Sex and the City

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Sex and the City
Created byDarren Star
StarringSarah Jessica Parker
Kristin Davis
Cynthia Nixon
Kim Cattrall
Country of originUnited States
No. of episodes94
Production
Camera setupSingle camera
Running timeapprox. 29 minutes
Original release
NetworkHBO
ReleaseJune 6, 1998 –
February 22, 2004

Sex and the City is a popular American cable television program. The original broadcast run of the show was on HBO from 1998 until 2004, for a total of six seasons.

Set in New York City, the show's focus is on four female characters. It was considered a sitcom, but had serialized storylines, like a soap opera, as well as dramatic elements. The show tackled socially relevant issues, often specifically dealing with women in society in the late 1990s, and how changing roles and definitions for women affected the characters.

The show was primarily filmed at New York City's Silvercup Studios and on location in and around Manhattan. Since it ended, the show has been aired in syndication on networks such as TBS, WGN, and many other local stations.

Premise

The show was based in part on writer Candace Bushnell's book of the same name, compiled from her column with the New York Observer. Bushnell has stated in several interviews that Carrie Bradshaw is her alter ego; when she originally wrote the "Sex and the City" essays, she used her own name initially; for privacy reasons, however, she created the character of Carrie Bradshaw, a woman with the same career (writer) and same initials. [1]

The narrative of the show focuses on Carrie and her three best girlfriends. (Bushnell has indicated that Carrie's friends are composites of her friends.) Together, Carrie and her friends represented a cross-section of contemporary American women. The women discussed their sexual desires and fantasies, as well as their beliefs and opinions. The show often portrayed frank discussions about romance and sexuality, particularly in the context of being a single woman.

The first season of the show was an adaptation of its source material; however, subsequent seasons depart from the book. Each episode in season one featured a short montage of interviews that Carrie supposedly conducted while researching for her column. These continued through season two before being phased out. Another feature that was eventually scrapped was Carrie breaking the fourth wall (for example, looking into the camera and speaking to the audience directly). Bradshaw would question scenarios and ideas, asking the audience for an opinion or insight on different situations. The last such event occurred in episode 3 of the second season, "The Freak Show".

Overview of characters

Main article: Sex and the City characters
File:Sex and the City.jpg
(From left to right) Cynthia Nixon as Miranda, Kristin Davis as Charlotte, Sarah Jessica Parker as Carrie, and Kim Cattrall as Samantha
  • Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) is the narrator of each episode. Each episode is structured around her train of thought while writing her weekly column, "Sex and the City" for the fictitious newspaper, The New York Star. A member of the New York glitterati, she is a club/bar/restaurant staple who is known for her unique fashion sense (particularly footwear). She works on her PowerBook in her apartment, writing newspaper articles focusing on the different aspects of a relationship. In later seasons, her essays are collected as a book and she begins taking assignments from Vogue and New York Magazine. Carrie is house-proud; her one-bedroom, rent-controlled apartment is in an Upper East Side brownstone. Despite several long-term boyfriends, Carrie is entangled with "Mr. Big" (Chris Noth) in a complicated, multifaceted relationship.
  • Samantha Jones (Kim Cattrall) is the oldest, most sexual and confident of the foursome. Samantha is an independent businesswoman, with a career as a publicist. She is confident, strong, outspoken, and a self-proclaimed "try-sexual" (meaning she'll try anything once). One of Samantha's best qualities is her loyalty to her friends. When Carrie confesses to her that she's having an affair with her married ex-boyfriend (and cheating on her own boyfriend, as well), Samantha tells her that judging is not her style and offers her support. She has a conspicuous sexual appetite of a nymphomaniac (but never catches an STD) and avoids emotional involvement at all costs while satisfying her physical desires. She believes that she has had "hundreds" of soulmates and requires that her sexual partners leave, "an hour after I climax." During the course of the show it is revealed that Samantha's glamorous, impenetrable facade and dismissive approach to love actually hides a sensitive, caring nature. Samantha has a number of relationships in the show (including one with a lesbian artist named Maria), albeit far fewer than the number of her casual sex encounters. In Season 3, she moves from her full-service Upper East Side apartment to an expensive loft in the then-transforming Meatpacking District. In Season 6, Samantha's character further develops when she is unexpectedly diagnosed with cancer when visiting a plastic surgeon for a breast implant consultation. An operation and chemotherapy challenge Samantha, but she beats cancer and it becomes clear the experience has renewed her with a new perspective on life.
  • Charlotte York (Kristin Davis) is an art dealer with a conventional Connecticut upbringing. She is the most conservative and optimistic of the group, the one who places the most emphasis on emotional love as opposed to lust, and is a true romantic; always searching for her "knight in shining armor." She scoffs at the lewder, more libertine antics that the show presents (primarily by way of Samantha), but in her own way Charlotte presents a more traditional attitude about relationships, usually based around "the rules" of love and dating. Despite her conservative outlook, she has been known to make concessions (while married) that even surprised her more sexually liberated girlfriends. Charlotte was a "straight A" student who attended Smith College where she was a member of Kappa Kappa Gamma majoring in Art History with a minor in Finance. During the series, it is also revealed that Charlotte was voted homecoming queen, prom queen, "most popular," student body president, track team captain, and was active as a teen model.
  • Miranda Hobbes (Cynthia Nixon) is a career-minded lawyer with extremely cynical views on relationships and men. A Harvard Law School graduate from Philadelphia with two siblings, she is Carrie's best friend, confidante, and voice of reason. In the early seasons, she is portrayed as masculine and borderline misandric, but this image softens over the years, particularly after she becomes pregnant by her on again-off again boyfriend, Steve Brady, whom she eventually marries. The birth of her son, Brady Hobbes, brings up new issues for her Type A, workaholic personality, but she soon finds a way to balance career, being single and motherhood. Of the four women, she is the first to purchase her own apartment (across the park from Carrie, on the Upper West Side), and later a home in Brooklyn.

