‘They wrote in the old days that it is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country. But in modern war, there is nothing sweet nor fitting in your dying. You will die like a dog for no good reason.’

- Ernest Hemmingway 1

The technological advances of the post-war era in the machinery of warfare have made human suffering and death in conflict-zones acutely brutal. Innocuous sounding weapons used in the public lexicon such as ‘daisy-cutter’ and ‘rocket propelled grenade’ are weapons used in modern conflict to inflict heinous death and casualty. However, public perceptions of the reality of war have been consistently censured by the press – in this case the American media establishment – since as early as the American Civil War. While the obvious reason for this is to maintain public morale and support for life-threatening conflict, American military intervention since that civil war has been projected internationally. During the twentieth century and into the twenty-first, the explosion of media communications technology has mirrored military R&D in that it has allowed instantaneous access to global conflict.

In three case studies that chart American intervention – the Vietnam War, the first Gulf War, and the Second Gulf War – I will argue that the development of communications technology combined with traditional economic pressures in the Network News medium have reduced public perceptions of American intervention to a form of ‘entertainment.’ I will contrast the pressures and prejudices of journalists and producers on the ground with the economic pressures facing competing media networks to enlarge this debate. Specifically, this will address the ‘rolling news’ format that the Central News Network (CNN) established during the first Gulf War. Finally, the relationship between the media conglomerates and their target audience will be considered in reaction to the ‘entertainment’ label.

The emergence of the CNN Effect can be categorized as ‘the negative effect on the economy caused by people staying home to watch CNN or some other news source during a crisis such as a war.’ 2 It would be a misconception to place the ‘CNN effect’ as one simply referring to ‘rolling news’, a concept adopted by many international media outlets but pioneered by CNN in the first Gulf War. If one takes the CNN effect as an amalgamation of these two definitions, then the overall CNN effect has been to transplant Hollywood mentality onto a daily level, where producers denigrate genuine human suffering in favour of securing a wider audience from competing economic media giants such as CNBC; MSNBC; Fox; ABC; and Bloomberg.

In one example, it is widely held that the presence and reportage of CNN in Somalia prior to the October 3rd battle – where 29 U.S. soldiers were killed and up to 80 injured – pressured President Clinton significantly to intervene militarily and deploy Special Forces to that region. CNN knew what images would appeal to the American public’s conscience and how public pressure could convince an incumbent leader into intervening in humanitarian crises. So, while the economic benefit to CNN was an overriding concern, so too was the power to manipulate what in the Somali example was a highly complex international response to a highly complex national emergency. Then Secretary of State Madeline Albright’s policy of ‘assertive multilateralism’ involved actors and considerations reaching far beyond the humanitarian dimension of a Somali famine. Yet, CNN producers and executives chose only to present human suffering vis-à-vis the humanitarian dimension when presenting that particular conflict to the American public. In one assessment, the use of human suffering to influence foreign policy imbued in the Somali context had tragic consequences:

Even when the Mogadishu tragedy was followed a few days later by the outbreak of massive genocide in Rwanda – one that saw from 600,000 to one million men, women and children murdered – American public opinion did not criticize or challenge the contortions engaged in by the Clinton Administration to avoid intervening. 3

The U.S. media establishment, in the above, aided U.S. policymakers to secure public support for non-intervention in Rwanda, a decision which is universally recognized as irresponsible and an intervention which, unlike Somalia, could actually have benefited the country in question and stalled an unprecedented genocide. The concept of this distinction – between journalists as presenters and journalists as moralists – was discussed most ardently after the U.S. defeat in Vietnam. During the Nixon Presidency, the television and print media acted moralistically in its presentation of the Vietnam conflict and questioned the national interest by mobilizing the public:

‘The president couldn’t sleep. Long afflicted by insomnia, Nixon had special reason for distress on the night of May 8, 1970. He was being pilloried in the press and by the anti-war movement, first for ordering the invasion of Cambodia, then for reacting coldly to the killing of four Kent State students by National Guardsmen. Now protesters had descended on Washington and the capital was in a state of siege.’ 4

Nixon’s paranoia and megalomania saw the media establishment purely in political terms, with a grand liberal conspiracy engaged in machinations to destroy his Presidency. The Watergate scandal which ultimately broke Nixon’s Presidency was a watershed in American media history as the media saw themselves as the purveyors of that society’s morality. Established journalistic rules regarding political character attacks which had prevented Clintonian scandals in John F. Kennedy’s era had now been deemed redundant. The media, in short, had free license to report anything and everything. In Vietnam, this became evident in how the media reported the War. The depiction of violence was no longer censored by the media establishment; it was sensationalized to mirror the mood of a radical American public, morally appalled at the legitimacy of the Vietnam War:

Any viewer in the United States who watched regularly the television reporting from Vietnam – and it was from television that 60 percent of Americans got most of their war news – would agree that he saw scenes of real-life violence, death, and horror on his screen that would have been unthinkable before Vietnam. 5

The effect of this on the American public was obviously an integral tool to the anti-war movement. Correspondents did not question themselves when taking footage of self-immolating monks, as in response to President Diem’s pro-Catholic policies during the Kennedy Presidency. Appalling images such as those, designed to shock the American public and enhance the career of a correspondent, would re-emerge during the height of the war. De-sensitized to the everyday realities and horrors of a soldier in Vietnam, Americans such as Norman Morrison effectively questioned not only the legitimacy of the war, but the media’s representation of it. Morrison infamously set fire to himself outside Secretary of Defense McNamara’s Pentagon office in 1965, thereby inviting the American public to compare domestic, as opposed to foreign, representations of human suffering in conflict zones. Samuel Huntington, when describing the new world order as The Clash of Civilizations, also alluded to a domestic media’s perspective when describing foreign intervention:

A world of clashing civilizations…is inevitably a world of double standards: people apply one standard to their kin-countries and a different standard to others 6

It must also be considered that Nixon’s view of the media as conspiring against Republicans alone was misguided. The previous Democratic Presidents involved in Vietnam – Johnson and Kennedy – both endured a hostile press. In Johnson’s case, even Cabinet members defected to the press in an effort to discredit what they perceived as an unsteady Presidential leadership descending into chaos. In Vietnam, the television media establishment recognized the power of shock tactics to induce the government to relinquish control of ambiguous foreign policies not clearly in the national interest. However, the power of the media in Vietnam to influence public opinion has often been exaggerated, as James Hoge notes:

[As in Vietnam,] public attitudes ultimately hinge on questions about the rightness, purpose and costs of policy – not television images. 7

In the Iraq conflict of 1991, CNN established itself as the dominant American media network. This was due to the efforts of producer Robert Weiner, who urged that CNN should stay in Iraq to report the war Live From Baghdad, as the title of the book chronicling his experience suggests. Due in part to Weiner’s ability to secure a relationship with then Deputy Minister of Information Naji Sabri Ahmad al-Hadithi, CNN procured a ‘floor wire’, a device similar to that of a two-way radio. The advantage for CNN when air strikes on Baghdad became a certainty was that the ‘floor wire’ communicated directly to the Atlanta head office using underground communications cables. Thus, even in the event of U.S. air attacks striking traditional communications centres, the network would be able to broadcast live and uninterrupted. Once direct warnings emerged from U.S. embassy officials warning of an imminent bombing, the remaining international media networks pulled their journalists out of Baghdad, a move designed to protect journalists’ lives and the credibility of President Bush’s bombing campaign.

CNN engineered a historic moment in international broadcasting when veteran journalists Bernard Shaw; John Holliman; and Peter Arnett were flown in to report the first wave of U.S. attacks. ‘Rolling news’ had found both a niche and an audience, as few of us can forget the live images of U.S. air strikes combined with up to the minute reporting. In addition, the U.S. and global audience were simultaneously transported to live events and extensions of the Iraqi conflict by journalists as far as Tel Aviv and Jordan.

Weiner and his team were hailed as journalistic ‘heroes’ and the envy of the U.S. media establishment. During the first wave of U.S strikes, competing media networks could only feed directly into CNN’s broadcasting to retain a minor portion of the market. Americans tuned in live round the clock to watch the U.S. air strikes on Baghdad, yet the immediacy of the devastating effects on Iraqis went unnoticed by the American public. Additionally, the Executive Branch now had to contend with a competing information source, as the government was unable to counter military losses or Hussein’s aggression with pacifying statements to the public: the media now controlled the distribution and content of information.

