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.

Revised: Reponse Paper

The Bitter Side of Unrequited Romance

Many of us have been in love before, tried to make compromises in relationships, and had our hearts broken. As Charlie Brown once said, “Nothing quite takes the taste out of peanut butter like unrequited love.” In the television show Californication, unrequited love is a theme that recurs in each season. The main character, Hank Moody, is still in-love with his long time off-and-on girlfriend, Karen, who is about to get married. The show Californication and the novel The Rules of Attraction are similar in that unrequited love is one of the main motifs of the two. Another similarity between the book and TV show is that this is a critique on the upper class of society and the amount of sex that occurs parallels that of The Rules of Attraction.

First, the theme of unrequited love is important because not only does it pertain to our class theme of the radical romance, but this constant pursuit of something that is unattainable feeds into unhealthy obsessions. By not obtaining something you are constantly thinking about you build up an expectation of this great thing and when you finally get it you are let down, because it is not as perfect as you made it out to be. In The Rules of Attraction each character pursues someone who is not interested in them and when they finally get closer to that person, they are let down. Unreal expectations are one of the best ways to get let down and detach yourself from reality, like the characters in The Rules of Attraction did. In Californication, Moody has the opportunity to be with his ex-girlfriend but during the second season, he realizes that it may not work out between them and is actually willing to let her go, after already spending so much time going crazy over her during the first season. One reason that I believe he was so persistent in going after his ex; even though she was going to be married was that he had a child with her, and he never really had the chance to marry her. The main reason was probably BECAUSE she was going to be married and he would have had to fight to win her over. According to the Barker text, “men are held to be more ‘naturally domineering,’ hierarchically oriented and power-hungry…” (Barker 285) This ties in with Californication, in that, Moody viewed his daughter almost as “property” and therefore could not leave his daughter, and ex behind. He would not allow another man to take them away from him and felt challenged by Bill Lewis, Karen’s fiancé. Sean, from The Rules of Attraction, also exhibited this behavior in that he viewed women as commodities and displayed that he was “hierarchically oriented” by only sleeping with women who were attractive, popular and dressed nicely.

Another theme that these two works had in common was that of shrugging their responsibilities. In the novel, Sean did not pay for the abortion and Moody has free sex without worrying about the repercussions of his actions. In season two, just as Moody, Karen and their daughter Becca are all starting their new, happy lives together, Moody learns that Sonja- a woman he had a one night stand with- may be pregnant on the same day that he proposes to Karen. Upon hearing that he may have gotten another woman pregnant, Karen declines Moody’s proposal and it is then that he decides that it won’t work out between them.

Finally, the critique on the upper class and analysis of the sex that occurs in The Rules of Attraction, and Californication as an important concept within the two mediums. The Rules of Attraction is a social critique on the upper class because it illustrates ‘80’s nihilism and what college students do when they have too much time and money on their hands. For example, the students of Camden College know that they will never lose the support of their parents, so they take their relationships with their parents for granted and continue to use them for their money which they splurge because they do not know what else to do with it. They have an overabundance much like the characters in Californication. Moody, although he is losing his job as a writer takes his lifestyle for granted and spends a lot of money on weed. He does not pay rent at the places he lives, but they are always lavishly decorated, beautiful places in California or New York. The women he sleeps with are also wealthy and have a certain look. Moreover, the portrayal of sex in both of these acts makes it seem as though sex is something causal. The characters in The Rules of Attraction sleep with as many people as they can just because. They are not seeking a meaningful relationship with his person, just some fun. Moody looks for one night stands in order to try to forget about losing his ex to someone else. After he gets back together with ex, he stops looking at other women and focuses on her which is interesting. After the character in The Rules of Attraction get what they truly want, and if they are not tired of them, they actually seem truly happy. According to a study done by the founder of the Medical Institute for Sexual Health, Dr. Joe McIlhaney and Dr. Freda McKissic Bush, “humans are the healthiest and happiest when they engage in sex only with the one who is their mate for a lifetime...[due to the fact that] the most important sex organ is the brain.” This research may explain why the students of Camden are so unhappy and depressed, because they are just having meaningless sex. Their acts are solely physical and have no intellectual or emotional connection. Secondly this could also explain why the people in solid relationships in Californication (although minor characters) have happy and productive lives, because they have happy and productive marriages.

Works Cited

Barker, Chris. Cultural Studies: Theory and Practice. Los Angeles: Sage Publications, 2008.

