey more. What if the journey is the future?

Coming to the movie, it didn’t measure up to the best episodes, but it was still nice. It had the unenviable task of introducing the characters afresh to the non-series-following audience. It couldn’t be the pithy 25 minute episode where it could afford leaving some details out. And in 2 odd hours it had to reach a logical end. It just couldn’t wander off with Carey asking, “…and that makes me wonder, why….” Given all these restrictions, I think the movie did a decent job of taking the series forward.

The movie too, like its parent episodes, raises some interesting questions.

How far would you go for the man you love, how much would you put up with?
Would you throw it all away for one transgression? Would you have it in you to forgive? Rather, should you forgive?
Would you go back to someone who gets cold feet on the wedding day, after a decade of knowing you? Would that day be more important than all the days you spent together or would you overlook it?
Is it alright if it “was just sex, meant nothing”? Is it still cheating? Should you walk out or should you hang on?
If you forgot your identity along the way, is it still worth it or is it time to walk out and reclaim your life, the way you want it? Or is independence overrated?

So what if while dealing with these questions, our ladies in Big Apple dressed smart and walked the blocks in pretty Manolos?
So what if their mascaras didn’t run when they cried?
So what if the whole film didn’t have a gloomy pall to it though it dealt with real emotions?
So what if she is pretty, can’t she be smart too?