Consuming

Two neato articles: What Sex and the City owes to the Golden Girls, placing the hott HBO series in historical perspective, and a quick critique of Boy Meets Boy.

First, the girly show: I’m hooked. I don’t even have a TV. I watch it every week at Megan’s place (followed by The Wire for a dose of testosterone.) But the article is correct in stating that the real pull of SaTC is the friendship among the women, and that it’s the friendship which makes the show so enduring. Each of the women sems to represent different facets of contemporary femininity; their interrelationships form a more complex whole that makes the show infinitely more watchable.

Secondly, the dating show: six episodes, fifteen suitors, some undisclosed number of which are not really interested. If a straight guy fools the bachelor, the faker gets a million bucks and the bachelor gets dissed. Nice. Says MediaLife: “the fact remains that the premise is undeniably cruel and seedy.” Now that you put it that way, I’m almost tempted to watch. It’s the pull for shows like Change of Heart, Joe Millionaire, and, for that matter, Candid Camera: we know something they don’t. It’s dramatic irony reduced to tragic sarcasm.