As every twenty-something New Yorker inevitably must at some point, I find myself presently broke and almost entirely free of commitment. Luckily, I have at my disposal a large TV, DVR and an impressive DVD collection belonging to my friend Alex, whose bedroom I'm currently subletting. Amongst the many teenybopper flicks she has shamelessly displayed on her shelf (She's All That? Seriously?), I find gold: Planet Earth, the first two seasons of Grey's Anatomy, and boxed collections of the entire series of Gilmore Girls, Family Guy and Sex and the City.TV shows on DVD are my absolute greatest weakness, greater than fashion magazines (which I hoard in great stacks), grilled cheese and avocado sandwiches (eaten regularly at 4:00 am), and cheap plastic jewlery from Forever 21 (that breaks easily and quickly thus necessitating frequent purchasing). TV shows on DVD could absolutely lead to my complete demise. For most of my life, I've lived without cable. My mother doesn't believe in cable and thus hasn't ever had it in the 14 years since she and my dad divorced. When I moved away for college, I sure as hell couldn't afford cable--though I did have one blissful albeit academically unproductive semester when a roommate's parents paid for it until she dropped out and moved back home--and having gotten used to not having it as an option, it always seemed like an unnecessary luxury. I'd rather be able to afford to eat at restaurants and go to the theater.
Sufficed to say, I got into most of the my favorite TV shows (as listed on my Facebook profile) via the glory of DVD, then taken to a new level by the advent of Netflix.
Netflix has totally enabled my TV show on DVD addiction. It's like being a coke addict and having a drug dealer boyfriend. Netflix is all, "Come on...I've got the stuff right here. It's so convenient...you know you want it." The next thing I know I haven't left the house in two days because I've been holed up watching the entire first season of Weeds...episode, after episode, after episode.
The year Molly and I were in sophomore acting studio together, taking Meisner technique classes three times a week and crying our eyes out pretty much every day, we watched the entire series of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Starting in the fall, watching episodes whenever we had shared free time. The extreme teenage angst coupled with monsters-and-demons intensity was the perfect outlet for all of our raw emotional baggage that was oozing out of our acting studio wounds. It took us about a year-plus to get through the whole series...mostly because neither of us had the seventh and final season, until her mom gave it to me for my birthday.
Molly also owned the entire series of Friends, which we used to pop in the DVD player as a substitute for channel surfing. Yes, these shows on DVD ended my long-term period of television abstinence.
Though it didn't really start in college. When I was in high school, my mom started renting Sex and the City on VHS (remember VHS? My mother was definitely the last person in Canada, if not North America, to get a DVD player) and the two of us quickly became addicted. And this was after the show had already gone off the air!
SATC happens to be my all-time not-so-guilty pleasure. Whereas Buffy is near and dear to my heart but I constantly have to defend its integrity to the many naysayers who criticize my devotion to the show, SATC is more universally accepted and adored by girly girls, aspiring career women, and even some sheepish straight boys (while watching a disc of season two at the boys' house this spring, my temp-roommate Jake came downstairs, sat down on the couch next to me and after a few minutes mumbled "I hate to admit it, but I kind of like this show.")
Although I've seen every episode about 75 times, I've recently decided to start a casual marathon of the entire series. It's right there, at my disposal, after all.
Did I mention I'm broke? Not pathetic. Broke. Just to clarify.
Now, I love SATC, and like many twenty-something New York novices hoping to transition successfully into self-assured, experienced thirty-something New York career women, I frequently reference the show in everyday conversation with my girlfriends and gayfriends. But I must admit, as I grow up, I've developed a few beefs with the show. Not the usual judgments of the show that some people form just for the sake of being opinionated, despite having never seen a full episode: the characters are too promiscuous, Sarah Jessica Parker is obnoxious, Kristin Davis can't act (she gets better and better as the show goes on), etc. Molly bitches that "they're just horrible people. There's nothing redeeming about them" and I want to scream at her, "that's like saying every single one of our friends is a horrible person just because they drink too much and have casual sex occasionally!" Dude! It's the millennium, for crying out loud. And the show is not really about sex anyway. It's about relationships, the important ones that define our lives: your friends, your job, the city, sometimes romantic relationships, but that all of these are secondary to the most important relationship you can have, which is with yourself.
Anyway.
The thing is, I'm a little bitter about the effect the show has had on the women of my generation. See, the show isn't about us. It's about women in their thirties and forties. But my girlfriends and I all watched the show as teenagers and on some level we moved to New York expecting to fall into this glamorous world of fashion and parties and gorgeous men who would want to buy us cocktails. I didn't really expect any of these things to happen--but the possibility that they could was burned into my subconscious. The harsh reality is that the world of Sex and the City doesn't really exist...except for silver spoon-fed trust fund babies and socialites.
I was just reading an article about Candace Bushnell, the author of the novel Sex and the City on which the show is based, in October's issue of Elle magazine. She mentions how young women coming to New York don't realize that Carrie worked very hard in her twenties and early thirties to get where she ends up in her late thirties and early forties. You never get to see the years where she was where we are now: broke, living in shitty apartments and completely clueless as to how to get ahead financially, socially and professionally.
Now, I like to think of myself as being smarter than the average 22-year old. In conversations with my friends I've made the argument that young women don't understand or take into consideration that the iconic characters of SATC have worked very hard to get where they are. That's one of the things that I've always liked most about the show: these are career women. They are self-made and proud of that fact, with the exception of Charlotte who quits her gallery job when she gets married to the wealthy Trey. Not one of them came from money, however, and I respect that about the writing. In short, I get it. They worked hard. But aren't these tougher economic times? Isn't it harder for young women to get ahead these days? Haven't we become more jaded, haven't current socio-economic factors become even more challenging to cope with as a recent college graduate?
Determined to prove this point to myself, thus isolating and validating my own particular struggles, I do the math: if the show debuted in 1998 when Carrie is 32 (based on the fact that at the beginning of season 4 she turns 35), then she would have been 22 in 1988. I was a toddler in 1988 and have no way of remembering what the economy was like back then, so I do some quick Wikipedia research. Here's what I find out:
"On Black Monday of October 1987 a stock collapse of unprecedented size lopped 22.6 percent off the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The collapse, larger than that of 1929, was handled well by the economy and the stock market began to quickly recover. However the lumbering savings and loans were beginning to collapse, putting the savings of millions of Americans in jeopardy."
--Wikipedia, "Early 1990's Recession."
Hmmm.
From the New York Times last Friday:
"This is the worst financial-services crisis of our lifetime,” and Wall Street is its epicenter, said Robert N. Sloan, who heads the financial-services executive recruiting practice at Egon Zehnder International in Manhattan. “You have major firms that have imploded or are at risk of imploding. It is a deconstruction — and a reconstruction to follow — of the financial-services industry as we know it.”
--The New York Times, "As Financial Empires Shake, City Feels No. 2 on it's Heels"
Well, there you have it. The new millennium is just as financially shaky so far as the old one. I guess it's time to stop feeling sorry for myself and accept that success and stability in the real world, and especially in New York, takes time, patience and hard work.
Of course, patience has never been my strong point.
Maybe it would help if I turned off the TV.
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