Underlying this paradox is the concept that the CNN audience was becoming de-sensitized to the realities of a Patriot missile strike or Iraqi Scud launch to the extent that the choice of watching the war on television was not an exercise in information procurement, but a perverse and horrifying form of entertainment. Writing recently in Foreign Affairs, Secretary of State Powell laments:

These days, it seems that an administration can develop a sound foreign policy strategy, but it can’t get people to acknowledge or understand it. 8

Secretary Powell refers here to reinvigorated U.S. government public diplomacy efforts to counter anti-Americanism. In the aftermath of 9-11, the Executive Branch established an Office of Global Communications (OGC) with the mandate: ‘the Office assists in the development of communications that disseminate truthful, accurate, and effective messages about the American people and their government.’ 9 In essence, OGC’s job is to monitor foreign media broadcasts and cultivate effective counter-attacks to perceived propaganda. However, OGC is also competing within a larger paradigm that sees CNN and Al-Jazeera as the principal methods of disseminating ‘truthful, accurate, and effective messages’ related to the demands of their audience. Al-Jazeera has a pro-Arab and anti-American stance, a position which invited their broadcasting (in mid 2003) of bloodied Iraqi carcasses killed by American armed forces.

This was not necessarily a ‘shock’ tactic. Al-Jazeera’s defence of its inflammatory journalism is that it is a network, like CNN, cultivating its content to the requirements and beliefs of its audience. It is the content of the message, however, which also reiterates the concept of mass media as entertainment. Al-Jazeera tailors its coverage of the current Iraqi reconstruction to favor its audience, often at the expense of its international credibility. However, Al-Jazeera also provides a balanced portrayal of events important to the Middle East region with the aim of countering purely Western portrayals of Arab conflagrations which include the Arab-Israeli conflict. 9-11 and the ‘globalization’ of mass media also contributed to an enhanced and increasingly complex relationship between a network and its audience. When assessing U.S. media presentations of 9-11 and the subsequent invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, one has to take into account that:

[Thus,] the difference between news coverage of terrorism inside and outside a target country is striking: when terrorists hit their enemies at home, they can inflict greater damage but they lose in the battle over media access and predominant perspectives. 10

In the U.S. media’s haste to assuage the nation’s thirst for justification and retribution in response to the 9-11 attacks, the legitimacy of intervention in Iraq – and the methods employed to gain that legitimacy – were not called into question by the media until too late. If the media does not exercise control on its moral obligations – as it did in Vietnam and Watergate, but only reacts to the government’s supply of information and their audiences need for military action to counter unlimited domestic terrorism, the public can only be expected to treat the media as another form of entertainment in their lives. Consider CNN’s article of May 8, 2003, reporting President Bush’s dramatic arrival on the USS Abraham Lincoln:

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Several administration officials Wednesday defended President Bush’s flight on a Navy jet to an aircraft carrier last week, saying there was a minimal difference between the cost of the president flying to the ship in a jet versus flying in a helicopter. 11

This extract, and the subsequent article in its entirety, fails to acknowledge that the true cost of that political maneuver. The event was ‘staged’, much like a theatrical trailer, to enhance President Bush’s image as a war-time leader with previous combat experience in Vietnam. International media executives and producers could not simply exercise a moral high ground and refuse to cover the event: that would be tantamount to economic suicide. However, CNN et al. are inconsistent in their coverage of the Iraq war and reconstruction efforts by not pressuring Administration officials to reveal accurate casualty and death rates, or to cover with as much zeal and attention items such as President Bush’s visit to the relatives of deceased combat soldiers. The latter are not stories of success and triumph, yet for an audience to comprehend the nature of an all encompassing ‘war on terror’, the audience must be allowed a balanced portrayal of the realities of American intervention. In addition, the cost of American national security can only be understood in a wider context of universal injustices precipitated worldwide in the name of ‘terrorism.’

Appalling images of suffering in the world are interrupted by advertisements for car insurance: barbarism and banality, cheek by jowl. 12

If the American public becomes increasingly de-sensitized to violence, policy makers may well become less emotionally attached to human suffering. In terms of future American military intervention, this could prove beneficial when having to make decisive action in delicate operations, as the recent Haitian example suggests. However, sensitivity to human suffering – epitomized in how governments react to global conflict and international intervention of any description – is not only a fundamental aspect of participating in international affairs, but what legitimizes the foreign policies of mature western democracies. If continually editorialized media representations of war are promoted with the same guidelines as those used by producers to market programs such as ER or Friends, this moral conviction erodes. The increasingly belligerent undertone taken by the U.S. media television establishment in its efforts to secure economic stability should throw a caution to the prevailing wind that American intervention is always justified when the national interest is at stake. War and violent conflicts, however marketed, are not enjoyable enterprises for any potential actor involved. CNN and the larger U.S. media establishment may well benefit from this reminder.

Cited

Bunting, Madeleine. ‘Reasons to be Cheerless’, The Guardian

‘The CNN Effect‘

Goshko, John M. ‘Bush, Clinton, and Somalia’, in Abshire, David, ed., Triumphs and Tragedies of the Modern Presidency: Seventy-Six Case Studies in Presidential Leadership (Praeger: Westport, CT), pp. 226-232

Greenberg, David. Nixon’s Shadow: the History of an Image (Norton: New York)

Hemmingway, Ernest. ‘Top Ten War Quotes‘

Hoge, James F. ‘Media Pervasiveness’, Foreign Affairs, July/August 1994, pp. 136-144

Huntington, Samuel P. ‘The Clash of Civilizations?’, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 72. No. 3, pp. 22-49

John King, ‘Administration Defends Bush Flight to Carrier‘, CNN

Knightley, Phillip. The First Casualty: The War Correspondent as Hero, Propagandist, and Myth Maker from the Crimea to Vietnam (Andre Deutsch: London)

Nacos, Brigitte L., Terrorism and the Media: From the Iran Hostage Crisis to the World Trade Center Bombing (Columbia University Press: New York)

‘Office of Global Communications‘

Powell, Colin, ‘A Strategy of Partnerships‘, Foreign Affairs

1 ‘Top Ten War Quotes‘

2 ‘The CNN Effect‘

3 Goshko, p. 231

4Greenberg, p. 232

5 Knightley, p. 410

6 Huntington, p. 36

7 Hoge, p. 141

8 Colin Powell, ‘A Strategy of Partnerships‘ Foreign Affairs

9 ‘Office of Global Communications‘

10 Nacos, p. 47

11 John King, ‘Administration Defends Bush Flight to Carrier‘, CNN

12 Madeleine Bunting, ‘Reasons to be Cheerless’, The Guardian

Related:

• Gender Roles and the Media
• What is the role of Public Diplomacy to U.S. Foreign Policy?
• Grave Violations of Human Rights
• Hollywood and the Iraq War

Introduction

Five months after the Gulf war in 1991, on The New York Times Richard Bernstein was writing: “If this war has produced a surge of national pride reminiscent of 1918 and 1945, there is no guarantee that it will, like the Civil war, the two World wars, and the conflicts in Korea and Vietnam, produce a commensurate art”. Nowadays the question raises even stronger in relation to the Iraqi war in 2003. Since the 9/11 attacks to the Twin Towers things have changed forever. However, if Hollywood imagination did not and still does not seem to be captured by the Gulf war, this time the involvement of American stars, filmmakers, producers in the last Iraqi war is huge. It cannot be compared to the Hollywood participation during and after the World War II, the era of the “studio system in uniform” (McAdams, 2002: 34-39). However, something strong has happened before, during and after this recent conflict. The war has divided stars, filmmakers and producers that have participated actively against or in favour. They sent president Bush letters, they petitioned, they delivered speeches at different events. They felt the fear of a blacklist as it happened during the World War II. The Screen Actors Guild warned: “The entertainment industry must not blacklist people who speak out against war in Iraq”, as the Associated press reported on 4 March 2003. The 75th Academy Award on 23 March in Los Angeles was inevitably centred on the war as this broke out just a few days before the ceremony.

Hollywood and the wars

The war film is a genre that has always marked the Hollywood film history since the very beginning. Before the nickelodeon era, around the end of nineteenth century, one of the key factors that saved the American film industry was the Spanish-American war (1898-1902). People wanted to know more and more about the war and the filmmakers started making movies that, at this stage, were concentrated on the reality.

There is no doubt that the majority of war movies made by Hollywood concern World War II and the Vietnam War. During World War II, the Americans that went to the war were 16,112,556; of these 291,557 died in battle. During the Vietnam War, the total service members were 9,200,000; the American deaths were 47,410 in battle and there were 10,788 deaths in theater 1. In these two wars the Americans lost thousands of victims, faced atrocity and brutality, and an unexpectedly long war in Vietnam where the conflict lasted eleven years.

In World War II Hollywood was asked to be more than supportive. The studio system started working for the government. Many stars went to the war. “The U.S. government called directly upon the Hollywood establishment to make films supporting the war effort. Immediately after Pearl Harbour and the German declaration, the Pentagon asked the prominent Columbia director Frank Capra to make a series of propaganda films. These were to explain to American soldiers and sailors why their country was in the war and why they were obliged to help foreign countries”. (Thompson and Bordwell, 2003: 313).