Viewer response and impact

Sex and the City premiered on HBO, June 6, 1998, and was one of the highest-rated sitcoms of the season, and the last original episode aired on February 22, 2004, was one of the most watched series finales, behind M*A*S*H, Married... with Children, Cheers, Seinfeld, Mad About You, Frasier, Friends, Everybody Loves Raymond and Will & Grace.

Positive viewer response

The show became well known and lauded for its frank dialogue about women and sex. Fans of the show say that Sex and the City is a realistic portrayal of the sexual behavior and lifestyles of many urban Americans.[2] An unlikely supporter of the show is author Orson Scott Card. Card stated that although the crudity of the series left him numb, the show contained some of the best writing on television.[3]

Negative response and criticism

The characters have been criticized for being shallow, superficial, and self-absorbed.[4]. An issue of FHM magazine listed Carrie Bradshaw as one of the most annoying characters in television history. It asked, "Supposedly she's become a feminist icon. Does that mean that all women should aspire to be materialistic, cocktail-swilling homewreckers?"[citation needed]

Sex and the City has also been criticized for focusing exclusively on wealthy, white characters and ignoring non-whites, the poor, and those living in New York's poorer neighborhoods; the characters themselves have been accused of being elitist.[5] Further, some opined that the show made the four women look shallow by having them talk about nothing but sex.[citation needed]

Pop culture references

  • MADtv parodied the show as "Sluts and the City". The HBO slogan "It's not TV, it's HBO" became "It's not TV, it's porn (with Emmys)" MADtv's Michael McDonald appears as Carrie in drag with a visible crotch bulge.
  • Jennifer Aniston portrayed Carrie on Saturday Night Live with a fake nose. Other sketch shows have made fun of Miranda being color blind for her bright hair dye color, Samantha (played by Christina Aguilera) coming out as a transexual and the women confusing sex with shoes.
  • In Charmed, Paige questions Phoebe as to whether or not one of the Sex and the City women slept around alot, and Phoebe claims she was a free spirit. They were most likely referring to Samantha. The entire episode became an homage to Sex and the City with Phoebe's voiceover echoing Carrie's and the themes and style of the episode was most definitely modelled on the series. This was also probably added into the script because Jason Lewis had joined Charmed and he was previously on Sex and the City.
  • On one episode of fellow HBO series Oz as the prisoners are complaining about the lack of cable TV, one laments that "those women on Sex and the City are hot".
  • On the Family Guy episode "You May Now Kiss the...Uh...Guy Who Receives", Brian Griffin, the family dog, represents the show as being about "three hookers and their mom." Also, on a deleted scene in the episode, The Father, The Son, and the Holy Fonz, Brian says that the anime series Magical DoReMi is like a kids' version of Sex and the City, possibly due to the comment that Alfred R. Kahn, head of the show's English language production company 4Kids Entertainment, said about the girls being "sexy".
  • Also, on The Simpsons, the show was parodied as "Nookie in New York" with Marge's sister saying "It's a show about four straight women who act like gay men".
  • The Will & Grace episode title "No Sex 'N' The City" is derived from the show. The episode itself is about Jack and Karen's sadness over the end of Sex and the City, Frasier, and Friends, all which were ending the year of this episode's original airdate.
  • On season 1, episode 14 of Gilmore Girls, the character Babette Dell makes a possible reference to Sex and the City when she says "We have a kitchen full of food, and Morey just got cable so you could watch those four girls talking dirty if you want to".

