Have You Met Miss Jones?
By Tresanna Hassanally
"Have you met Miss Jones?" Most of the fictional men in New York City (and at least one up-state) have.
Every time I hear Frank Sinatra croon those words I think of Samantha Jones, sex kitten extradonnaire. For those who haven't yet had the privilege to meet Miss Jones, I shall introduce you.
Miss Jones is a quarter of the famous Sex and the City foursome. A strong, powerful feminine character (played by Kim Cattrall), she could also probably qualify as a sex addict. Samantha is willing to try anything and every thing in the bed room, and probably has. Her typically male characteristics have made her a symbol of empowerment for women.
"Usually a [female character] who is sexually aggressive and liberated would, in our society, be punished severely--suddenly she's crazy and neurotic. We didn't do that. We made it part of her self-expression." - Kim Cattrall on her Sex and the City alter ego, Samantha
Way back, in Sex and the City's very first episode, the four girlfriends vowed to start having sex like men. And while Charlotte, Miranda and Carrie had long seemed to forgotten the let your hormones lead the way mentality, Samantha stuck to her guns.
"Samantha embraces her uninhibited sexuality with a diverse (and large) group of lovers," describes her bio, "from wrestling coaches to power bachelors to a studly farmer. Forget wedding dreams; Samantha takes lust over love any night, and she's proud of it."
The behaviour many women find despicable in men is celebrated in this character. For years women have been calling on men to be more sensitive, stylish and successful, and men have answered the call. However, this is where the second feminist wave has led and the sexy siren is now the one to emulate.
In the New York Times, Catherine Orenstein chastised the show for being "surprisingly retrograde." In her assessment of the show's characters, Samantha stands out as the lone example of what the feminist movement won. "More dated still, especially for a show that supposedly celebrates the joys of single life and female friendship, is its preoccupation with snagging a man," Orenstein says. "The characters are a walking compendium of modern female angst--the quest for a relationship, the ticking of the biological clock, the fear of aging out of the marriage market. Not that these aren't sometimes true and even potentially funny themes of single life. But when did haute couture fashion and prêt-a-porter men come to eclipse all the other elements of independent womanhood?" she asks.
Orenstein's objection does carry over to the Samantha Jones character in other departments. She refers to the foursome as "vapid, materialistic and hysterical." She laments that "the show makes short shrift of their intellect, they have no causes, no families...and their jobs (what little we see of them) seem to exist to enable office trysts." She laments that "they're a caricature of a complicated generation of women--myself included--now coming into our 30's: the daughters of the women's lib. Born in the years that the Ivy Leagues went co-ed and abortion became legal, we've been raised on promises of equality," Orenstein explains. "We've been blessed with opportunities and we've delayed marriage and motherhood longer than any other generation. We have the luxury, or so we may think, of taking feminism's gains for granted."
And feminism is what it boils down to. In a 2000 article recounting the history of the portrayal of women on television over the last 50 or so years, Elayne Rapping describes how women's issues have actually become less prevalent on television. "Women, strong, successful women, are everywhere on television today. But their lives are so devoid of any meaning or purpose, except the most reactionary desires for traditional relationships and families and/or lots of money, that it is as though we have won the battle but lost the war," she says.
Rapping describes showing her students at SUNY Buffalo a segment of the now cancelled show Ally McBeal in a "Gender and Media" class. Surprisingly, the male students were more aware of the negative stereotypes the show portrayed. The female students defended the characters' behaviour as accurate of the way women really are.
"To them [Rapping's female students] it's very much about female 'liberation' because it gives them permission to retreat to the worst pre-sixties attitudes and behaviours and still 'succeed' financially and romantically. They are planning to enter courtrooms and corporate office buildings, anorectic bodies clothed in mini-skirts, minds filled with sexual daydreams, and pockets full of money, just like Ally," says Rapping.
We've all heard the adage, 'sex sells'. And it truly does. Not just products but identities. Characters like the sex-obsessed foursome on Sex and the City sell the idea to viewers of a glamorous, live-like-men life. Although the show long ago saw it's end, Samantha was the beginning of something bigger. And sure enough, another Samantha-esque character will come along to push our boundaries even further.
Speed Dating