With the Vietnam War Americans faced the “longest and most divisive war” (McAdams, 2002:193). “Television pictures of Vietnam, according to President Nixon, showed the terrible human suffering and sacrifice of war […] the result was a serious demoralization of the home front, raising the question whether America would ever again be able to fight an enemy abroad with unity and strength of purpose at home”. (Hallin, 1986, cited in Thussu and Freedman, 2003)

“The Vietnam war seared the nation’s conscience and psyche so much that it caused one president to decline to run again and began a chain of events that led to his successor’s resignation. No other war in America can make that claim”. (McAdams, 2002: 193-194) The war burst into the houses showing brutality and death. Hollywood felt strongly the emotion of a nation and started making films. They are still making huge films about Vietnam. They made films while the war was still fighting; the major of these was the Batjac Production of the Robin Moore book The Green Berets (1968), with John Wayne starring and directing.

Three Kings

The Gulf war in 1991 did not have the same impact as the World War II and the Vietnam War on the Americans’ conscience in spite of the greater television coverage. “While the Vietnam War was given to American homes every evening, the Gulf War played on CNN day and night”. (McAdams, 2002: 262). “TV news’ obsession with high-tech war reporting has grown since the 1991 US attack against Iraq. CNN’s coverage of the Gulf War, for the first time in history, brought military conflict into living room”. (Thussu and Freedman, 2003:124) However, the huge information about the war did not produce the same effect on the Americans as it was in the Vietnam era.

During the Vietnam War the television coverage made the Americans sad, in 1991 it was different. Desert storm meant a different kind of war, a war that did not show blood and brutality, a war in which U.S. lost 148 service members in battle, a real war showed in TV as a movie. This high-tech and virtual war was “its own triumphant movie – a war fought and celebrated on TV then quickly forgotten” (Hoberman, 2000).

Since the Gulf War Hollywood has made only one movie about the war. It is Three Kings, directed by David O.Russell and released in September 1999. It is a story about three soldiers that when the war was over discovered a map with a location of a cache of gold ingots that were stolen by Saddam Hussein during the Kuwait invasion. Major Archie Gates, interpreted by George Clooney, sets the operation that will lead the soldiers through a disputable mission that will end with Gates’ decision to give the gold ingots to a group of 100 Iraqi refugees that the American soldiers helped to reach the Iranian border. So, at the end, the film shows inevitably the good face of America.

Another movie set in the Gulf war is Courage Under Fire (1996) based on a script by a Vietnam veteran Patrick Duncan. However, Desert Storm represents just the backcloth to show that women can handle combat situation.

Even though during the last decade the production of war films about Desert Storm was nearly non-existent, there was a resurgence of past wars movies. Since 1991 Hollywood made many films about past wars: Schindler ‘s List (1993) directed by Steven Spielberg, about the Nazism; Forrest Gump (1994) with Vietnam combat scenes; Saving Private Ryan (1998) directed by Steven Spielberg, a flashback of a World War II veteran; The Thin Red Line (1998) directed by Terrence Malick; U-571 (2000) World war II submarine film; The Patriot (2000) the story of Benjamin Martin in the American revolution (1775-1783); Black Hawk Down (2001) a Ridley Scott film on the Restore Hope operation in Mogadishu.

“War films from past wars continued to make contemporary statements”. (McAdams, 2002: 253). “The Gulf war era, beginning in 1990, in American war films, brought about more story angles to past wars, going back to our first. It also opened the gates for more war films, particularly about World war II”. (McAdams, 2002: 276)

Hollywood reactions

The Gulf War has been underestimated as a potential plot for a good and successful movie in Hollywood. And one of the most important reasons, underlined by the majority of the critics, seems to be the TV effect, the high-tech and virtual representation of the war. In some ways, the Iraqi war in 2003 was even more virtually represented than it has been hitherto and the coverage was larger and from more perspectives than before. According to the latest statistics published on the CNN website, since March to early December 443 U.S. troops have been killed in the Iraq war, 306 from hostile fire, of those 191 have died after president Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1. This time the number of American deaths has more than doubled in comparison to the Gulf War. However, is it the number of casualties that makes a difference in the fictional representation of a war? It is true to say that in the most “cinematized” wars, as World War II and Vietnam, Americans lost thousands of men, but the number of victims is not significant enough to explain why a war is more or less represented on the big screen.

In comparison with the Gulf War, this time there are many more reasons to dissuade the Hollywood filmmakers from making films about this war. However, there are also more reasons to urge them to make films because of the high dissent before, during and after the Iraqi freedom operation.

It seems to be much more difficult to make films about this war due to the very sensitive relationships and the difficulties of communications between U.S. and Muslims. This time the decision to make a film involves political, economic and diplomatic matter more than hitherto. In an interview to the Wall Street journal, on 10 October 2003, when Jonathan Last asked why Hollywood hasn’t made movies about the war on terror Jack Valenti, the head of the Motion Picture association of America, said: “Who would you have as the enemy if you made a picture about terrorism? You’d probably have Muslims, would you not? If you did, I think there would be backlash from the decent, hard-working, law-abiding Muslim community in the country”. Talking about the last Iraqi war, Hollywood could not ignore the 9/11 attacks to the Twin Towers. So it becomes a very difficult issue to be addressed.

However, something could be different now. The protest and the dissent in Hollywood were considerable. Furthermore, the war divided world opinion; it divided Hollywood opinion as well. Before the conflict many stars and filmmakers made statements against the war. In a petition signed by stars such as Tim Robbins, Susan Sarandon, Angelica Huston, Matt Damon, Jessica Lange, Mia Farrow Vincent D’Onofrio and many others, it was declared: “Such a war will increase human suffering, arouse animosity toward our country, increase the likelihood of terrorist attacks, damage the economy, and undermine our moral standing in the world. […] We reject the doctrine that our country, alone, has the right to launch first-strike attacks”.

On the other hand, there were positions in favour of the war. Harrison Ford and Steven Spielberg, for instance, supported president Bush politics about Iraq. The director of war epics Saving Private Ryan and Schindler’s list, in an article written by Julian Coman from Washington and published on the Daily Telegraph months before the war, said: “If Bush, as I believe, has reliable information on the fact that Saddam Hussein is making weapons of mass destruction, I cannot not support the policies of his government”.

Stars as John Travolta and Tom Cruise gave diplomatic answer when journalists asked their opinions. They said that they did not know what think about the Iraqi war or that they did not have enough information to declare anything.

It happened a few months ago. Probably it is yet too early to see whether this war produces movies and how many it will; however it is the right time to understand the signs that are coming.

Documentary season

This time is the time of the documentaries. Hollywood filmmakers seems to be very interested in making documentaries, in making something closer to the news than to the fiction to show their opinions, to further investigate these issues. This time can be defined as the documentary season. It started after the 9/11, but it is developing now more than ever. The documentaries produced are not just about the war or the attacks to the Twin Towers. They are also about social problems even if the film camera is centred on the war in Iraq and the war on terror.

The success of this form of “reality-art” is huge. Over 30 millions of Americans have seen Bowling for Columbine, the documentary made by Michael Moore and released in U.S. on 11 October 2002. Last March the American filmmaker won the Oscar for the best documentary feature. According to Matthew Ross on Variety last November, “Bowling for Columbine continued to score at the box office, collecting $5 million of its more than $21 million income this year”. The latest box office data show: total U.S. gross earnings $21,575,958 on a $3 million production budget and worldwide gross earnings of $40 million 2. Michael Moore is one of the most active in the Hollywood firmament against the war and against president Bush. During the Oscar Night 2003 he took the podium. The Qatar television Al Jazeera referred part of his speech. He said: “We live in a time with fictitious election results that elect fictitious presidents. We live in a time when we have a man sending us to war for fictitious reasons. We are against this war Mr. Bush. Shame on you. Shame on you!”

A few weeks ago, Moore’s new book “Dude, where’s my country?” has been published. In it he strongly criticized (and it should not be different) the White House on various matters: not only on the war on terror or the Iraqi war, but also, for example, about health insurance. Furthermore, Michael Moore is preparing another documentary in which examines what happened to the U.S. after September 11. It is called Fahrenheit 911. Moore’s new work, produced by Mel Gibson’s Icon Productions, should be completed for submission to Cannes 2004. The theatrical release should be before the presidential election next November, as Moore himself has declared in several interviews.

In these days, it is imminent the theatrical release of The Fog of War, an Errol Morris documentary that covers political events in U.S. history as seen through the eyes of former Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara, that is the star of this documentary.

Robert Greenwald, producer and director, that made Xanadu, starring Olivia Newton-John, has spent several months investigating the Iraqi war. The result is a documentary film released a month ago in U.S. and called Uncovered: the whole truth about the Iraq war. Robert Greenwald interviewed, as Randy Kennedy wrote on The New York Times on 6 November, “former diplomats, weapons inspectors, scientists and career spies to try to show that the Bush administration misled the public and Congress in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq”.

