Sex and the City Rewrites Cinderella

As much as I love Sex and the City, I came out of the movie feeling sad for the main character, Carrie, who had to beg, borrow, and practically steal to get her guy to commit.

The fairytale has been rewritten to have women accept whatever the man in the relationship is willing to give at the moment. Even if it's been a 10 year, drama-filled ordeal like Big and Carrie's relationship, the undertone is: be careful not to push him too far or you'll scare him away.

There's a scene where Carrie cautions Charlotte's daughter not to buy into the old Cinderella fairytale. My concern is for women who buy into this new Cinderella rewrite.

I can't tell you how many real women I know in stalled relationships who take comfort in fictional Big and Carrie's on-again-off-again relationship. The lesson is that he will come around, if you hope, wait, and put your whole heart into it long enough, he will come around. Odds are if it's on the big screen he will, odds are in real life he won't.

Does this fairytale rewrite encourage women to stay in the wrong kind of relationships? Relationships in which the men are charming, yet distant, bored, selfish, and noncommittal just like Big.

The stated theme of the movie is that we should throw out the old relationship rules so that each of us can write new rules that fit us. I'm all for that. Not all relationships should look the same and not all people need to be in relationships with forever endings. The movie did a good job of showing this with the other characters. Samantha is wonderful at being just Samantha!

But Cinderella and Carrie Bradshaw want marriage and they shouldn't have to apologize for it, repress their desire for it, or have to eke commitment out of a man one year at a time for 10 years to get to it.

Sex and the City has been such a social phenom because it captures the nonlinear state of many of today's relationships. Still, I think it's important that women don't let go of what they really want -- like Charlotte, she never let go and she got her fairytale.

Comments

[gailmforrest]

I personally believe that "Cinderalla:" should be banned from a little girl's reading list. But the most insideous film for girls was "PRETTY WOMAN". Carrie and her marriage fantasy pale to that of Julia Roberts as the prostitute who got the handsome rich man. Who ever wrote that should be shot. So the pretty prostitute gets to give up her street life and win the heart of a corporate raider...nice huh? And possible of course! I love reality. As for Carrie, she was a worker bee when it came to Big. Who wants to work that hard for that long? I suggest medical school as a more productive effort.

[Caroline Presno - Huffpost Blogger]

I don't want to completely get rid of fairytales and daydreaming. However, I completely agree that women who have to work that hard at a relationship would be much better served with a self-enriching effort like med school.

[prochange]

Not necessary medical school, but a career you really love and are good at. Unfortunately in our media marriage gets gloryfied , stupid Bachelor shows, morning informercial shows who make couples run through hoops to get married on the show. Too many girls dream of an expensive huge wedding instead of investing this money in a house or career.
A wedding should be about the couple not about hundreds of mostly strangers, who are going to get fed and have to supply useless gifts.

[hollyo]

Charlotte got her fairy tale alright by marrying a really unattractive, but wonderful man.

Maybe we are too picky. Big was talk, dark, handsome, rich, amusing... definitely not a 'real' man. It's like Jane Austen said, "If you want a Mr. Darcy, you have to write him."

[recless]

Blah, blah, blah. Could we not use a Hollywood sitcom/movie as a measuring stick for real relationships? After all the years of people hoping and rooting for Carrie and the girls (who, by the way, are FICTICIOUS PEOPLE), they got a happy ending. What does this have to do with real life?

[paragrafH]

What world do YOU live in that HASN'T been touched by mores fomented on the big screen or the little one? Ever heard of viral video?

[sophieozz]

Exactly. And it's not like "women in the big city" story lines haven't been tackled countless times since forever. Those stories endure, as do the real-life women who try to emulate those characters, and characters based on real-life women.

[Caroline Presno - Huffpost Blogger]

Fiction and reality are forever mixing.