LOVE IT

Sex and the City" is plagued by mind-boggling misconceptions. I suppose the name has something to do with it: It's got to be all about dirty, raucous sex, right? Wrong. In fact, if you equate "Sex and the City" with mindless TV for overexcited young women, you probably hate the show because you haven't actually seen it.

But if you have seen it and hate it, then we have to deal with a more complicated matter. I'm not saying that all "Sex and the City" haters are elitist, but many of them probably consider the show the opposite of high art. Whether or not you want to believe it, "Sex and the City" is not for the weak-minded. Even if the entire premise of the show does not interest you, the writing is intelligent and intricate. From the clever cultural allusions to the play-on-words, the show's often hilarious and moving script is something not even the most literary person could scoff at.

Then there are the characters. The truth is that few other shows produce such powerful feelings about a single character. I have watched the show with a room full of people spitting venom every moment Big was on the screen, swooning when Aidan appeared and feeling Carrie's post-Berger pain as if it were their own. You either feel a strong negative or positive emotional connection to characters, which is a phenomenon that is a testament to the fine storytelling of "Sex and the City."

In the end, there are also beautiful-albeit occasionally naive-messages to pull from the show. And while "Sex and the City" is certainly not a guide to life, it does provide you with the comfort that a few fictional men and women in New York City can relate to your joys and sorrow. That alone is an admirable accomplishment for a TV show.

-Rajesh Srinivasan

HATE IT

Let me be honest: "Sex and the City" is not the issue here. By the time it was sanitized for TBS, the show was watched primarily by bored teenagers. And now those teenagers are old enough to drink Cosmopolitans, experience real sex in an actual city and blow cash on whatever they want, so the powers that be have released a movie. Because even if the rest of us don't buy it anymore, it's safe to say bored teenagers always will.

The problem is that people are trying to make the show "important." The only way to make a frivolous hour about four single girls anything besides a guilty pleasure is to say that it somehow liberates the characters and their audience. But I, for one, don't buy the argument behind the "Sex"-ual Revolution.

I mean, what, exactly, did it revolutionize? Had women not fought more difficult fights by 1998? A lot of people point to the freedom with which the characters discuss their intimate lives. But wasn't it already okay to talk about sex with your girlfriends, America? Or was the pre-"Sex" Macy's lingerie department filled with endless shame and hours of awkward silence?

I'm not saying that a television program has the obligation to enlighten its public, but "Sex" doesn't even try. The show didn't break stereotypes. It didn't even make new ones. It just cemented old ones more firmly into place. The wanton, the mother, the innocent, the lonely working girl-none of them were anything but what they seemed to be, and none of them wanted anything besides Manolos, manicures and male validation.

And that's fine for an hour of cable TV, but it's not enough for a revolution. And given the recent reviews, it doesn't look like it's enough for a movie, either.

Melissa Fall

Tags: THUMB WARS