Another filmmaker that is investigating the war, in particular the relationship with the Muslim world is Charles Stuart. He was in the Middle East to film Hollywood & the Muslim world, an investigation on the impact of American TV and movies from Cairo to Baghdad, as the Los Angeles Times reported on the 14 July newspaper edition when the documentary has been aired on satellite on the AMC cable channel.

Political dramas

If it is a documentary season, the months after the Iraqi war will be also remembered as “a powerful time for political drama”, as stated in the headline of a Financial Times article published in the Creative business section on 4 November 2003. The West Wing, starring Hollywood star Martin Sheen (captain Willard in Apocalypse now), has been living a season of resurgence. It leapt from 24th to 11th in the US ratings, as reported Neal Koch on the Financial Times. He also refers the opinion of Robert J. Thompson, a professor of popular culture at the University of Syracuse: “Suddenly, politics is no longer just the stuff of C-Span [the US channel which broadcasts from Capitol Hill]. It’s become the stuff of soap operas”. Robert Caro, the two time Pulitzer Prize winning historian and biographer, in the same article argues: “There is a tremendous change with The West Wing and HBO movies […]. The level at which politics is portrayed is much higher than it’s been before”.

One of the HBO programm is K Street, developed by Steven Soderbergh and George Clooney. K Street is not a situation comedy, it can be defined a political docudrama. “It is a semi-fictional inside-look at Washington lobbyists and consultants, starring, among others, James Carville, one of former president Bill Clinton’s chief political strategists, and his wife, Mary Matalin, until recently a senior aide to vice-president Dick Cheney. The couple play themselves. […] Stuart Stevens, a K Street co-producer and Republican political consultant who made commercials for president Bush’s 2000 campaign, insists that the market for scripts about politicians remains the strongest he’s seen in his nine years of selling”.

Furthermore, a few days ago in Los Angeles there was a world premiere presentation of a drama in one act written and directed by Tim Robbins. It is called Embedded and it is a satire about journalists embedded with American troops at the front.

Coming productions

There is not one single movie on the Hollywood horizon about the Iraqi war for the moment. Probably it is too early to see projects about a war that is still causing death and destruction.

The only film that will be produced in the next few months and that has got a very small reference to Iraq is The Jacket. It will be directed by John Maybury and produced by Steven Soderbergh, George Clooney and Peter Guber. The reference is just because the protagonist Billy Starks, played by the Oscar winner Adrian Brody, is a Gulf war veteran. But that is it. In fact it is a thriller. The veteran has accused of a murder that he does not remember committing.

For what concerns the coming productions, they seem to continue the era of war films from the past. In fact in the latest Variety film production chart, there is some new war films production3.

Kingdom of heaven, produced and directed by Ridley Scott, is the story of a blacksmith who helps Jerusalem to fight against Crusades. It is a historical-epic set in 12th century. It will be shot next year in Morocco.

Closing the ring, starring Shirley McLain, is set in Belfast during the World War II. Richard Attenborough will direct it

The filthy war, directed by Laszlo Hege, is about the war in the former Yugoslavia. A group of young volunteers create an international platoon to defend a village in Croatia at the beginning of the Yugoslav civil war (1991) against the nationalist, ethnic-cleansing Serbs.

Conclusion

This war is a very difficult war to be chosen as a plot for a movie. It is not just for the TV effect as it was in the Gulf era. It is true that the television coverage has been greater than in 1991 and it could not be different. Technological transformations have made easier to do information. This war has been represented as virtual, as a Nintendo more than ever. However, this is not the principal reason why Hollywood filmmakers could keep their distance from this war. It is a difficult war for all the implications that this conflict brought. The relationships with the Muslim world are at a very crucial and sensitive stage. The anti-americanism is stronger than ever. So the responsibility in making a film is enormous.

However, the dissent of several filmmakers and stars was and still is very strong. They were against the Iraqi freedom operation and are still demonstrating their disapproval. Their first projects are taking shape even if there is not one single film on the Hollywood horizon about the Iraqi conflict. It is likely that they will decide to make movies to show what was wrong in this war. They have things to say. They have things that they want to say. Furthermore, they know that this controversial war could be a success at the box office because the anti-war feeling is growing up in Western countries.

Paraphrasing the New York Times headline, there is evidence that more than before it will be difficult to answer the question: “Will the Iraqi war produce enduring art?”

Bibliography

Books

McAdams, F. The American war film – History and Hollywood Westport, Connecticut, and London, Praeger.

Thompson, K and Bordwell D. Film History – An Introduction New York, McGraw-Hill.

Thussu, D K and Freedman D. War and the media London, Sage.

Newspaper articles

Last, Jonathan. Taste: War? What War? Wall Street Journal.

Kennedy, Randy. A screening with stars but a focus on Politics The New York Times.

Rosenberg, Howard. Hollywood’s effect on Muslim world attitudes Los Angeles Times.

Koch, Neal. A powerful time for political drama Financial Times (Creative business).

Websites

“Hollywood doesn’t go to war” Los Angeles, Associated press.

Department of Veterans affairs, Washington.

Hoberman, J “Burn, blast, bomb, cut” London, Sight and Sound.

Hollywood anti-war letter to president Bush.

Coman, J “Hollywood goes to war” Washington, Daily Telegraph.

Ross, M “Real potential” Variety.

Bowling for Columbine.

“Bremer predicts an increase in attacks in Iraq”, CNN.

The Fog of war.

1 The statistics about the World war II and the Vietnam war are from the Department of Veteran affairs, Office of Public Affairs, Washington

2 The numbers are from the website The numbers specialized in box office data

3 The information about the plot of the movies are assumed from different websites:
http://www.variety.com
http://www.imdb.com
http://www.movietome.com

Related:

• How the U.S. Media Promotes War as Entertainment
• What is the role of Public Diplomacy to U.S. Foreign Policy?

The 1920′s were a time when the level of discrimination against women was at a minimum. Many automobile companies, such as Cadillac and Chevrolet even mentioned women’s autonomy in their advertisements. According to Chevrolet, their product “has that elusive something that women of discrimination have been demanding for years.” In addition, the ad in general is aimed at women, as its main theme is “The most beautiful Chevrolet in history” and depicts a peacock with blue, green, white, and orange feathers. The words “beautiful Chevrolet in history” also happen to be overlapping the colorful feathers. Moreover, there are no men depicted in the ad. Instead, there are two women in the car. The secondary theme in the ad is “Quality at low cost”, as “Chevrolet discloses that individuality and perfection of silhouette that you would expect to find in the costliest of custom-built creations.” The automobile in the ad happens to look like a silhouette when compared to the bright white background, as the car is dark gray in color.

Compositionally, the advertisement is balanced, as most of the words are placed in two columns in the center with one image above and another one below. Though the car, on the bottom, is dark and fairly large, there is a sense of balance between the two images due to the texture in the peacock’s feathers. In addition, the heading of the ad is in large serif letters overlapping the feathers, some of which are italicized. There are four separate fonts of various sizes used in the heading alone, and two others are used throughout the ad.

After the depression of the 1930′s, the main focus of the 1940′s became appearance and also asked the question, “What car company has the best quality and gives it to you for the smallest price?” This is also when competition among carmakers began heating up and manufacturers began targeting different audiences. For example, Chevrolet would publish an ad that read, “You’ll look a long, long time without finding any real equal to this car at any price”, while De Soto would counter by saying, “Success proves De Soto the smartest buy” and “…De Soto’s the car for anybody’s money.” Most automobile manufacturers aimed their advertisements toward the average American family, who had managed to survive through the depression during the previous years. De Soto depicted a family of three sitting in a car as they drove to a fair. Moreover, the family is buying cotton candy, while an onlooker tells the driver, “You must be mighty proud of that De Soto.” These are strong visuals, as it shows that the average family can have an attractive car and still have enough money to go out together and have fun. The font is fairly plain, as the header is sans serif, and the rest of the ad is serif. The only script in the ad is the slogan, “America’s smartest low-priced car.”

On the other hand, Chevrolet depicts its cars as classy and elegant, yet extremely affordable. Their black and white ad shows that colors are not what make a car elegant; rather, it is the overall design. Moreover, an elegant young lady stands in the foreground, which tells the viewer that if the average female were to buy the car depicted, they too would feel elegant and a part of upper-class society. After all, the ad’s header reads, “Meet the beauty leader – Bar none” in script. All of the other “advantages” and features are written in two columns below the picture using serif font.