Film

A movie based on Sex and the City is on the way.[6][7] The film originally slated for production near the end of the broadcast series run in 2004, but the movie deal fell through at that time. Multiple press reports at the time indicated a personal dispute between Parker and Cattrall, as well as Cattrall's refusal to sign a contract for the film at a pay scale considerably less than Parker's. [8]

News articles began to surface in November 2006 and suggested that the issues had been resolved and that a movie would go into production. On July 4, Variety released information that all 4 actresses had signed contracts to star in the film, and that filming is slated to begin in September. They also stated that New Line Cinema will be distributing the film.[9] The actress, who played Samantha Jones on Sex and the City, reportedly has an agreement benny in place that includes a future series deal with HBO. What role Chris Noth, a.k.a. Mr. Big, and other supporting actors will have in the movie, if any, has not officially been made clear yet. As of July 5, 2007, several news pages have announced that the movie is on the run. Cattrall has agreed and will star in it along with Parker, Davis, and Nixon.

Awards and recognition

Main article: List of awards won by Sex and the City

Over its course of six seasons, "Sex and the City" was nominated for over 50 Emmy Awards, winning seven of them. Among the Emmys the show won were two for Outstanding Casting for a Comedy Series (Jennifer McNamara), one for its Costumes, a trophy for Outstanding Comedy Series for its third season in 2001, Outstanding Directing for a Comedy Series in 2002 for the episode "The Real Me", and for its final season in 2004, Emmys for Sarah Jessica Parker (Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series for the episode "An American Girl in Paris, Part Deux"), and Cynthia Nixon (Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series for the episodes "One" and "Ick Factor"). It has also been nominated for 24 Golden Globe Awards, and won 8. Its wins included Best TV Series — Musical or Comedy, and Best Actress in a TV Series — Musical or Comedy, (Sarah Jessica Parker) for three consecutive years from 2000 – 2002, Best Supporting Actress in a Series, Mini-Series, or Movie for Kim Cattrall, and another one for Parker.

Broadcast and distribution

Season one of Sex and the City aired on HBO from June to August 1998. Season two was broadcast from June until October,1999. Season three aired from June until October 2000. Season four was broadcast in two parts: from June until August 2001, and then in January and February 2002. Season five, truncated due to Parker's pregnancy, aired on HBO during the summer of 2002. The twenty episodes of the final season, season six, aired in two parts: from June until September 2003 and during January and February 2004.

Sex and the City is currently syndicated in the United States by HBO corporate sibling (under Time Warner) Warner Bros. Television Distribution. The international rights to the series currently rest with CBS Paramount Television, the successor-in-interest to Paramount's television unit (through its acquisition of original international distributor Rysher Entertainment) now owned by CBS Corporation.


Broadcasters

Template:Infobox TV ratings

DVD releases

File:SATC Region1 Boxset.jpg
Region 1 Edition of Complete Set

All six seasons of Sex and the City have been released commercially on DVD. They have been released officially on region 1 (Americas), region 2 (Europe & Middle East), region 3 (Korea) and region 4 (Oceania) formats, but illegal bootleg editions have also surfaced for region 3 (Thailand) as well as region 0 (Universal) and can even be found on eBay. In addition to their region encoding, releases vary depending on which region they were released in. Region 2 DVDs of Sex and the City have been criticized by some fans for having little or no special features, but region 1 editions have included director commentary, cast interviews and more.

In addition to standard single season DVD Boxsets of the show, limited edition collectors' editions have also been released that include all 6 seasons in one complete set. Even these vary between region 1 2 and 4. While Europe got a complete set that came with special 'shoe box' packaging (a reference to Sarah Jessica Parker's character's love for shoes in the show), the USA and Canada version came packaged in a more traditional fold-out suede case and with an additional bonus DVD including many special features. Oceania's edition came packaged in a beauty case.

As well as missing out on some special features, many fans in Europe had trouble with the region 2 edition of the season 1 DVD. Unfortunately, the show was not converted into a PAL video signal, and remained in its original American NTSC format. This caused some compatibility problems with some European television sets and DVD players. All subsequent Region 2 DVD releases of the programme were appropriately transferred to PAL video and season 1 has since been re-released in PAL format. Outside the US, Sex and the City boxed sets were released through Paramount Pictures (whose parent Viacom interestingly once owned HBO's rival Showtime, before the CBS Corporation split at the end of 2005) - who owned at once, certain rights to the programme's broadcast as well -- it was probably because of Paramount's "no-extras" policy that the region 2 DVDs were criticized. American and Canadian DVDs were released through the programme's original broadcasters, HBO. In Australia, single editions have been released, where each disc is sold separately. In Korea, due to the popularity of the show, a complete, six-season, special DVD shoebox set was released--600 limited edition sets in 2005; 850 limited edition sets in 2006--at suggested retail price of $300 (US). All of them sold out immediately.

