The Carrie Diaries

admin — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 08:00:00 +0000

Sex and the City the television series ended six years ago. One might find this hard to believe, considering the characters and the lavish lifestyles they live have been far from gone in the mainstream media. The latest installment in the SATC enterprise is The Carrie Diaries, author Candace Bushnell’s young-adult novel that introduces audiences to Carrie Bradshaw as they’ve never seen her before—seventeen, virginal, and unsure of how to fulfill her dream becoming a writer. The young Bradshaw struggles through adolescence the same way her adult self struggled through her thirties, and with just as much, if not more, wit and insight. It’s easy to see how Carrie became Carrie as Bushnell chronicles a very real, and entertaining, teenage experience using the skills we’ve come to know her for: realistic dialogue, relatable, yet flawed, friendships; and capturing the excitement and emotion the first moments of love.

As a feminist scholar and critic, and an advocate for girl-friendly media, I was plagued by very familiar annoyances in the reading. Although adult Carrie admits in SATC (season four, episode seventeen) that her father left when she was a toddler, Bushnell posits high-school Carrie as the eldest of three girls being raised by their father since their mother died a few years earlier. Although a single dad raising three young women is certainly an alternative to the status-quo, it is not more or less feminist than a mother working full time and raising three daughters. And in the case of the latter, it provides something very important missing in both fiction and film—positive female role models.

The debate over Bushnell’s characters and their choices has been raging since the debut of the original series. In The Carrie Diaries, the author offers her own feminist commentary that is neither subtle, nor convincing. In a chapter dedicated to Carrie’s discovery of feminism, the twelve-year-old visits her local library to see her mother's favorite (fictional) feminist Mary Gordon Clark speak. The young Bradshaw is chagrined by the woman’s gruff and judgmental manner, leaving her to ponder “How can you be a feminist when you treat other women like dirt?” An excellent question, though I’d be interested in asking Bushnell “Why all feminists must be represented as angry, elite meanies?”

Unlike her adult counterpart, whose friendships offered support, honesty and resilience in the face of obstacles, the high school Carrie is surrounded by a group of friends that are competitive, highly emotional, or just plain bitchy. Her most passionate moments include falling for a narcissistic but gorgeous guy who eventually cheats on her with her best friend, developing her voice as a writer with the support of the Brown-attending George, and eventually being published in the school paper, with the help and support of the paper’s editor—her friend’s boyfriend.

As lover of pop-culture and an advocate for media literacy among the youth, especially girls, I was encouraged to find the positive elements of a story that will surely resonate with a large audience. Although Carrie’s mother is absent in reality, she is ever present in the lives of her daughters, all of which are struggling to maintain her legacy while evolving into who they will be as individuals. The biting yet quirky humor that endeared me to Carrie on SATC punctuates the tensest moments in the novel as Carrie offers teen-appropriate insights like, “Funny always makes the bad things go away.”

Unfortunately, comparing the young Carrie to the character she became on the series leaves me no less than disappointed. The Carrie created here comes out an evolved and matured being, moving forward into the next phase of her life, something that was remiss of her character when the SATC series ended, and further exacerbated in the following two films. In fact, I’d favor a film version of The Carrie Diaries over both SATC films.

Written by: Alicia Sowisdral, July 18th 2010

First

admin — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 17:01:00 +0000

Directed by Eve Waltermaurer, Hazel Gurland

Walgurl Production

If Salt ‘N Peppa had written lyrics with the phrase, “Let’s talk about sexuality, baby,” instead of, “Let’s talk about sex, baby,” I wonder if it would still have its legendary pop status. After all, it is easier to talk about sex than it is to talk, or rap, about sexuality. It’s much easier to talk about sex acts than the decision to express one’s sexual development or process of maturity. If talking about sex is socially taboo, save a handful of pop culture, then talking, or rapping, about sexuality is unthinkable. The documentary, First, does a little bit of both.

Ten women provide candid commentary describing the first time they had sexual relationships. First gathers a handful of women who range in age, experience, occupation, and race and draws from them the dark and juicy secrets that most sexually active people keep to themselves: details about the first time they had intercourse. However, not only does it recount the tales of virginity lost, it also touches briefly upon the ethos, attitudes, and expectation of each woman.

Without a narrative voice, or any guiding measure, the documentary blends the voices, creating a collage of informal conversation with an underlying current of feminist discourse. Each contributor could easily represent any woman’s sexual experience, and they evoke the common, but often silent, connection between women when recalling their own journey of sexual discovery. There are parallel stories of confusion, awkwardness, and peer pressure.

First is a thirty-eight minute film exploring not just first encounters with sex, but with sexuality and the upbringing, culture, community, and influences surrounding each woman in her development. While the film respectfully and warmly captures these stories, it does not provide any constructive or critical analysis. It is a finely woven fabric of stories, but does not question or probe. The bold title and nature of the documentary loses momentum as the film reaches midpoint, and then the themes begin to feel a bit redundant.

With no nuanced questions or prompts, audiences can be entertained by the stories, but would need a series of directed questions if this documentary would be used as a learning tool for a group discussion or to begin a conversation with a teen confronting issues of curiosity, puberty, and intimacy. With its brave participants, however, this film carries a rich and unique potential to create a safe place to share our own hidden stories of sacred firsts.

Written by: Lisa Factora-Borchers, March 7th 2010