With the 1960′s came giant Cadillacs and Buicks. Cars seemed to be getting bigger with each one built. This presented a problem, however. Their large size contributed to low fuel mileage, and thus, people had to pay more for gas and general maintenance than they should have. This sparked an interest in small, affordable economy cars. Volkswagen led the way with its Beetle. Many thought it was strange and a “novelty” when it first came out, but in 1962, the company published a simple advertisement encouraging people to “think small.” The ad incorporates the corner view of a small, black off-centered VW Beetle with a white background. There is nothing more, except for three columns of small text using sans serif font at the bottom. This basic ad is aimed at those of any age who have previously poked fun at the car and for those who are used to driving large cars and paying more for gas and service. The car is depicted as being virtually worry-free, as those who buy it don’t have to think about it’s excellent gas mileage or using “5 pints of oil instead of 5 quarts.” The only time its owner has to think about the car is when they “want to trade in their old VW for a new one.” Another company that has followed suit is Ford and its 1969 Cortina. The ad sparks similar emotions to the Volkswagen ad in that it reminds the viewer to “think over” buying an economy car over a larger car. In addition, it is another fairly simple ad that shows a window sticker with a list of options, including a parcel shelf and front disc brakes, all of which have “no charge” written next to them. Unlike the Volkswagen ad, which was aimed at a wide audience, this ad is aimed at females who know enough not to pay for extra features that are included at no charge by the Ford Motor Company, as the woman slightly smiling on the right seems to allude. The main visual is not that bold, as it is just sans serif font on a window sticker.

The use of modern technology in building cars had become popular by the 1980′s. Carmakers such as General Motors and Nissan promoted their products by attempting to offer more “electronics packages” than other companies. Since manufacturers saw the success of economy cars during the 1960s and 1970s, they implemented the technology in most makes and models, not just expensive luxury cars.

In 1981, General Motors proclaimed that technology had arrived and that they were the future of the automobile industry by depicting their product going through a wind tunnel not once, but twice in order to achieve perfection. Moreover, the car appears to be a computer-generated image that is fresh off of the drawing board. The black and white visual, itself, is fairly weak, but for its time period, it delivers a strong message, in that aerodynamics and technology within the automobile industry were rather new. The message is also repeated in the description of the ad below the image. The left and right margins of the text are also on an angle, adding some interest to the ad. Because the technology was new, General Motors marketed this ad toward younger people who had a better understanding of aerodynamics and power features than those who were older did.

A 1984 advertisement for Nissan depicted their car as “a world class sedan that doesn’t cost the world,” meaning that people didn’t have to pay extra for the power options and the implementation of modern technology, such as a keyless entry system. Like General Motors, Nissan is aiming its ad toward a younger audience and states that the Maxima’s engine “generates more horsepower than BMW, Audi, or a Porche 944.” In addition, the “standard power windows, cruise control, and stereo with cassette” appeal to younger audiences. But most importantly though, they “add up to one of the world’s most sophisticated sedans at any price.”

The pictured sedan toward the top of the page is on a gridded plane, making the car appear to be fresh off the drawing board. The italicized sans serif text is the only element that depicts motion, and the image between the two columns of text on the bottom of the ad shows the inside of the car and how plush and roomy it is. Overall, the advertisement works in that the viewers get an idea of what they are missing if they don’t already own “the most sophisticated sedan” with the best “technology”, “quality”, and “service plan”.

In conclusion, since the automobile has increasingly become such a part of our everyday lives over the years, the depictions in the industry’s advertisements show more than a campaign or a message, they depict the society and the style of art of their respective time periods. The 1920s were a time when advertisements were starting to target women, since only men had previously owned vehicles. Advertisers also stressed the car’s beauty, which was also apparent in the 1940s, after the depression. Those who couldn’t afford to own vehicles in the 1930s now could, and many families began buying them for road trips or drives down to the local fairgrounds. However, in the 1960s, quality and cost became a bigger factor than the car’s appearance, and economy cars became popular. The advertisements became more simplistic, as did the cars they were depicting. Viewers were also encouraged to “think small,” and this appealed to younger audiences, since drivers became younger. But as the 1980s rolled around, technology began being implemented in the construction and mechanisms of the automobiles. Like the 1960s, manufacturers depicted their cars as having better quality and reliability, but at a lower cost than most luxury cars. Some were even depicted as having smarter technology than luxury cars.

Today, people know about the quality and reliability, as well as the technology of automobiles. Most ads depict people having fun with their vehicles, such as a SUV driving over the Rocky Mountains or a person getting everything they want, including a fun Toyota sports car. The campaigns, audiences, and messages behind the advertisements may have changed over time, but the ultimate message has not. And that is generally great value and reliability for a low cost.  However, it is apparent now more than ever, with corporations marketing to younger audiences who generally wouldn’t have as much money as a middle-aged family man in the 1940s or 1960s.

Related:

• The Emergence of Advertising in America 1850-1920
• The Emergence of Photojournalism and its Effect on Society
• Coca-Cola and Pepsi Cola: A Web Marketing Comparison

For one, human language differs because it has form and meaning, which means it has a structure which combines sounds, gestures, letters, and written words which when put together have a certain significance or meaning.  Secondly, human language differs because it is creative, meaning that we can (with language) produce (and understand) an infinite number of new sentences which have never before been spoken; we can lie and joke and even talk about things that don’t make any sense.  Thirdly, human language differs because it has displacement, which basically means that we as humans can talk about things in the past and future, and things that are either right in front of us or miles away.  While some animals, like bees, have shown signs of limited displacement, and while certain apes have been able to acquire a number of sign language messages, animal communication is restricted to very simple messages like “look out” or “danger!”  Animals cannot say “look out, I saw a snake in that tree yesterday” or make jokes, lie, and talk about the imaginary (which linguists refer to as the ability to use tropes).

Many researches have tried to teach primates language, and while some chimps and apes have been more successful than others in language acquisition, the end result has always shown that primates can only learn language to a certain extent, and usually only things related to stimulus-controlled phenomena like eating and drinking.  Language was only rarely spontaneous with these animals, they usually displayed redundancy and imitation, and no research shows them to have the same ability of language learning like a human child.  Gua was a chimp in the 1930s that was raised as a child along with the researcher’s own baby son.  Gua understood more words than the human boy at sixteen months, but never learned any more than that, while the boy of course did.  Among other things, primates have a different vocal apparatus than ours which prevents them from producing spoken language.  Research has simply shown that primates are not capable of learning human language.

Non-primates have shown an even lesser chance of acquiring human language.  Dolphins have shown the ability to understand and act on certain commands, but they have not displayed understanding for “novel utterances, metaphors, jokes, and lies.”  Not to mention the fact that producing spoken human language is simply impossible for these animals.

Like other animals, dolphins also have a limited number of messages which they produce amongst each other.  Dolphins, as well as apes and other animals have no way of communicating about the past, expressing their feelings, lying to each other, and among other things, talking smack about their enemies.  Human language, however, differs because it gives us the ability to do all of those things and more.

Related:

• Grave Violations of Human Rights
• The Shaping of Human Rights in the Twentieth Century
• Tao Te Ching: Taoism
• A Sinking Earth

Throughout the series, Sex and the City, many aspects of gender are explored; from the shows resistance of stereotypical gender norms to its hypocritical obliging demeanor to the same typecasts. Sex and the City audiences are exposed to the lives of each of the show’s four strong, independent, female characters. During each hour long episode audiences witness Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte, and Samantha’s struggles with the importance, desire, and influences of men, dating, and marriage (Sohn, 2002). And while they each are uniquely different, they all hold quite different perspectives and beliefs, and because so, act out on those values in varying manners. In doing so, audiences learn that each character, despite however large their attempts to resist it, all are inevitably affected by the pressures to become married. It is through these characters’ trials and tribulations in the department of love which then give birth to and sustain a witty storyline for each episode.

Yet in the writers’ attempts to create an entertaining and clever series, the show’s premise of displaying a close knit group of self reliant, dependent, and successful women as being able to maintain happiness despite their single hood, seems to become challenged. It is each of the characters’ routine dating habits and endless pursuits of future husbands that contradict this message. It is from these conflicting concepts that it is clearly visible that an underlying yearning for marriage lurks within the show’s plot and characters.

With the emergence of women’s independence in today’s society, shows like that of Sex and the City, should celebrate these feminine liberations without feeling the need to still be partially tied and bound to traditional gender stereotypes. If only the creators of “Sex and the City” were confident enough in their message of a woman’s happiness not being directly associated with her dating status, their beliefs, without any contradictions, would then be clearly evident in their show. And because so, in response, through an application of a critical feminist perspective, the incessant and applied need for women to obtain a sense of being whole, and thus complete, through the means of marriage throughout all six seasons of the HBO series Sex and the City, will be uncovered and explored.

Data

The careful study of episodes from all six seasons of Sex and the City will allow for further analysis of gender stereotypes within the show’s context. In addition to analytically studying DVD’s of each series, Ann Sohn’s composition of “Sex and the City” episode summaries, quotes, interviews and facts, titled Sex and the City: Kiss and Tell, will also play of key importance in divulging into the inner layers of the show. Both will then allow for each character and their perception of marriage to be looked at closely and critically. This examination will also take into consideration how each of the characters are affected and treated by others because of their dating status. As well as looking at the concerns of the four main characters, other influential and regular characters on the series will be observed to expose their stances on marriage and how they go about expressing them. And from this research I will prove that the show perpetuates traditional gender stereotypes despite their efforts to break free of them.

