HBO’s Sex & The City VS. GIRLS

THE CHANGING VIEWS OF WOMEN IN

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ESQUIRE SEPT 2012

THE CONTEMPT OF WOMENSTEPHEN MARCHE

“In the constantly progressing  and deteriorating and rapidly revolving kaleidoscope of misunderstanding and disgust and hunger that constitutes gender relations in the twenty-first century, a new gesture has emerged to define us: the sneer, the female gaze of contempt. Feminine contempt is suddenly everywhere, subtly and invidiously panoramic, in public l ife and in private life, in the bedroom and on television and in bookstores and on the campaign trail. The sexuality of the moment is all about contempt. In Lena Dunham's hit show Girls,  which has succeeded so admirably in providing American crit ics with a moment of convenient generational definition, the men are pitiable and grotesque. Whether rough or tender or vanil la, they fail. In Sex and the City,  the women commoditized men, often in the most banal way, but at least they l iked what the men had to offer: cocks and money and status and sometimes even support. In Girls , sex is to be endured, the subject of a shivering, melancholy fascination.”

1998-2004 2012- P I C K E D F O R 3 R D S E A S O N