Just this week, I finished reading Ebert’s The Great Movies. It’s basically a collection of 100 of his Great Movie columns. It entertains. Ebert is a great writer. It informs. It could work as an introduction to film. But, most importantly to me, it inspires. His love for the movies he writes about is so contagious. Upon completing each column, I found myself full of an excitement about each of the films. And my love for movies in general was stronger than ever. In fact, I credit him with reigniting my desire to do something more with this blog and with writing about movies.

And Ebert’s relatively recent foray into blogging has really been quite special. He writes about more than just movies, hitting on topics of nostalgia, religion, evolution, among others. Sure these are topics droned on ad infinitum throughout the blogosphere, but in Ebert’s hands they become something worth taking time to read, absorb, and share.

His post from a couple of days ago regarding facing death brought tears to my eyes.  It wasn’t sad. It was honest. And it spoke to me in a way that little else does. It’s absolutely beautiful. And I think I’ll be returning to it periodically in the future for comfort. In a way, Ebert’s blog post acts as a companion piece to Julian Barnes’ book about death, Nothing to Be Frightened Of (which I’d also highly recommend).

And it seems I’m not the only one enamored with Mr. Ebert of late. In the Huff Post yesterday, the director Rod Lurie wrote about what it means to be a “real man”:

I’ll tell you this — you can look at all the masculine toughies you want — the Ben Roethlisbergers, the Russell Crowes, the David Petraeuses — but if you want to look at what a man should be — persevering, honest, a person who manifests his intellect into action — you need look no further than Roger Ebert.

I think Roger Ebert is my personal hero. I love that guy.

(Huff link via OFCC)

I had no immediate plans to go out and see the Sex and the City movie, but after reading Roger Ebert’s review, I now feel compelled to – if only to try and rebut some of his points. I need to know how much of his review is warranted criticism of a flawed movie, and how much is simply an adherence to dated gender stereotypes.

Something about the way this movie has been discussed in the media has created a little blip on my Sexism Radar. The level of smarminess and near-hostility that’s been directed towards the movie so far surprises me. Look at how Ebert begins his review:

I am not the person to review this movie. Perhaps you will enjoy a review from someone who disqualifies himself at the outset, doesn’t much like most of the characters and is bored by their bubble-brained conversations.

Okay, that’s fine. There have certainly been plenty of movies in which I couldn’t stand the characters. (I’m thinking of The Darjeeling Limited at the moment, although there have been many others.) But where Ebert felt the need to make such a disclaimer at the beginning of his review, one of the two male hosts of Filmspotting (one of my favorite podcasts) has been trying to get out of seeing the movie entirely. I think this might be the first time I’ve heard of a film reviewer try to get out of seeing a particular movie. Why this one? I’m sure there have been many other, much worse, movies. But, at least the Filmspotting dudes are bringing in a female film critic for a little “female perspective” on the movie.

Wait – there are female film critics?

As far as the Ebert review is concerned, I agree with his criticisms of glorified materialism. That was very much present in the Sex and the City series. And some of the over-the-top, gross-out gags he described – one character literally craps her pants, another has a compulsively masturbating dog – seem like they’d be more appropriate in a movie aimed at the traditional target audience of male teenagers. All of that is fair criticism that I very well might agree with after seeing the movie myself. But it are comments like these that catch my eye:

The most human character is Louise (Jennifer Hudson), who is still in her 20s and hasn’t learned to be a jaded consumerist caricature. She still believes in True Love, is hired as Carrie’s assistant and pays her own salary on the first day by telling her about a NetFlix of designer labels (I guess after you wear the shoes, you send them back). Louise is warm and vulnerable and womanly, which does not describe any of the others.

To me, this sounds like Ebert is suggesting that to be appropriately “womanly,” one must be warm, vulnerable and devoted to the idea of “True Love.” Really, Ebert, really? The worst of it, though, is reserved for Carrie Bradshaw’s longtime love interest, “Mr. Big,” who’s described as “unreal,” “passive” and “kinda slow:”

As played by Chris Noth, he’s so unreal, he verges on the surreal. He’s handsome in the Rock Hudson and Victor Mature tradition, and has a low, preternaturally calm voice that delivers stock reassurances and banal cliches right on time. He’s so … passive. He stands there (or lies there) as if consciously posing as the Ideal Lover. But he’s … kinda slow. Square. Colorless. Notice how, when an old friend shouts rude things about him at an important dinner, he hardly seems to hear them, or to know he’s having dinner.

To me, “passive” is pretty much in the same adjective group as “vulnerable.” Is Ebert criticizing one of the main male characters for being what the women of Sex and the City are not? And would a more “manly” response at the described dinner party have been to stand up and deliver a punishing blow to the insulter’s jawbone? This part, most of all, really got me: “He stands there (or lies there) as if consciously posing as the Ideal Lover.” Substitute “she” for “he” and you have a sentence that aptly describes the typical female role in the typical male-oriented film.

There are plenty of things one could reasonably criticize about Sex and the City. As I said, it can be a little materialistic for my taste – although some secret little part of me always did kind of lust over Carrie’s Manolos and Jimmy Choos. I also think the series went on a season or two too long. But it was (and I think this is what many male critics don’t get) one of the few shows that portrayed women as strong, assertive, independent people. Perhaps even more, it portrayed female friendships as interesting and worthy of attention. We’ve been inundated over the decades with portrayals of male relationships (there are even entire genres devoted to male bonding – westerns and war movies). So why the hostility towards a television series, and subsequent movie, that does the same for female friendship?

Actually, another one of my criticisms of the series is that in the end, it still (quite predictably) boiled down to love, marriage and children for most of the main characters. I don’t think it did quite as much as it could have to buck some of those gender stereotypes. With that being said, in a world where there seem to be fewer and fewer interesting roles for women in mainstream film and television, Sex and the City has been much appreciated. And I, for one, am looking forward to the movie. Even if I have to go by myself to see it.