On the surface level of Sex and the City, audiences are persuaded in believing that just like the four female characters of the show, they too can embrace and enjoy single hood. “Many fans celebrate ‘Sex and the City’ for showing fully liberated women acting on their sexual desires without guilt or inhibition” (Hymowitz, 88). By displaying the show’s female characters as successful, happy, and confident on the outside, audiences are given the notion that being single is quite alright. By depicting the characters in such a way, the show allows for much of its female audience to feel connected because of their single status as well. Today the percentage of women not opting for marriage is on the rise. “More than 40% of all adults females (that’s 43 million women) are single, including 35% of females in the ‘marriageable’ age range of 25-55; this is up from the 1963 statistic of 17% of unwed mothers in the 25-55 age range” (Vause, 77). Sex and the City gained much popularity because it was directed to a population which is growing in size; single, independent women. A recent wide range study that followed 40,000 people born in 1946, 1958, and 1970 showed that the generation of women now in their thirties have higher incomes and a better education (Barlow, 2003). The show makes tremendous efforts to prove that singledom is something to be celebrated, not dreaded- a message cheered by unattached women closing in on middle age (Sotonoff, 2004). Despite their attempts to break away from the norm, the show projects the same debilitating gender stereotypes that have existed for many, many years.

Premiering six years ago, in June of 1998 on HBO, Sex and the City gained massive popularity by audiences worldwide because of its brave and bold attempts to tackle previously shunned taboo topics. Praised with numerous Golden Globe awards, a Golden Satellite award, a Grace Allen award, as well as a list of others, proves that Sex and the City has not only gained popularity but has been commended by critics and colleagues of all sorts (Sohn, 2002). The ingenious idea of Sex and the City was one that was formed within the mind of Darren Star, the creative mastermind behind Beverly Hills 90210 and Melrose Place. Star admired the way The Mary Tyler Moore Show and That Girl both told a story about a character (Sohn, 2002). He took that inspiration and ran with it. After recruiting Murphy Brown and Cybil writer, Michael Patrick King, as well as Cindy Chupack, and Seinfeld writer, Jenny Bicks, Star began to see his vision becoming clearer and clearer (Sohn, 2002). It is these four writers who have given birth to and sustained the comedic and outrageously quirky lives of all the characters who have graced the set of Sex and the City.

By using events in which the writers themselves have actually experienced, this writing dream team has been able to produce a show which has possessed the ability to touch the lives of its audience members because of its authenticity and replication of real life (Sohn, 2002). Michael Patrick King talks about the writing process stating that, “Everything you see pretty much comes from the emotional life of one of us. For a month, all we do is talk about our lives, and then we put it all on the writers’ board, and it forms the season” (Sohn, 34). Sarah Jessica Parker explains what sparked her interest in the show when she was approached by Darren Star with the script,

“Some of the original elements of the show that first attracted me were the fresh voice of a very specific single woman in a very specific city; the candid, forthright, and intimate relationships of four women; the uniqueness and importance of these friendships; the heartbreaks, hopes, loneliness, and triumphs of being single; and the way in which we illustrate our love for our home, New York City. We have tried to remain true to these elements while continuing to grow and challenge ourselves to reflect the passing years and the changes in our city” (Sohn, 7).

The show also tackles a broad range of feminist issues, including single motherhood, abortion, homosexuality, and the glass ceiling, making it a show that can relate to individuals of all sorts (Vause, 2003). And by doing so, the writers have been able to forge bonds between audience and characters. “The fashion, the girl-talk, and the love affairs were all over the top, but ‘Sex’ became an Emmy award-winning comedy and pop culture phenomenon because women could relate to the characters” (Sotonoff, 1). And it is the show’s focus of the dating antics of its four main characters: best friends Carrie, Charlotte, Miranda, and Samantha which create such a unity between characters and audience. Star seems to capture the essence of this bond in saying, “On Sex and the City, you’ve got a group of characters who live in a world that the audience participates vicariously. [...] People watch the show and think, yeah, that’s me. That’s my situation” (Sohn, 36). Not only have these situations caused for realizations to be generated within in audience members but the show’s staff as well. Sex and the City writer and co-executive producer, Cundy Chupack recalls,

“When I started the show, I was thirty-two and single and felt more of a stigma about being single because all my friends were starting to get married and have kids. But now I feel like these might be the best years of my life, or at least the funniest and most fabulous. When the Time magazine cover came out with our four girls on it, with the headline “Who Needs a Husband?” I remember thinking that the climate had changed for singles, partly because of the show” (Sohn, 38).

And it is the fact that each of the thirty something year old characters take pride in the fact that they are educated and successful, and most importantly have reached such status completely on their own ,allows for women all over to relate.

Carrie Bradshaw, played by Sarah Jessica Parker, is by far the character in which most women seem to immediately identify and relate to the most (Sohn, 2002). She is beautiful, trend setting, down to earth, and a beloved newspaper sex columnist. She is the woman everyone seems to want to be like and the one everyone wants to have as a friend. Witty, fun, lovable, Carrie seems to possess the qualities which every man desires in a woman (Sohn, 2002). In her heart she is a helpless romantic who wishes to find the right man, but at the same time Carrie struggles to maintain her independence (Sohn, 2002). In the first season of the show we see her want to be her own independent and strong woman, yet she helplessly falls for Mr. Big and gets herself get lost in the infatuation he encompasses her with. And upon finding a man whom makes her fall head over heels, something she has sought out for for years on end, and despite her preconceived notations of love, she finds herself miserably unhappy (Sohn, 2002). Again just a couple seasons later we see Carrie within another relationship, this time with a furniture designer by the name of Aidan Shaw. While he one of the most faithful, honest, and true men who has ever graced Carrie’s presence, despite his persona of perfection Carrie in the end breaks off their prolonged engagement (Sohn, 2002). Through her two most serious relationships as well as her seasonal flings and mindless one night stands, viewers see Carrie learning more and more about her own views of men, marriage, and love.

Of the four friends, Cynthia Nixon’s character, Miranda Hobbes is the glass-is-half-empty, men are the enemy, nothing-goes-right-for-me pessimist. She is bitter, angry, independent, and most importantly an extremely accomplished New York City lawyer (Sohn, 2002). She has gotten to where she is completely on her own and she wants everyone to be aware of that. She supports herself, bought her own Manhattan apartment, and takes care of herself just fine on her own. And though she goes on one date after another, she finds something to criticize about every man. Her mentality on the unfair perceptions of men and women that she is constantly being scrutinized by, can be best summarized in her quote, “A thirty-four-year-old guy with no money and no place to live, because he’s single, he’s a catch. But a thirty-four-year-old woman with a job and a great home, because she’s single, is considered tragic” (Sohn, 87). Why she continues to date despite her apparent agony is quite puzzling to most, making Miranda’s repeated dating habits extremely contradicting.

Charlotte York, played by Kristin Davis, is a natural beauty to his desperately in search of one thing, her soul mate (Sohn, 2002). She is a strong believer in love and cannot wait until she meets her future husband (Sohn, 2002). One of her longstanding rules is that “women really just want to be rescued” (Sohn, 45). This rule that Charlotte helplessly lives by can be classified as a mythic convention. And it is mythic patterns like such that marginalize and entrap women because they depict them as passive (Hart, 1997. An example of such passiveness and yearning for completion can be seen in that with every man Charlotte encounters she immediately envisions their future together to see if they could in fact be right for one another (Sohn, 2002). Charlotte is the hopeless romantic who tries to keep a happy face on at all times. She is giddy, traditional, and always attempting to find the positive attributes in every man. She encourages dating and the belief of love in her three best friends’ lives because she wants marriage to grace their lives just as much as she wishes it would grace her own (Sohn, 2002).

Samantha is the say anything, do anything, sexually charged, promiscuous girl in the group. She defines herself as the woman who can have sex like a man, which as she sees it, is plainly without feeling (Sohn, 2002). Just as the stereotypical male, she has no desire for marriage, love, or even the title of a girlfriend, and at all costs she tries her hardest to stay farthest away from all three (Sohn, 2002). According to Samantha, “Marriage doesn’t guarantee a happy ending. Just an ending” (Sohn, 2002). She chooses to merely engage in sex with any and often times every man, for solely the sake of a good time with no pursuits of any furthering their brief encounter. Her distaste of relationships can be seen in a conversation with her lesbian lover Maria. As they took a bath together, Maria questioned, “Is this a relationship?” And with no hesitation, Samantha sarcastically remarked, “Well, it’s tedious and the sex is dwindling, so from what I’ve heard, yes” (Sohn, 2002). Another instance which shows Samantha’s hostility towards commitment comes from a scene where Carrie is complaining about her boyfriend, Aidan. Carrie tells Samantha that hers and Aidan’s night went as follows, “He fell asleep, and I watched gay porn.” With a smirk on her face Samantha snaps back, “That’s what happens when people say ‘I love you’” (Sohn, 2002). These negative views of relationships that Samantha seems to believe so strongly in, may in fact stem from the one and only previous relationship she engaged in years earlier, one which she was left devastatingly hurt in the end (Sohn, 2002). Yet, as much as Samantha blocks a wall around her heart, within the show’s course of six seasons Samantha unexpectedly find her self falling in love on two separate occasions.

