Should 'Sex and the City' Hang Up Its Jimmy Choos?

First, I think the backlash against the movie is bitter and broad, but not deep. At its core is a sexist double standard that the film's mostly male critics (both professionals and regular moviegoers) don't apply toward movies targeted at guys. Even more than the TV series did, the 'Sex' movies have a devoted female audience (its ticket buyers this weekend were 90 percent women, according to polling), and many of them are finding the movie satisfying.


On its own terms, 'Sex 2' is escapist fluff. Not that there's anything wrong with that. During the Great Depression, audiences loved movies about the idle rich and their luxurious clothes and grand homes; it made viewers feel happy to ignore their own money woes for a couple hours. 'Sex 2' winks at a couple such classic 1930s movies before offering its own version of them.

The most well-reasoned defense of the movie I've read comes in this blog post by Jodi Dean, a professor at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, New York, and a mother of two. Dean notes that critics have complained about the movie's frivolity and the heroines' lavish display of unearned privilege. But that privilege doesn't go unexamined. Marriage is something that Carrie, Miranda and Charlotte take for granted, but it's a big deal for the two grooms in the gay wedding at the beginning. Samantha takes her pals on a junket to Abu Dhabi, where they live like princesses for a while, but there's also that butler who reveals that he has to scrimp for months to fly home to India to see his wife. And there are the women who rescue the New Yorkers, who turn out to be just as fabulous and fashionable as our foursome, but who are forced to hide their light under a burqa. Unwilling to suppress their sexual freedom and unable to afford to live like tourists, the women flee back to Manhattan, to their everyday lives and hassles, where the one thing they'll be able to rely upon is each other. The movie traffics in a fantasy of unbridled wealth and consumption, only to trade it for another fantasy, that of perpetual sisterhood. That one seems more achievable, both to the women in the movie and those who've been going to see it in groups.

There are reasonable arguments to be made against 'Sex 2' on its artistic merits. Even some women viewers have grumbled about the writing, the direction or the characters behaving in ways that contradict what we know of them from the series and the first movie. Some viewers who enjoyed the more dramatic first movie are bristling at the frothier new film. But to criticize the movie because the women seem too old or too unattractive seems beyond unfair and beyond what's expected in escapist fluff aimed at men.

Where are the calls for male stars to pack it in once they turn 40? No one's telling Bruce Willis he should quit making 'Die Hard' movies, or telling Willis and Sylvester Stallone that their all-middle-aged action extravaganza 'The Expendables' (due later this summer) is a bad idea. But then, men in Hollywood are rewarded for looking like they could still kick butt, while women are rewarded only as long as they stay in some narrow window of sexual desirability. And here come the 'Sex' girls, trying to open that window a little wilder, and the nation's critics have a conniption.

So do some male filmgoers. I've seen some particularly ugly comments (such as this one, this one and this one) from men whose real issue is with Sarah Jessica Parker and her castmates daring to present themselves as sexually alluring. (Complaints about the movie from women tend to be based on the movie's merits, not on the actresses' age and appearance.) Clearly, there's something about the 'Sex' franchise, beyond the plotting, characters, jokes and fashion displays, that a certain segment of the male movie-going audience finds threatening. So be it; there's also a certain segment of the female movie-going audience that wants to live vicariously though these characters.

PopEater Video: Men React to 'Sex and The City' Obsession

Those female ticket buyers made the first movie a $415 million-grossing worldwide hit, and they're the reason the second movie got made. Not because Warner Bros. wanted to make an empowering fantasy for women, but because Warner thought it could sell more tickets. This weekend's disappointing opening doesn't mean those tickets won't get sold. For one thing, the modest ticket sales may have to do more with bad timing than the movie's own faults, since just about every film released so far this summer has performed below expectations. According to the Los Angeles Times, this May's audience size was down 6.3 percent from last May, and this Memorial Day weekend drew the fewest moviegoers of any Memorial Day weekend in 17 years. Blame it on the basketball and hockey playoffs, the sunny weather or an economy that's finally improving enough to revive holiday-weekend travel, but all the summer movies are underperforming, even 'Shrek' and 'Iron Man 2.'

That doesn't mean 'Sex 2' won't have legs longer than Miranda's. It's already made $79 million worldwide. It still has another month to go before there's another movie that'll be of similar intense interest to female audiences (June 30's 'The Twilight Saga: Eclipse'), and that will skew toward younger audiences anyway. 'Sex 2' may not make as much money as Warner Bros. had hoped; it certainly won't make as much as its predecessor. But it'll make money.

And that's the other reason why I think the franchise will continue. The bottom line is, well, the bottom line. If 'Sex 2' turns a profit, as seems likely, it may not prove that there's an audience that wants to see middle-aged women proving they're still sexually desirable, but it will prove there's an audience for these four characters, and 'Sex 3' will be a given. The four friends may all be menopausal by the time a third movie gets made, but hot flashes or no hot flashes, why not let them milk it as long as they can?

• Follow Gary Susman on Twitter @garysusman.

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