Cross-posted from www.GirlHeadQuarters.org, the blueprint project of me, Liz Funk, a 2006 fellow. Lisa Marie Basile is a Girl HeadQuarter’s guest blogger. She’s an editor of the Five Wire blog and the editor-in-chief of Pace University’s student newspaper the Pace Press. While I personally am obsessed with Sex and the City and Sarah Jessica Parker, i think that Lisa brings up some endlessly important points.

After some thinking, I’ve deduced that the Sex and the City movie was fun. It was cute. It was a good example of product placement and a brilliant franchise. But it was an ideological disappointment.

I don’t call myself a feminist, though I do share most feminist ideals. I like to call myself a Humanist. People say it’s semantics, or a “fear of being female,” but my values are my values. So, I’m not looking at SATC from a “feminist” or “non-feminist” point of view.

Fact: I kind of really like sitting down and having the obligatory SATC evening. While I entertain the notion that SATC is an apparition of the real New York City — from its clear disregard for the subway system (!), its use of rampant sex as a means of self-fulfillment and the personally confusing tidbit that Bradshaw’s column somehow affords her a NYC lifestyle complete with Manolo Blahniks (and yes, I know she has rent control) — I do love watching four friends get dumped and fall in love and have books published. As a New Yorker, I enjoy watching restaurants, bars, neighborhoods and parks that I often visit.

Fact: Breaking up is hard, and I’m the first to understand that. And falling in love is addictive and toxic and romantic and fun, and I can empathize with all the women: Miranda and her excessively dirty-talking lover, Charlotte’s naive desire to fall in love “correctly,” Samantha’s wild and detached ways and most of all, Carrie’s heartbreak over Berger, the ball-less writer, whose incessant self-doubt and depression had him end things via a Post-it note despite the fact that she genuinely cared for him.

Some of these stories are realities. Some of this stuff happens right here, on the streets of New York City. Sometimes. But sometimes enough is enough.

What about — and this just warrants a brief mention — lesbians? Sure, there are plenty of stereotypical Stanfords to help praise Carrie’s love for shoes and overly-priced brunches, but the only real mention of lesbian culture was present in the episode in which Charlotte made friends with a group of them. And she decided to change herself and act unnecessarily squeamish.

And don’t call me a prude, but what about STDs? I can certainly speak on the behalf of many females my age in regards to having had a certain amount of fun, but the only mention of STDs really came when Samantha had her first AIDS test. And fainted. Safe sex doesn’t get much SATC promotion, and in New York City, where the statistics show ONE IN FOUR have red bumps of some sort, you’d think Carrie wouldn’t just sleep with 20-somethings and then Big and then nicknamed-men in between.

I sincerely believe SATC’s major downfall comes in the form of how the writers portray heartbreak and romance. Most of the time, the four women are trying lovers on, working through relationships or living single, but the underlying message seems to scream: We Need To Be In Love. We Need A Husband! It’s real cute and all that each episode ends on some clever, ideological one-liner, but SATC is just a glitzy, pink masquerade regurgitating social “norms” that make society sick with desperation and age/fashion/sex/ obsession.

So while Charlotte is certainly the Connecticut-born poster-child for a linear life of love, marriage and children, the other women bank on what men can give them, too. Their sanity, their shopping sprees, their gossip fodder and constant reason for having a “girls night in” or a “girls night out” is directly associated with a break-up, a break-down or a romantic mishap of some sort. I can assume it’s very difficult to be a single 30 or 40-something, but if SATC is so bent on proving that those same modern-day 30 and 40-year-olds are the new 20-somethings, than it’s also alright to assume the acceptability of being a single women at that age.

This is not a good message to send to females. While, yes, it’s human nature to want to be affectionate and receive affection, a romantic folly or lack thereof does not define who we are. It’s easy to get roped in, to become obsessively infatuated, to think your world is over when a relationship ends, and it’s just as easy to not question why this behavior is allowed to bombard our TVs and silver screens. I may be no one to judge, but I’d say Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte could have used Melody Beady’s “Co-Dependent No More” at some point in their lives.

There’s a reason Miranda scolded her pouting friends during a diner run, asserting something to the likes of, “All we ever talk about is men! What about us? What about our needs?” Of course, because America needs someone’s desperation to numb their own voids, Miranda takes it back after hiding from an Ex on the street. Way to go.

This dependency is the fuel on which the movie runs. Charlotte is obsessed with having her own baby. So obsessive, in fact, that the story line is marred by her constant whining. But again, that’s Charlotte for you - fulfilling the only real “role” of the female. And there is Miranda, who is shunned for allowing her pubic hair to grow in, and Carrie, who somewhat honestly portrays an aching depression over her marriage failed before it ever took place. She is seen sleeping, wallowing, and remaining silent. This, to a degree, offers some sense of reality. But the movie takes a jagged turn when she hires a personal assistant (because as a novelist she’s far too busy to check her own email) and she randomly dyes her hair and whines some more over Big. And because the writers couldn’t leave all single women pining for someone to associate with, the writers chose to have Samantha represent the single girl. Funny that the notoriously promiscuous one (by societal standards) should decide to find herself. As if it’s only okay to be single if you plan of having tons of random sex with random people. And if you’re boyfriend sucks. There just has to be an explanation for this madness!

It doesn’t matter. Carrie runs right back to Big during a whimsical, unrealistic ending. Big proposes again. She says yes and doesn’t think twice. By this time, you can almost hear Michael Patrick King say, Just give the viewers what they want. Carrie’s lack of self-respect is mixed with one major dependency on a male figure–and the need for closet space, and more purses and shoes. It’s a giant Cosmopolitan that gets you drunk on the idea that maybe New York City is one big, pulsing co-dependent mess. As for the cherry on top: most people want to live this life, be these women and follow their rules. I am no guru, but experience has finally taught me one real rule about love: it helps when you feel it for yourself first.

Update: This post is penned by Lisa Marie Basile, a GirlHeadQuarters.org guest blogger