城市、鄉村與慾望：《慾望城市》的城鄉空間建構（英文）

本文分析熱門影集《慾望城市》當中的城市與鄉村空間的流動與建構，論述城市空間的建構對女性的生存與活動的互動辯證關係。

Sex, the Country and the City:

Spatial Construction of Gender in Sex and the City

Chung-jen Chen

Abstract

This paper attempts to read one of the most watched TV series of our time, Sex and the City, in the form of printed text, and analyze the interacting and inter-defining relationship of the city and the country. This paper argues that there is no clear-cut boundary between the city and the country, as there is no pure essence of either the city or the country. The city may provide a structured space for the urban faddish ladies in this story to roam in, and the rules to play and to survive in the city may be concise and clear, however, the essence that makes the city a city is itself a constructed conception, or, an imagination that has been based upon a coerced binary opposition to the country: everything about the city is based upon everything the country is not. This paper tries to argue that all that have been regarded as the urbanized pattern of human behavior in this story is driven by an assumption that the urban space in contrast to the country space. Whereas, the politics, the body, and the sex existed in this story are not only reflections of the urban reality, but are parts of the attempt to create and to reinforce the structure of the imagined community of the urban space. Although the constructed urban may endow a selected taste, an elitist lifestyle, and an implicit sense of superiority over the rural space, it induces possibility of border crossing, transgression as revealed by an inner paradox in itself.

Sex, the Country and the City:

Spatial Construction of Gender in Sex and the City

I. The Spatial Construction of Gender in the Urban Space

How does urban space matter to the construction of gender in material and symbolic ways? How does the construction of urban space cast actual effect on women’s life in the city? These are difficult or even impossible questions in the field of cultural or urban studies. It is difficult and impossible in two ways. First of all, it is difficult to categorize the potential influences, explicit and implicit, upon individuals in the city: explicit approaches such as urban planning and development may reflect or reinforce traditional assumptions about gender and fortify the gendered space. It is also impossible that the urban space, on the metaphorical level, is itself an unstable and capricious construction.

Sophie Watson indicates that the construction of urban space supports the need for a gendered space. Traditionally, employment has been concentrated in the centre of cities separated from residence in the suburbs. As the city expands, massive transportation system is constructed to support the needs of the worker leaving home in the morning and returning in the evenings. Thus, Watson states her observation: early modern massive transportation system was “radically constructed” to “link the center with peripheries but rarely links suburbs to each other” (290).

Watson further explores her idea of gendered space. The construction of transportation system in the city leads to a result of the consolidation of the gendered space: the transportation system is built for the service of commuting male workers, while the time and energy consumed in transportation of female inhabitants on the suburb is ignored. Male workers need to be on time at the factory to reach the maximum of total marginal efficiency of the society, while the time and energy of the housewives is less relevant to the total production of the society and are thus excluded from the priority. Therefore, services and facilities for women are dispersed throughout the suburbs. Since women do not have the use of cars during the day and they relies heavily on the public transportation, the taking of children to school or doctors, or doing the shopping and other household chores, have to operate on a “full-time basis” (290).

There is an underpinning assumption about the spatial organization of public transportation and urban planning in the city, and such assumption helps to consolidate the gender of the space: “the man of the household goes out to work while the woman stays at home and looks after the children” (Watson 290). And even if women work, they are doing only part-time or home-based works. To expand this assumption, urban design and the construction of public facilities are rarely sensitive to the needs of women. Therefore, the safety of public spaces of the city are mot the main concern of city planning because these public space are gendered as male and the domestic space as female in a symbolic sense.

Thus the assumption of spatial construction of gendered spaces is thus fortified: women are constituted in the homes as “nurturing, passive, subordinate mothers,” while men are “powerful, public, active and even aggressive” (Watson 291). And the city in the tradition of urban planning, in order to sustain and consolidate the differentiation of gendered space, has to work “in men’s interest” (Watson 292).

II. The City and the Inhabitants

Based on the setting of New York City at the turn of the century, Sex and the City could possibly be one of the most watched TV series of our time. The four reckless urban career women, in their indulgence in designer’s luxuries, demonstrate a taste of urban yuppie and their images trigger a fantasy of daring urban women. Their ability and the attitude of cynicism to survive in the urban jungle, as well as the motivation endowed upon them to move and explore in the city, have been elevated nearly to a state of role model of new-era-independence. This new image of modern urban career woman indicates a new quality: voluntary singleness, extravagance in spending, reckless in endless parties, and lust to “have sex like a man.”

