As all of the attention of the world this weekend focuses on the second coming…of the “groundbreaking” social phenomenon that is Sex and the City I thought it would be interesting to read the recently discovered transcripts of the pitch meeting for the show.
HBO Headquarters 1998
Darren Star: I’ve got a great idea for a groundbreaking new female driven show! It’ll be about a modern 30-something single woman and her friends trying to balance career and relationships in the big city.
Chris Albrecht: So like The Mary Tyler Moore Show?
DS: But more about the women as a group
CA: So like Designing Women?
DS: But more about dating and relationships. And the main character writes a column about her experiences as a single woman in the city
CA: So like Suddenly Susan?
DS: But we’ll deal with other issues occasionally too, like pregnancy and cancer and stuff
CA: So like Murphy Brown?
DS: No…
CA: The Golden Girls, Kate & Allie, Felicity, Cybill, Ally McBeal, Friends…
DS: No, no, no…there’s going to be nudity and explicit language and stuff…its gonna be groundbreaking okay, don’t argue with me on this. Just take it as fact because I say so. Its gonna feature women in a whole new light. Like they’ve never been seen before - as catty materialistic socialites obsessed with men and fashion.
CA: Umm that sounds horribly offensive. And that’s actually the very stereotype usually pushed by the media that the modern woman has had to fight against for years.
DS: But I’m gonna get around that problem by calling this new show “post-feminist”.
CA: So you’re going to use the characters on the show as a way to deconstruct feminism and help define what it means in today’s world?
DS: Okay, I have no idea what any of those words are you just used, but I have a good feeling there wont be any of that as this show is gonna be a comedy.
CA: Oh that’s great! Who doesn’t love to laugh?
DS: Well its not gonna be a comedy in the sense that it has jokes and elicits laughter, but it’ll be a comedy in the sense that its not a drama and there will be wacky music.
CA: But the characters will still be written as nuanced and complex people and not just broad archetypes right?
DS: Whoa, with all the big words again! This is a show aimed at women. We can’t be challenging them like that. We just need to treat them how Hollywood always treats them - by pandering to them with clichés, cheap sentimentality, and bright shiny pretty things.
CA: That might be the most offensive thing I’ve ever heard, but I guess as long as this thing is well written…
DS: Oh it will be, cuz who better to write about a woman’s experience than a gay man?
CA: Umm, a woman?
DS: Yeah but other than that?
CA: No one
DS: Oh you shush. Soon there will be a whole generation of women aspiring to be clichéd versions of gay men and it’ll be fabulous. They’ll love high fashion, cosmos and meaningless sex with a multitude of partners. On the show, one of the characters in particular will be known for using her blatant love of sex to reclaim her sense of sexuality from the confines placed on it by a male driven society…
CA: Now that character sounds really interesting if done well. Who are you planning on getting to play her?
DS: The woman who agreed to star in Porkys
CA: (Bangs his head against desk) Frankly this show sounds beneath her. Plus she can’t act. Like not even a little bit. This pitch keeps getting worse by the minute. I am pretty desperate for a hit show though…Okay, I'll buy it. But on one condition: At some point one of the women needs to say something to the effect of, “How does it happen that four smart women can talk about nothing but boyfriends? What about us? What we think, we feel, we know? Christ! Does it always have to be about them?”
DS: (Sigh) Okay. But only if the very next scene features them shopping
CA: (Picks up hammer hits himself repeatedly in the face) Sure. Whatever. Sold.
