Sarah Jessica Parker has the cover story for New York Magazine this week to talk about the upcoming movie version of Sex and the City.
Unfortunately, as Jezebel rightly points out, she seems not to have an understanding of how she became an A-list celebrity. And, um, rich.
Just to dissect, point by point:
It is a famous fact about Sarah Jessica Parker that she is a good girl. She objects to things that are “vulgar.”
Yet she was the star and executive producer of the show that brought “funky spunk” into the lexicon.
“You know, when I arrived in the city in 1976, New York was financially a wreck,” she remembers. “But to me it’s the New York that Matthew and I literally try to find every day of our lives. It was the best place in the world. It was literature. It promised everything. And for someone who loved food and smells and stimulation, who was rocked to sleep by the sound of taxis—well, there’s just so much money now, and the city is so affluent, and all the colors, all the shops, the look of a street from block to block is just terribly absent of distinguishing coffee shops, bodegas. All of that stuff that made it possible to live in New York is gone.”
Says the woman who owns up to having “well over 100 pairs of Manolo Blahniks.” And furthermore, who is single-handedly responsible for Average Jane’s awareness of the $500-a-pop shoe designer.
She recalls a conversation back when she was considering doing the Garnier ads she eventually signed up for, “and I thought, I can’t do that, it’s not part of being an actor, and this one actor I really, really respected, we were talking about endorsements, and he said, ‘At least you’re not doing hair care.’ I thought, Oh, thank God. I would have been so ashamed.”
Look, like every other mid-20s single girl between New York and Los Angeles, I loved Sex and the City. I own the box set, the original Candace Bushnell novel, and the coffee-table book (though I stopped at the Carrie necklace). And I will be first in line on May 30, in my highest stiletto heels and with every girlfriend in tow, to see the big-screen adaptation.
But I don’t need Sarah Jessica Parker to be out there castigating materialism and sex when there’s never been a show that’s done more to glorify either.
Well, I agree with you. She is right about the New York of today. Its depressing to see how snobby New York has become. How over-rated it is. It still offers so much, but it has lost its soul.
As for Deceiver.com, you guys make me laugh. I appreciate coming to the website everyday to see what else you may have on here… Keep up the awesomeness.
Which one’s the horse?
Oh wah. I’m sure there are bodegas and coffeshops in New York, just as she remembers them. I’m sure that the ENTIRE CITY isn’t affluent.
Perhaps these things aren’t in the high-rent area SHE lives in, but you know. Maybe she just needs to venture out more often to places that aren’t in her comfort zone.
I have to admit …. I have never, ever seen this show. I only can recall seeing her in one show - square pegs - at least I think that was her. Anyway I agree with K. She probably does not travel much outside her couple square city blocks and probably she goes by car - driven by someone else.
Wait, wait, wait … New York City was a financial wreck and that’s the city she wants to go back to? The high crime, the smut and sleaze on every corner, the windshield “washers”. I mean, a year after she got here the Bronx was burning and that’s what she wants to go back to? I am so sick and tired of all these “New Yorkers” who want to go back and recover the “soul” of the city. The “soul” of the city are the people who live here. It has always been the people who live here. It will always be the people who live here.
The reason all those bodegas and coffee shops are gone is because of affluent “New Yorkers” like her who who pay ridiculous rates for rent and have landowners not renewing leases and redeveloping land. If she wants to know where the New York she loved is gone, she need only to take a look in the mirror or watch an episode of her own damn TV show.
As a person who lives in New York, I couldn’t be happier about the relative prosperity of the fair city. Disneyfication, gentrification, whatever you want to call it, you know what you’re getting when you decide to live in New York. And as much as I love the city, I don’t lament the change and I’m not tied down in the identity of their city. I’d go to Atlanta, even L. A., in a heartbeat for better pay, cheaper rents and safer neighborhoods. Then again I grew up in the Bronx not Manhattan.
And Holly, I read the Sex in the City book. I still have it, it was in the free bin of a local library. I didn’t get it. It just seemed to ramble on to me.
The book was terrible. Carrie just kind of seemed like an asshole in it.
Hey…. not EVERY single 20-something girl in the US liked watching gay men in the bodies of women old enough to be our mothers live tawdry little lives without meaning…. I was forced to sit through it once… more than enough to last me a couple lifetimes. If I’m like that in my 40s, I’ll shoot myself.
I saw this show once, and I agree with Fuzzbutt. I hated it. I thought it was pathetic, really. I was never a fan of SJP either. Not because of her looks, which is something she gets picked on for a lot. It would be nice to say that it’s cool that someone as weird looking as she is could be a style/girly icon, but she’s annoying, so whatever…
Good entry. Love you, Holly Won’t.
What’s funny is that the same “gentrification” is happening here in Chicago as well. Anywhere one buys a condo, they’re guaranteed to make something out of it. There’s no area in particular that will be the suprise money maker. Just recently, Wicker Park, Bucktown, Logan Square Ukrainian/East Village all became recently gentrified. Not as posh as Lincoln Park or as fun as Boystown/Lakeview, but getting there. Humboldt Park is getting there, too, even though it’s still ghetto, as well as other places on the near south side, i.e. Bridgeport, etc. *Sigh* I guess I do kinda understand what she’s saying and can’t help but feel like one of the yuppies “ruining” the diversity/culture of our city…