These women indicate an essential charm. This charm only becomes irresistible once these women are roaming in the urban space. They become invincible (or at least not fragile anymore) in any relationship; they walk not just in beauty in their branded high heels, but also in confidence that they can penetrate any urban space. These women are what the themes of this TV series are meant to be: they are women, they are both charming and confident, and, most of all, they are working and living in the city.

They are what they are because of the constructing force of the city; they are also what they are not due to the same reason. They are subject to a shaping power, and a power being shaped as well, exclusive to the city dwellers.

What is at stake in the popularity of this new urban image of working ladies is an implicit statement that the environment owns the power to shape and reshape human behaviors. The wanton and lust starred at the metropolitan setting of New York City may reflect the dominant influence of the city space upon its inhabitants. In this aspect, the construction of the city manipulates the behavior pattern of its inhabitants. Collective human behaviors are only constructed and formed by the planning and allocation of urban space, not the other way around. With the pressure bred by the intense population, the fierce competition, and the fast pace common to every working environment, human behavior has suffered a drastic change, and so does the pattern of interaction between people.

To put it in a simplistic way, such notion of the constructionist function of the urban space over the inhabitants display one dominant theme on the forming of urban space: we are what the space want us to be, or yet to be.

As a result, in this modernized and commercialized urban space, there is no individual who can stay uncontaminated by the pervasive shaping power of the urban space. Inhabitants of the city are shaped and reshaped into the type of persons that they should be: the urban type. City inhabitants are shaped into the type that the urban grants them to become. They are behaving wantonly and recklessly not because they have the right to be so, not because they like to be so, but because they are shaped to be what they should become to be.

The story greets its readers at the beginning of this book with a mixed-up acclamation and regret of the new era of urbanity:

Welcome to the Age of Un-Innocence. The glittering lights of Manhattan that served as backdrops for Edith Wharton’s docile-heaving trysts are still growing—but the stage is empty. No one has breakfast at Tiffany’s, and no one has affairs to remember—instead, we have breakfast at seven A.M. and affairs we try to forget as quickly as possible. How did we get into this mess? (Bushnell 2)

The answer to this question of how-we-get-into this at this “Age of Un-Innocence” is itself self-evident: the space changes, so do human behaviors. We are now living and working in a new era of highly capitalized and commoditized society far different from that of Edith Wharton’s. There is no one having breakfast at Tiffany’s because the living pace of modern metropolitan allows no such luxury for this. No one has affairs to remember because the trust indispensable in human bondage has now waned due to the intense competition and alienation in the capitalized city. In the end, “no one really has lovers—even if they have slept together” (Bushnell 3), because the sense of alienation in the urban space would erode physical and mental intimacy and degrade into the phrase of distinctive lust, so much so that leads to a conclusion like this: “Relationships in New York are about detachment” (Bushnell 3).

The time has changed, so does the space, and so do the dwellers. Now the space is full of a sense of detachment and alienation, and so do the dwellers.

Among the various friends of Carrie’s friend, Peter Beard, a wildlife photographer, explicitly states the influence environment cast upon its dwellers, by claiming that the city is to be blamed for all the extravagancy, wanton, and even homosexuality:

“The underground reality of this is the biological rat studies,” he said. “Density, stress, and the overcrowding of the niche structures. The first phenomenon of overcrowded rats is the separation of the sexes. And in this city, with all the lawyers and all the overcrowded niche structures, you have incredible pressure. Pressure fucks up the hormones; when the hormones are screwed up, there are more homosexuals; and homosexuality is nature’s way of cutting down on population. All of these unnatural things we’re talking about exponentially expand.” (Bushnell 61)

City dwellers can roam and explore the urban space as long as they know the rules of the construction of the space. They know where to seek for the things they desire; they know the allocation of the space and dwelling inclinations. When they think of hanging out with friends, they know where to go. When the city dwellers think of sexual availability, they know the “system”:

George says he has a system. “There’s a hierarchy of sexual availability in the model apartments,” he says. “Wilhemina girls are the easiest. Willi tends to get girls who grew up in mobile homes or the East End of London. Elite—they have two apartments—one uptown, on 86^th Street , and one downtown, on 16^th. They keep the nice girls in the uptown apartment. The girls in the downtown apartment are ‘friendlier.’ Girls who live with Eileen Ford are untouchable. One reason is that Eileen’s maid hangs up if you call.

“A lot of these girls live between 28^th Street and Union Square . There’s Zeckendorf Towers on 15^th. And a place on 22^nd and Park Avenue South . The older models who work a lot to live on the East Side .” (Bushnell 36)

Inhabitants of the city live according to the allocation of space associated with their social status, or in this quotation here, associated with their outlooks or availability. So that makes up the system of social space.

