Suddenly I wonder about how much fun it could be to have a crossover event of some sort here (elves in fancy dress..?).

I don’t know, Jacob seems to contradict himself: “Though I suppose if your geek interest is a television show that is all about social/financial aspiration and being cool and loved, you’re not going to run out after watching and join your brother geeks in a pride march.”

Social aspiration! Aren’t geeks supposed to eschew social aspiration?

Oooo, want to hear my crazy crackpot connectionist theory? European luxury clothing and accessories have been riding high for years, but largely on a handful of markets (Japan for LV, US for men’s watches, etc) which now show signs of saturation. This is a fact. The crazy starts when I tell you that the SITC film only exists now to increase a particular kind of aspirational spending among middle-class white ladies, that eat yogurt and then dance and talk to their friends about yogurt. That this is the quickest, easiest way to increase market size for designer goods, and it was done. And I’m not saying it was the Freemasons behind it all, but I’m saying that it *could* have been the Freemasons.

Change the bit about “husband and family” to “an joyless self fullfillment” and I think this is very much a description of the show. Yes, these women are independent and sexual and so on, but a marked improvement on images of women on popular television they are not.

Talk about SITC fans not being geeks makes me sad. Exceptional deep, semi-social activity around narrow media interests? This is geekdom, and any claim otherwise sounds pretentious and needy in all the wrong ways. Though I suppose if your geek interest is a television show that is all about social/financial aspiration and being cool and loved, you’re not going to run out after watching and join your brother geeks in a pride march.

I do think Church has a fair point w/r/t context. And SITC is years old now, and those that remain are the most hardcore of viewers. A few years off the air (and journalistic desire for novelty in social culture writing) has been an effective filter for showing us nothing but the geekiest of all SITC fans.

BTW, if there’s money in it for me to benefit from the fickle tastes of LARPers, I will be the first one to provide Louis Vuitton swords on loan. I may not like LARPing, but I will happily exploit it for cash.

Completely off-topic, but I was surprised to hear Henry Jenkins on NPR’s In Character discussing the fandom of Mr. Spock.

I feel like the geek paradigm is a real money maker for media companies (ie, if you cultivate a serious fan) and its in their best interest to encourage people to act like geeks when it comes to spending money on their products.

(Which also explains last season’s serious geek courting via shows like Chuck, Bionic Women, Big Bang Theory, etc.)

Anyhow, that was my main point, I think. Maybe.

First, I’ve been exposed to SATC marketing that encouraged women to dress up for their trip to the theater in all their Sex in the City best. Indeed, several radio stations were sponsering “go have your own SATC experience in NYC promotions”.

Second, I think that the idea that dressing up for an event (be it an anime convention, San Deigo Comic Con or the Star Wars Movies) is something that has been connected to geeks. And so it makes some sense that they would connect women “dressing up” for SATC as a geeky.

(I think it has a lot more to say about how the entertainment industry is failing to serve an entire gender when Women get this excited about a movie because it is something they can relate to. (As opposed to movies designed to tap into the Males aged 13-39 demo which seem to come out at about one a week.)

Ultimately, and I’m not someone who blames the media, I feel like the American people (or the media or something) says that you can’t just be interested in something–they have to be geeked out over it…if you can’t point to X as the single thing that makes your life living, then you don’t have a life. (Where X is whatever pursuit you follow in a geeky way.)

Just a couple of thoughts..I’d write more but a small child is about to attack my laptop.

Chris