I Heart New York

The clip I chose from Sex and the City exemplifies the personality of New York. In this scene, Big (Carrie’s on-again-off-again-boyfriend) decides that he has had enough of “old New York” and wants to move to Napa, California. The title of the episode is “I Heart NY” which can also be interpreted as “I heart Carrie” because she represents New York City in the episode, especially when she states “you can’t slick out of town this way, we gotta do it up right. A proper goodbye; you, me and New York- you owe it to us.” This quotation shows us how similar to the city she is. The components that match the Barker 12 Chapter reading which this episode demonstrates are the concepts of place, space and urbanization. In this clip, I was able to identify more than one topic from the reading and decided to apply more than one to this clip. The short definitely has features of “place” because it mirrors the textbook definition of having “elements of being a socially constructed location marked by identification or emotional investment… [as well as] bounded magnifications of the production of meaning.” Here, Carrie is attached to the city of New York; she compares Big to being the Chrysler Building and says that because of that he does not belong in Napa. She creates her own meaning for the city not only by it being the place where she works, but also associating parts of the town with important people in her life. Next, Big demonstrates “social space” by using his power in society to change social construction. While Carrie is enjoying a horse and carriage ride with Big through Central Park, she receives the phone call about Miranda going into labor. Big gives the driver $400 to leave the park and head to the hospital as quickly as possible. The driver agrees and breaks state law to do as Big says. Moreover, New York City naturally holds elements of being a “metropolitan zone” just because it has a cityscape and capitalist industrialization. It was through capitalism that Big made his money and Carrie can show off her money and outfits in the thriving metropolitan city.