The roadtrip movie Easy Rider defined the sub-culture generation for America.
When I was a teen I was DYING to see Easy Rider. But I was too young to get in without a parent. “No problem.” said Pam, an older high school friend. She was one grade ahead of me in school, but in terms of life experiences (of the boy-girl kind), light years. She got us in to the Brookhurst Theater in Anaheim. I LOVED the movie. Anything that promotes personal freedom in an anti-conformity gets my vote.
I may not have been cool, but I could recognize cool. And how cool were Dennis Hopper, Peter Fonda, and Jack Nicholson? I thought about this movie when I heard of Dennis Hopper’s passing this weekend. He had an amazing career/life. He was fiercely independent, rebellious, artistic, creative, and even wacky at times. That kind of person gets my vote, too.
Sex And The City 2, a road trip movie, presents a feminist view of the Muslim women's dress code.
This weekend I was also thinking about the movie sequel Sex and the City 2. This is a road trip movie, too, as the four friends take a vacation in Abu Dhabi. Whereas Easy Rider flipped the bird to “the establishment” in general as they roared around America, SATC2tackles the treatment of Arab women in their society.
I disagree with all the brouhaha that this movie denigrates the Muslim religion. IMHO, this movie doesn’t comment on the who/when/what/where/and how of the religion. It comments on the “rules” that accompany the Muslim belief.
These rules are anti-women. These rules seek to diminish the value of women. This is accomplished by taking away their face, body, and voices by the RIDICULOUS outfits they make women wear. (I’m not even going to bother to look up the names and variations of the burqa look because I think they’re ALL STUPID.)
SATC2 comments on the required wearing apparel of Muslim women in three main scenes:
1. The restaurant/French-fry eating scene.
2. The swimming pool scene.
3. The nightclub scene.
I commented on the first two in my previous blog about this movie (May 28, 2010). The nightclub scene in Abu Dhabi was accurate—at least according to a journalist’s report I heard on NPR. There are “loopholes” (as Miranda called them) in the Arab world where the women can show more skin in the nightclubs. (And Carrie adds a snide comment about the hypocrisy.)
To me the point of the Muslim dress code is to control women, subjugate them, turn them invisible. I rail against this concept.
I saw SATC2 on Thursday and again on Sunday. I enjoyed the movie just as much the second time. I brought my husband the second time to get his perspective. We first stopped at restaurant bar (Café Mare in Santa Cruz—great place) so he could have a couple Stellas. He would rather have stayed home and watched The Shawshank Redemption for the 587th time. But he said it was good, (laughed many times) and REALLY liked the braless nanny scenes.
Again, I don’t get the scathing critical reviews. I can’t remember if the critics also savaged Easy Rider. Maybe they were both “too radical” for mainstream media? Maybe friendship and a crazy road trip is not thematically worthy enough for a feature film?
It is in my book. I hope the box office is big enough this time for Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte, and Samantha so I can see them again in Sex and the City Movie – Part 3.
Usually I do not post on blogs, but I would like to say that this article forced me to do so! Thanks, really nice article.