McDowell, Sean. "Why Evolutionary Theory is Wrong about Sex." Worldview Times – Home,

29 April 2009. Web. 13 Oct. 2009.

<http://www.worldviewtimes.com/article.php/articleid-4853/Brannon-Howse/Sean-

McDowell>.

Ethnography

I am sitting inside the Jack-in-the-Box on Reseda and Plummer; it is approximately 7 o’ clock. To my immediate left is an elderly couple; behind them, a group three of mid-to-elderly aged Filipino women and to my right a family. The first group I notice is the Filipino women because they are very loud and laughing with each other. The women decide to sit in a booth. The two middle aged women are sitting next to each other and their older friend is sitting on the side opposite to them. They are wearing casual clothes nothing extravagant and they seem to be good friends. I observe that whenever the older woman needs anything- like more fires or ketchup- one of her younger friends grabs it for her. The older woman has oxygen tubes running into her nostrils, but that did not deter her from smiling and joking with her friends. The family to my right is sitting outside and away from everyone. They have a son and daughter who are between the ages of 5 and 7. The two children walk around the patio before their food arrives. As children do they horse around, until their father says something to make them sit down. Soon after the food arrives, the husband and wife set up the fries and burgers they bought for their family. They gesture to the children to sit down properly before they receive their food. The whole family sits down together and begins to eat. Half-way through the meal, the children start getting antsy and begin standing with their food. The parents are almost finished with their meal and make sure that the children stay in the patio area until they are finished. Once everyone finished eating, the mother took the boy and girl to go wash up while the father proceeded to throw away the trash. The family reunites at the table and then proceeds to look both ways before crossing the street to their car. They drive away in a black Ford Expedition. The last group I notice inside the Jack-in-the-Box is the elderly couple to my left. I actually pulled in behind this couple while trying to find parking for the eatery. They were very cautious in the parking lot and moved very slowly. Inside the restaurant, the couple is hardly audible and exchanges few words. The husband and wife are sitting across from each other; they are fragile and grasp their hamburgers then proceed to eat slowly. Their food was brought to them by the manager and everyone in the restaurant made sure that they were well taken care of. They didn’t eat much, but it appeared to be filling to them. The elderly woman had short fading blonde hair and she wore a fancy silk blouse, while her husband was dressed in khaki’s and a white shirt with blue stripes. Their clothes were well ironed and matched rather nicely.

When I observed the Filipino ladies, it looked that they had a very god friendship. Being Filipino, it was easy for me to identify them and understanding the culture I knew that they were just a group of women who just enjoyed life for everything that is was. The fact that these women had no men with them played into the feminism we learned about in class. Instead if these women being “bound to their oppressors,” they were free of them- they were able to do whatever they wanted and it looked like the women really enjoyed the time that they spent together. So far as the relationship goes between this group, it was strictly friendship. It looked like these women maybe grew up together, or at least knew each other for a very long time. All the laughter they shared indicated to me that they either had a lot of inside jokes, or that they had a lot of catching up to do. As for the family, the father seemed to be the one in control of the household. This was a very traditional patriarchal family in the sense that it was the father who paid for dinner, and the mother who took the children to wash their hands while their father threw away the trash. They all seemed to get along and have a very strong family bond. Also, the parents were able to foresee that their children would not be able to sit in their seats for the entirety of their meal, so they decided to sit outside. They were the only customers during the time that I was there who decided to sit outside, and I felt that it was wise of them to do so. Their children were not rowdy or loud, but their decision to sit outside is a reflection of how well they know and understand their kids. The husband and wife had very good communication, playing into the traditional romance. I did not notice that one person overpowered the other to the point of fear or depression; or that one was too obsessed with the other, as was the case in Fatal Attraction. The mother did not have any characteristics of Anne Archer’s character, who was willing to kill to protect not only her child, but her way of life. Anne Archer was more monstrous than Glen Close’s character because not only did she have no remorse when she killed Close’s character but also she needed her husband to the point where she deemed it justified to kill so that she could stay with him and continue the life she was used to. The couple at Jack-in-the-Box seemed to make decisions as a team, but in the end the ultimate decision was left to the male in the relationship because he is the one who drove his family there, and paid for dinner. With the elderly couple, it was obvious since my first encounter with them that they took their time with everything they did; from entering the parking lot and carefully parking, to the meticulous creases in their clothes. The couple seemed content, nothing too extreme and they were average to the point where they seemed to almost blend into the background.