The theme song for the Sex and the City Movie, performed with heavy pitch-shift assist by the girl from Kids Incorporated who wasn’t Martika, is the embodiment of everything that has become loathsome about the franchise.
The aesthetics are godawful––the theme song from the television show is injected with helium and then laid over a beat borrowed from various hip hop hits of the early oughts, then finally zapped with that radio-friendly glitter sound that I think has been scientifically proven to melt brains––but it’s the vapid lyrics, and Fergie’s roboticized delivery of them, that truly turn the song into a celebration of the zombification that the show devolved into celebrating in its last few years. It’s straight-facedly about consumer gluttony in place of human connection, a fashion-forward Dorian Gray story in which women appear younger as they become richer and actually older. Life as a VOGUE spread with no end is a fairly sick fantasy, but at least in terms of “women’s pictures”, it has historical precedent (The Women, anyone?) and is thus cinematically tolerable. But you’ve got to wonder what’s on the screen if the brand geniuses think they need a plot song dance anthem to drive the message home.
A sampling of the song’s lyrics:
“Shopping for labels, shopping for love!”
“I’m not concerned with all the politics…all I know is that I’m always happy when I walk out the store.”
“Stop chasing those boys and shop some more!”
“Relationships are often so hard to take! A Prada dress has never broke my heart before!”
“Men they come a dime a dozen, just give me them diamond rings!”
“I know my credit card will help me put out the flames…”
Oh, I see––it’s like a takeoff on “Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend,” except now that we can get our own lines of credit, we don’t actually need men at all anymore. Because people are interchangable with luxury goods, and in terms of emotional weight and physical pleasure, sex is equivalent to spending money you don’t have on things you don’t need. Don’t think about the credit crisis, girls, and certainly don’t think of anyone born with a penis as a human being. You’re empowered!
The song is obviously targeted at young girls/teens, decades younger than the characters on screen and probably too young to have participated in Sex and the City the first time around, who have probably caught the sanitized version on TBS. So is this assault on taste actually dangerous for our impressionable youth? No. God, what I’d give for popular culture about adult single women that could truly pose some kind of threat to modern mores (or, really, anything). But this is what dominant teen girl culture is all about right now––the fantasy that a boyfriend is a partner in branding, and that magazine interns can afford condos and Chanel purses––and there’s just something really troubling about these kinds of perma-adolescent cultural touchpoints being scooped up by a brand about women in their 40s.
Via Celebitchy.
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SpoutBlog » Karina Longworth