The Good, The Bad and The Multiplex by Mark Kermode

Author:Mark Kermode [Kermode, Mark]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781409023494
Publisher: Cornerstone Digital
Published: 2011-09-01T07:00:00+00:00

Somehow, I doubt Billy Bragg is on Carrie’s iPod.

Other SATC2 characters include a lawyer who is treated badly at work and so quits her job with apparently no financial repercussions (perhaps she was working pro bono on lowly human rights cases – or perhaps not). Another is a mother who has a full-time nanny tending to her sprogs but who still finds time to go cry in a cupboard because she is so oppressed by the pressures of motherhood, which include getting jammy handprints on her expensive vintage skirt. ‘How on earth do people who don’t have help cope?’ she asks rhetorically, giving a metaphorical wink to the audience. Clearly the writers think this sort of thing acknowledges a common experience but, without wishing to state the bleeding obvious, if any of us were in Sex and the City, we wouldn’t be proper characters – we’d be the help. We’d be the serfs, the doormen, the flunkies, the elevator operators. In this world of wonder, even those of us on way-above-average wages wouldn’t get a look in.

And there’s just so much more to rail against: the inherent racism of a script which sends Americans to a Middle Eastern country so they can throw condoms at foreigners with self-righteous anger; the sub-Paul Raymond conceit of women in burkas hiding racy designerwear under their religious robes, just dying for the opportunity to swap fashion tips with the Western women whose heathen lifestyles they absolutely adore. All in all, it adds up to a vile and pernicious slice of imperialist propaganda which celebrates misogyny, belittles non-Americans, insults audiences, and wallows in greed, avarice and bulimic vomit. At great length.

It is, to be clear, not good.

And I felt the need to say so. As did pretty much every other film critic in the country, nay the world.

According to the official studio line, SATC2 ‘underperformed’ at the box office thanks to almost universally negative reviews, which briefly put the kibosh on the development of any further plans for SATC3 (although a ‘prequel’ is now in the works). It’s a convenient argument: ‘bad reviews killed our movie’. But let’s look at the harsh economic realities. SATC2 cost $100 million and took $280 million worldwide, meaning that it more than balanced its box-office budget sheets whilst racking up further profits on home-viewing sales, TV tie-ins and countless other promotional opportunities. The studio and its enfranchised distribution partners would have been laughing all the way to the bank (as would the exhibitors and DVD outlets), even if the profits that poured in were not quite the engorged river of cash they might have expected. The writers, directors, production designers, advertising executives and PR companies who worked on the movie would have had a multimillion-dollar money-making machine on their hands that paid their salaries and looked good on their CVs. And, of course, the four leading players were handsomely rewarded and lavished with worldwide press attention, thereby increasing their immediate media-market value and helping them sell more stuff (of their own choosing) in the future.

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