Sex and the City and the Single Guy - Introduction and Coming Soon

Last summer, I watched the entire "Sex and the City" series. It's good popcorn television, in the sense that it's not preoccupied with heavy or weighty subjects. Fancy shoes get stolen, people make a lot of money and behave badly, etc. Plus, there's a fair amount of sex talk. That talk probably gave the show most of its publicity at the time, as one of the vanguard of the HBO series for adults.

The show is now in syndication on broadcast TV, but it's late at night and heavily trimmed and censored (I'd imagine, otherwise it would make the Janet Jackson boob-slip seem like small potatoes.). This makes me laugh, because everybody kinda knows what they're talking about. I mean, the word "Sex" is in the title. But even though WE know what they're saying and the NETWORK knows what they're saying, we have to make sure they don't say it.

I'm sure I wouldn't have thought about this at all, had it not been for the death of George Carlin earlier this summer. He made his mark on political history by being a part of an indecency case that went to the Supreme Court for his "Seven Words You Can't Say" lecture. As many of the obituaries and remembrances noted, one still can't say the majority of the words on his list.

Back on topic. Why am I writing about this a year after I watched the show? I've gotten a fair amount of feedback on my viewing of an episode of "Gilmore Girls". Though almost no one completely agreed with me, people seemed to get something out of it. One person specifically (and several others tangentially) suggested that, with the new "Sex and the City" movie recently in theaters, I might tackle the series.

Those comments have been brewing around in my head for weeks. When I wrote about "Gilmore Girls", the most interesting part of the feedback was when I was told that I had made them think about something in a new light. From the other direction, I was exposed to a lot of things I hadn't really though about either. After all, the relationship dynamics between a mother and a daughter is pretty far out of my bailiwick.

I do enjoy writing and thinking about things, though. Whatever one may say about the series, it does raise a lot of issues about life, love, and happiness.

So, with the help of my local library, I'm going to be starting a new blog entry series. Because of the content of the TV series and the inability in Blogger to hide the majority of the entry behind a link after an introductory paragraph, I've started a second blog. I'll be dealing with the episodes in chronological order but the entries will not be *spoiler-free*. For the most part, I'll try to stick to developments that follow the time line of the story, but I'm not promising that an occasional entry may reference future events.

Despite the lurid content and intentionally provocative title, my goal is to discuss the issues that each episode presents. I'll let you in on my view of sex in "Sex": it's not really about that. No doubt some would disagree; foremost in that line would probably be HBO, because they'd have a hell of a time marketing the show if it weren't for the sex. That's why there's boobs available for viewing less than two minutes into the first episode.

If I'm lucky, perhaps I'll even be able to be able to bring out new issues even for people who have already seen the show. I know several women who are devotees and willingly align themselves towards one of the four main characters "compass points". I also know a few men who are willing to admit ("off the record") that they enjoy the show too, and not just because there are breasts on display.

Because I'm going to be trying for some depth in the ideas that I cover, I'll probably end up doing an episode per week. This will still be my main blog and I don't want to start something new and leave my first blog behind. I'll post helpful updates here when I add a new entry there but that's pretty much the extent of interaction between them. This allows me to preserve the illusion of allowing somebody's grandparents an un-sexy browse through my blog, but still having the option to move over if they so desire. Plus, the focus of this blog is mostly about me and my everyday thoughts, so the two blogs do have separate goals and functions.

I'm working on the first episode now, but it isn't quite ready yet. I got the first disc from the library last night, but I'm neck deep in wedding preparations and don't have as much time as required to devote to it. Tonight's the rehearsal dinner and tomorrow is the ceremony, so with fair wind and a following sea I should have the first episode commentary ready by Sunday.
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