Bad Girls

But I was watching the Sex and the City movie the other night (make fun of me and you die!), and it struck me that one of the reasons I like it so much is that Carrie goes through a genuine moral chastisement in the course of the film. This is not a movie about her needing to recover her self-esteem, or find love, or reconnect with her mother, or get a makeover, or whatever other staple of women’s empowerment movies the directors might have picked. Rather, she behaves in a monstrously selfish and self-absorbed fashion, precipitates a crisis in her relationship, and has to learn to recenter and behave more modestly and naturally. I think that actually shows more respect for the character than any one of a number of approaches, and in between all the pretty clothes, it’s rather bracing.