Selected episodes are also available as part of the Sex and the City Essentials DVD collection. These are four separately-packaged discs containing three selected episodes that fit a common theme.

Soundtrack releases

There have been several CD Albums released to accompany the series Sex and the City. These releases span various record labels and some are even unofficial. The two albums from Irma Records are seen to be the best because they contain tracks used in the show's actual soundtrack that are difficult to find elsewhere. The other two releases have little or no tracks that appear on the programme's actual soundtrack.

The title theme song was written by Douglas J. Cuomo.

2000/2001/2002
Sire Records
13 Chart Hits - Including the Main Theme from the Show
  • Sex and the City - Official Soundtrack
March 1, 2004
Sony TV
2 Disc Set - 36 Hits.
  • Irma at Sex and the City - Part 1 - Daylight Session
April 19, 2004
Irma Records
2 Disc Set - Part of a 2 Part Collection. Ambient and Chilled Sounds from the Show's Soundtrack
  • Irma at Sex and the City - Part 2 - Nightlife Session
April 19, 2004
Irma Records
2 Disc Set - Part of a 2 Part Collection. House and Electronica Sounds from the Show's Soundtrack

Episodes

Main article: List of Sex and the City episodes

Quotations

Wikiquote has quotations related to Sex and the City.

The following are quotations from the TV special, Sex And The City: A Farewell, that aired introducing the final episode: "An American Girl in Paris, Part Deux"

  • Michael Patrick King, Executive Producer::"People thought, oh it's just about sex or it's just about fashion. And then slowly over the years people start to see it's really about love ... and relationships ... and fucking ... and basically the battlefield of trying to be in love—whether it be with another person or with yourself."
  • Sarah Jessica Parker::"What the show has to have, and has had to have in order to survive six years, is a soul."
  • Cynthia Nixon::"These women would never wear the same outfit twice."
  • David Eigenberg::"They were honest about fucking, they were honest about the humor of fucking."
  • Kim Cattrall::"The show is a valentine to being single. ... Being single used to mean that nobody wanted you; now it means you're pretty sexy and you're taking your time deciding how you want your life to be...and who you want to spend it with."

Bus Tours

The devoted fan base of Sex and the City eventually led to the creation of a Sex and the City Bus Tour, led by On Location Tours. The tour, held on luxury charter busses year-round, leaves from 58th Street and Fifth Avenue by Central Park, and visits a multitude of scenes from the show. By purchasing a ticket online, fans can follow in the footsteps of the Sex and the City cast members, from their apartments and businesses, to their favorite lunch spots and shopping venues, to the restaurants and bars where the girls would meet for dinner and drinks. There are multiple locations where fans can get off the bus, including getting their picture taken on Carrie's front stoop, eating a cupcake from a local bakery featured in the show, shopping in a local sex toys store, and drinking cosmopolitans at one of the featured bars. The tour is conducted by a knowledgeable tour guide who includes with his or her own commentary actual clips from the show on the bus televisions.

References

  • Amy Sohn (2004). Sex and the City: Kiss and Tell, Updated Edition. ISBN 0-7434-5730-7

Sources

  1. ^ Bushnell Speaks on Sex, City, and Shoes, Stanford Daily Online, March 1, 2005
  2. ^ Binks, Georgie (2004-03-25). "Sex and the City". CBC News. Retrieved 2006-12-17. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  3. ^ Card, Orson Scott (2003-12-21). "Gifts, television, comedy, traffic, and earphones". The Rhinoceros Times. Retrieved 2006-12-17. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  4. ^ Hull, Shelton (2006-06-30). "Modern Woman as Love Machine: The Post-Feminist Landscape, as Projected by 'Sex and the City'". LewRockwell.com. Retrieved 2006-12-17. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  5. ^ Greenwood, Arin. "Sex and What City?". PopPolitics.com. Retrieved 2006-12-17.
  6. ^ Parker confirms "Sex and the City" rumors, The New Zealand Herald, June 8, 2007
  7. ^ Sarah Jessica Parker Confirms "Sex and the City" Movie in the Works, Hollywood.com, June 7, 2007
  8. ^ Cattrall Quits Sex and the City ,FemaleFirst, December 13, 2004
  9. ^ "Sex and the City" Movie a Big Deal, Yahoo!, July 5, 2007

External links

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