It is these four women’s views on love and their individual experiences with men, dating, and marriage which share one commonality, the way in which gender stereotypes are so typically perpetuated within the show. It seems as if Sex and the City is set out to portray all of the four characters as completely on their own, living successful lives without the influence of a man in any of their lives. Yet, by taking a closer look and exploring the show with a critical feminist perspective, an underlying message of gender stereotypes can surprisingly be found lying beneath the show’s surface.

Feminist Criticism

When taking on the perspective of a feminist critic, the rhetor is attempting to uncover a trend of domination which takes place involving some form of identity within an artifact, in this particular case, gender. “Feminist criticism is the analysis of rhetoric to discover how the rhetorical construction of gender is used as a means for domination and how that process can be challenged so all people understand that they have the capacity to claim agency and act in the world as they choose” (Foss, 157). The main focus of feminist critics is “on the rhetorical process by which these qualities come to seem unnatural and ways in which that naturalness can be called into question” (Foss, 157).

A critical feminist critic is concerned with uncovering what a particular artifact portrays as the standard and appropriate behavior for both women and men. In doing so feminist critics “do not introduce politics into a text but expose the politics already there” (Hart, 287). Within Sex and the City one can look at and dissect the role of men being the sole beings who hold the key to achieving a sense of completion and happiness in a woman’s life. The women in the series are seen as not being entirely “whole” when they are hampered with the status of “single.” The characters’ desire to find a soul mate perpetuates the American idea of marriage equaling a sense of happiness for women while being a burden upon the lives of men. While the women of the show persistently date, the men that they encounter oftentimes are frightened by the thought of marriage and instead idolize the bachelor lifestyle. “You may discover that women are portrayed in an artifact in ways that accord with particular forms of male interest–they are depicted, for example, as sexual objects for men” (Foss, 158). Indeed this stereotype of women being at the disposal of men can be seen and further analyzed within the show, since it is mainly the women that are seeking out companions.

Another aspect of the feminist perspective is that there is a gendered, subject position offered to the audience. While in most artifacts the audience is asked to relate to a masculine position, Sex and the City instead takes on a feminine viewpoint through its main characters’ narratives. While the way in which the audience views the show comes from the eyes of four women, masculine influences still come into play. In a way men seem to run the lives of the female characters. Their moods, emotions, and course of events throughout each day are often altered in part because of a man. Whether they are fighting with their mate, on the lookout for a new, potential date, or are attempting to make time for a man within their hectic schedules, the women’s days are constructed and altered in some shape or form around a man.

Analysis

Three continuous main themes are evident within the series, Sex and the City. It is these themes that will be used as the units of analysis to reveal the gender stereotypes that present themselves within the show. Throughout the series each of the four main characters as well as several of their other friends and acquaintances share one commonality; they each are in search of a man and ultimately marriage. “The ‘Sex and the City’ girls had ambivalent feelings toward marriage, on one hand avoiding all of its trappings but yet always viewing it as the ultimate goal” (Sotonoff, 1). This search signifies that they lack feeling confident with themselves and their single status and because so, need a man. Also, marriage in itself is often glorified by the female characters and is seen as something that will enable them to reach a sense of completion and wholeness. While the women of the show hold marriage as a much desirable state, the male characters are portrayed as both fearful and reluctant to get married. Because there is such a reinforcement of these ideas, they seem to prove that they are not only important grounds to which the show is based on, but ideal issues that will enable one to better analyze the show.

While Sex and the City revolves around four strong, successful women, their pride of being independent is questioned by audiences because of their routine dating habits. In each episode audiences are exposed to each of the character’s revolving door of dates, it then proposes the question, “Are these women really content with themselves?”

In season two, episode four ever so properly named, “They Shoot Single People, Don’t They?” we see Carrie being offered to appear on the cover of New York Magazine. After sleeping through her call time, she arrives at the shoot looking hung over, tired, and completely worn from the late night she had just endured. She dismisses her appearance in thoughts that her hair and make up would instead be done for her by the magazines team of experts. Instead upon entering the shoot, cigarette still in hand, she is thrown in front of the camera only to have some of her worst photographs taken. Thinking that the issue was going to be dedicated to being fabulous and single, when her cover premiers she finds herself looking washed out and ragged with the bold lettering, Single and Fabulous? printed beneath her. That one piece of punctuation allowed for much talk amongst all four of the characters. They were then thrown the idea that is being single all that great. The way in which Carrie was depicted as unattractive and terribly unkempt seemed to mock one’s status of being single. Purposefully photographing her in such a way allowed for other single readers of the magazine to question their own identity and self worth. What many may have overlooked was that if she was not in fact single would she look any better and why? How indeed could a man have vamped up her appearance? Would she then have someone to impress instead of letting herself go because she has given up on the search for a man? That simple question mark which replaced the directness of a period allowed for many to review their own selves and dating lives. And it is this questioning of how wonderful single hood can be that is presented in many ways throughout the show. While this particular episode approached it in a very direct manner with its focus on the question mark, others tip toe around it allowing it to covertly be present through the storylines.

Another instance in which the single status is portrayed negatively comes from a conversation that the four girls are having within season one, episode three, “Bay of Married Pigs.” Charlotte, the desperate romantic, finds herself hating the stigma that being status brings to her and brings up the issue while they all enjoy breakfast at their local coffee shop.

• Charlotte: “I hate it when you’re the only single person at a dinner party and they all look at you like you’re a-”
• Carrie: “Loser?”
• Miranda: “Leper.”
• Samantha: “Whore” (Sohn, 2002).

Not only does this conversation revolve around the way in which those that are married view singles, but the punctuation in the conversation is quite interesting as well. The way in which Carrie offers her response in the form of a question may signify that she is in somewhat of a denial that being single is all that bad, while both Miranda and Samantha, as indicated in their use of periods, use affirmative statements demonstrating that they have already come to their conclusions and firmly stand on the grounds which they believe.

Another example of questioning one’s single status and searching for acceptance comes from one of Carrie’s many quandaries. In one episode as Carrie sits in front of her laptop searching for words to write in her next column, her thoughts are narrated in the form of a voiceover, and she ponders,

“What if Prince Charming had never shown up? Would Snow White have slept in the glass coffin forever? Or would she have eventually woken up, spit out the apple, gotten a job, a health-care package, and a baby from her local neighborhood sperm bank? I couldn’t help but wonder: inside every confident, driven single woman, is there a delicate, fragile princess just waiting to be saved” (Sohn, 2002).

Carrie’s thoughts bring up many ideas. Carrie touches upon the fact that the women of today are in fact successful and achieving what many women never fathomed that they could, but despite all their accomplishments are they truly happy? It seems that Carrie brings up the question of would all these successful and single women trade in their achievements for love? Deep down within each of these self motivated and talented women is there a yearning for a man? While these women are proving what was once thought of as unimaginable, are they really feeling a lack of complete self because of the absence of a man in their lives? Carrie’s thoughts provoke the idea Sleeping Beauty lived out what every woman dreams of and if that had never happened would she instead have to in a way settle for the next best thing-getting it all done on her own? And if so, is being single and accomplished just “the next best thing?”

This same idea of women wanting to escape their single hood also brings about the issue that marriage ensures women a sense of wholeness. This can be witnessed in season four, episode three, “Attack of the Five-Foot-Ten-Inch Woman.” As the girl’s sit and have coffee they converse in how depressing marriage is for them it breaks into,

Carrie’s voiceover: “There are very few things that this New Yorker loves more than Sunday brunch. You can sleep until noon and still get eggs anywhere in the city. Alcohol is often included in the meal. And Sunday is the one day in the week when you get the single woman’s sports pages, “The New York Times Wedding Section.” As Charlotte sits reading the paper she blurts out in disbelief and disgust, “This is so depressing the oldest woman on this page is 27!” As the group of girls discuss how depressed that little marriage factoid has made them, Charlotte continues reading, “Until recently the bride, 24, worked as an account supervisor at Ogglebee and Nader. Twenty four!!!” Sarcastically the four women discuss how they love it that so many of the wedding announcements make use of the phrase, “Until recently the bride…” Carrie offers her own insight saying, “Meaning she quit her job once she found her soul mate slash investment banker.” Miranda bitterly states her interpretation, “It’s so retro. Okay I have a big rock on my finger now I can stop pretending I care about my career.” And after much laughter from all four women, Samantha jokes, “Until recently the bride had a life of her own” (Sohn, 2002).

