The XX Factor: Slate women blog about politics, etc...

Which City Is That Again?

Oh gosh. Can I hide in a closet for the next two weeks, until, like a bad skin peel, this movie flakes off and goes away? For the first five or six or 20 seasons that it was on, I avoided the show, out of principal. What principal, I'm not sure—just the commercials about it on HBO made me twitchy with disdain. Then I realized that it was hardly fair to judge a show without ever having actually watched it. So I did, catching maybe six or eight episodes in a row. It was, I admit, oddly addictive. Still, I stopped when I realized I was missing half the scenes because my eyes were rolling so hard in my head. Also, I got a headache. I disliked much about the show, including the blatant, smug narcissism of all the characters. (The last show I watched was the one in which none of them even knew where they were supposed to vote, because they never bothered. After that, I was done.)  I realize that was the point, in part; I just didn't like it. But my major problem was the total and complete absence of black, Latino, Asian, Middle Eastern, etc. etc. etc., people in that fairy-tale New York. Not just in starring roles— because, let's face it, most people in America, even in urban areas, lead fairly segregated lives—but even in background scenes! Except, of course, for Blair Underwood, Hollywood's designated black man. It was as if a plague had descended on the NYC that I know and love, wiping out only the dark-skinned and unfabulous. Someone must have painted the blood of a lamb over Underwood's door so that he alone was spared. 

I preferred Girlfriends. Equally ridiculous in many ways, but five times funnier.