Friday, May 30, 2008

'Family' affair

I am currently working on an op-ed related to the release of "Sex and the City" film, and it strikes me how much the movie's namesake TV series echoes the programming Ray Bradbury depicted in Fahrenheit 451.

The "Sex and the City" series was never so much about relationships or even sex per se. One could tune in at any time and "get" the show without knowing exactly what was supposed to be going on. It was all about an atmosphere—a vague concept of glamorous, catty women awash in designer labels and attractive suitors.

A viewer's experience of the show boils down to the same one Mildred, wife of the fireman Montag in Bradbury's novel, had with the "family" she knew only through TV: "They tell me things. I laugh, they laugh! And the colors!"