What the audience witnesses is the fact that once a woman marries she then loses her identity in her husband. It is as if once a woman marries her independent lifestyle must be bid adieu. This just proves that the traditional views of men as the sole breadwinner in a household are still alive in the minds of many. Another example of this can be seen in season four, episode seven, “Time and Punishment.” As the girls sit around their favorite coffee shop having brunch Charlotte interrupts Carrie asking if she can change the subject. She then proceeds to announce that she is thinking about quitting her job at the art gallery. Shocked by her contemplating leaving her much loved job, the women question her as to why. Fumbling for an excuse Charlotte says, “I’ve been driving myself crazy lately just trying to get everything done, and Trey suggested…” Disgusted by the words that seemed to escape Charlotte’s mouth, Miranda slyly questions her saying, “Trey suggested?” And becoming more nervous as to her friend’s reactions Charlotte attempts to justify her choice saying, “Well, he mentioned maybe I might quit. And really I have been driving myself crazy and for what? The gallery? What has the gallery ever done for me?” Carrie reminds her that she should stay because she truly loves her job. Still trying to make up excuses Charlotte rambles on, “Well, soon I’ll be pregnant and that’ll be huge, plus I’m redecorating the apartment and I always wanted to take one of those Indian cooking classes, and sometimes I’ll walk by those Color Me Mine pottery places and I’ll see a woman having just a lovely afternoon glazing a bowl” (Sohn, 2002).

Here audiences see Charlotte turning into one of the women that Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and herself all have hated. Charlotte was now reconsidering leaving her once beloved job because it had been suggested to her by her husband Trey. Another interesting element to Charlotte’s ordeal is the reasons in which she justifies leaving her job. All of the ways in which she attempts to rationalize her decision seem to fall into the traditional views of females. She first uses the excuse that she will soon be pregnant. By saying so she dismisses the notion that in America today women still work both while pregnant and after giving birth. Her second justification is that she is currently redecorating their apartment, another job that is typically assigned to women. Charlotte then goes on to say she has always wanted to learn how to cook Indian food. Cooking is almost often associated with women as well. All the reasons Charlotte had listed fit into the stereotypical female role. She was leaving her successful position as an art gallery director, something which screamed self earned independence a quality often associated with males, to instead be casted into the predictable house wife role. It is as if Charlotte’s hard work, dedication, and passion for the gallery no longer mattered once she married Trey. This particular situation can be seen as a perfect example of a mythic convention. Because so, this episode of Sex and the City can be considered as entrapping for women, just as fairy tales and romance novels are (Hart, 1997). It can be labeled a mythic convention because it, along with fairy tales and romance novels, “‘Do nothing to challenge [women's] separation from one another brought about by the patriarchal culture’s insistence that they never work in the public world to maintain themselves as the property and responsibility of men’”(Hart, 289). And it seems as if Charlotte, and most of the other women portrayed in the show, work extremely hard to get where they are, with their only motivation being that they know getting there is the next best thing to marriage. And as unfortunate as it is, once they achieve what they had always really wanted, marriage, they quickly forget what they had strived so hard for.

While the majority of the women in the show dream of finding their soul mate, the men depicted within the show seem to feel just the opposite. It seems that the male characters are fearful of love, commitment, and marriage. In the “Evolution,” the eleventh episode of the second season, as Carrie begins dating Big again, she wishes that he would want to “let her in.” In Carrie’s terms, she wanted to be able to keep some feminine items, like a blow dryer and face wash, at Big’s to not only make things more convenient in the morning, but to also make her mark and know that she is reaching a new level with him and their relationship. Upon her attempt to leave a handful of personal items behind at his apartment, Big instead returns to pick her up for a date with a bag of goodies in hand. The goodies were the items she had left. After doing so, Carrie contemplates, “What is it about Big’s apartment? Nothing ever sticks. It’s like Teflon for women” (Sohn, 2002). By Big rejecting the idea of Carrie’s stuff being left at his apartment he is in a way rejecting the seriousness of the relationship. Carrie’s items are an extension of herself, and because so he is rejecting her and her hopes of a closer and more intimate relationship.

Big’s rejection of seriousness also can be seen in his avoidance of returning Carrie’s “I love you.” After constant fretting and days of losing herself in utter confusion as to why Big will not say it back to her, Carrie receives a phone call early one morning. On the other line was Big. Without even a simple “Hello,” Big spouted out to Carrie, “Listen. I know what you are really pissed off about. But it’s just something I’ve gotta do in my own time! Okay? Well, I fucking love you! All right? You know I do….But it’s just a tough thing for me to say, because it always seems to get me in trouble…when I say it. Okay?” And with a smile that emitted a sense of relief, Carrie replied with a simple, “Okay” (Sohn, 52).

This can also be seen with all of the men that each of the four women date casually. Most seem to want nothing more than sex, a characteristic associated primarily with men. For example in season one, episode three, “The Monogamists,” Charlotte is told that her current boyfriend can no longer go on dating her if she continues to refuse performing oral sex on him (Sohn, 2002). In “Valley of the 20-Something Guys,” the fourth episode of the same season, Charlotte is broken up with because she would not engage in anal sex because she feared doing so would label her as “Mrs. Up the Butt” (Sohn, 2002). In episode five of the same season, “the Power of Female Sex,” Carrie dates a French architect who ends up leaving her three thousand dollars after having sex with her. In all of the instances the men were only dating the women for the purposes of sex and only sex (Sohn, 2002). This seems to be a continuous theme that runs solidly through most of the male characters that are introduced into the show. These men represent the stereotypical male persona as being sexual, and often times aggressive when it comes to their acts of sex.

Conclusion

For a show whose four main characters are successful, professional females who all have thriving and flourishing lives which have been constructed on their own, such prideful personas are continually contradicted throughout the whole show. This then makes for a quite controversial questioning of the writer’s intents. While the characters on the outside project independence and a hope for women to receive full equality in the future, the actions that these characters partake in take away from this liberating statement. Through their endless pursuits of a husband, dating routines, and men acting as their mood elevators, the four female characters on this show are allowing for the men in their lives to hold a substantial amount of power over themselves. And because in all of the episodes of Sex and the City traditional gender views are depicted within each of the characters, audiences must decide for themselves whether or not these women are in fact content with being single. It is these women and their undying yearning for a husband to complete them, despite their own self acquired successes, which seem to signify the most conventional of gender stereotypes.

After looking closely at the perspectives of marriage which are perpetuated throughout Sex and the City I conclude that despite the show’s portrayal of the advancement in women’s independence, gender stereotypes still seem to lurk within the plot and the characters. It is quite discouraging that a show, whose foremost intent was to display four successful, single women, still has to resort back to the notion that men have superiority in this world. In doing so, the show continues to reinforce the disgrace that no matter what lengths women begin to reach on their own, they will always be burdened with the stigma of traditional feminine stereotypes, more specifically that a man completes a woman. And because so, marriage continues to hold a rein over the lives and emotions of women, leaving them feeling inadequate and unfulfilled when single. Instead of being content with the accomplishments and achievements that they have earned, women today are still not granting themselves full recognition of their triumphs because they simply lack a husband. Until women can learn to first love themselves, they will not be able to feel fulfilled simply by being loved by someone else.

Through this careful examination of Sex and the City, it can be seen that the world is still far from reaching equality between the sexes. If shows which try and highlight the wonders and joys of singledom amongst modern women, still fall victim to gender stereotypes, then it can be seen that there is still quite a long way down that road to equality that still needs to be traveled. Because of this tragedy, other forms of media, whether it be television series, movies, or song lyrics, must take note that there needs to be an emergence of independent and strong women in order to break away from these gender stereotypes which are putting a strain on women of all ages in our society. Women need to be granted respect, power, and authority in our various forms of communication and media without feeling ashamed in doing so. And as these great women emerge they need to be embraced by society with open arms, instead of being shunned for their initiative and bravery.

References

Barlow, Y. (2003, May 12). Happy single or singularly unhappy? Women’s Feature Service.

Foss, F. K. (2004). Rhetorical criticism. Long Grove, Il: Waveland Press, Inc.

Hart, R. P. (1997). Modern rhetorical criticism. Needham Heights, MA: Simon & Schuster Co.

Hymowitz, K. S. Urbanities: Scoring on sex and the city, City Journal, 13, 84-93.

Sohn, A. (2002). Sex and the city: Kiss and tell. New York, NY: Pocket Books.

Sotonoff, J. (2004, February 19). Say goodbye to ‘sex.’ Chicago Daily Herald, pp.1.

Vause, M. (2003). More than just sex in a city. Iris, 47, 76-80.

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• Gender Roles in Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
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• Much Ado About Nothing: The Meaning of True Love and Romantic Couples
• Marriage Equality in America