Those who know the system of the space know how to seek the place they belong to, even the marginalized space of the city:

Le Trapeze was located in a white stone building covered with graffiti. The entrance was discrete, with a rounded metal railing, a downmarket version of the entrance to the Royalton Hotel. A couple was coming out as we were going in, and when the woman saw us, she covered her face with the collar of her coat. (Bushnell 13)

To enter such a space, the visitors not only have to know the allocation of the space, but also, more importantly, the rules of the space. Once the visitors come in the enclosed and to some extent forbidden space, they have to follow the rules of the space:

We have to sign cards saying that we’d abide by the rules of safe sex. We got temporary membership cards, which reminded us that no prostitution, no cameras, and no recording devices were allowed inside. (Bushnell 14)

Thus, city dwellers are not only acquainted with the allocation of the urban space, they are aware of the rules to survive in that space.

III. The Country and the City

The underlying assumption of the construction of a gendered space, and the overwhelming power the environment cast upon its inhabitants is so rampant in this story that readers who read Sex and the City would find this book and TV series exceptional. The reason would be simple: this book and TV series (or their characters) are charming because they are so special; they are so special because they live in New York ; New York is so special because there is no other city like New York .

These four characters are special because they are New Yorkers. And New Yorkers have distinguished makings that no other inhabitants in the world can have. Their living style and attitude of life become a source of trend and also a source of jealousy or inspiration, all because they are living in the Big Apple.

This seems to explain everything this book or TV series mean to its reader or audience. However, I would like to argue that such a charisma is built upon a fantasy that the city is a well defined and well classified organics that stand apart from other space of human settlement. On the contrary, city is never a well defined space, on the symbolic and metaphorical level, but a construction based upon its relation to other kinds of space. If city is a production and inevitable development of human inhabitation, then, it still stands related to other type of human inhabitation. In a sense, city is defined in comparison to what the country is not.

In the light of Raymond Williams’s path-breaking discussion of images of country and city in the tradition of English literature, this paper would seek to find out the ambiguity and instability of the construction of city, and its dependence upon the country for definition.

Raymond Williams argues in The Country and the City that although both the country and the city have gathered some generalized ideas of their essence, these generalized ideas are, on the whole, simplified notions. The country may have gathered the idea of a natural way of living: country represent a living style of peace, innocence, and simple virtue. On the contrary, the city may also imply an idea of an achieved center of learning: city stands for learning, communication and light. That from this set of binary oppositions, city exists as an opposition to country: while city is defined as a place of noise, worldliness and ambition, the country is classified as a place of backwardness, ignorance and limitation.

However, Williams argues that the real history reveals much more complexity and ambiguity in the definition of the city and the country. The country as a way of life has included the very different practices of a variety of people living on different forms of life. And the city, no less, has been of many kinds. Moreover, there is a wide range of settlements between the traditional poles of country and city. What Williams emphasizes is, either from the physical existence or symbolic level, either the city or the country is no entity with clear cut definitions. The country and the rural life have many meanings, and so do the city and the urban life of style. Both the city and the country have their meanings, but these meanings change in themselves and changed in relation to others. And the relation of mutual definition is also not only active but also continuous, as Williams states:

The life of country and city is moving and present: moving in time, through the history of a family and a people; moving in feeling and ideas, through a network of relationships and decisions. (7)

There is no fixity in the definition of both the country and the city, there is no binary opposition of the city as what the country is not, and there are just precarious but persistent transformation and some nostalgic memory of the good old days of the rural life.

Likewise, the urban life style and the construction of the urban space in Sex and the City depend not on the fixity of meanings of urbanity. Though most of the story happens in the urban space of the New York City at the turn of a new millennium, the city exists with continuity or comparison with the country.

Characters in Sex and the City are either showing contempt or fear over the country, because the implicit sense of superiority as urban lady stands in contrast to the backwardness and awkwardness of the rural life:

The pilgrimage to the newly suburbanized friend is one that most Manhattan women have made, and few truly enjoyed. In fact, most come back to the city in an emotional state somewhere between giddy and destroyed. (Bushnell 79)

If they have the choice, those faddish urban ladies would rather not risk one of their weekends at the country. The suburban space represents all that are despised, backward, conservative, static and inertia. The fear and despise of the country comes right into their mind as soon as they set their foot on the country:

“Why are we doing this?” Sarah asked.

“Because we have to,” Carrie said.

“They just better not have any trendy gardening tools lying around,” said Miranda. “If I see gardening tools, I’m going to scream.”

“If I see kids, I’m going to scream.”

“Look. Grass. Trees. Breathe in the aroma of freshly mown grass,” said Carrie, who had mysteriously begun to feel better. Everyone looked at her suspiciously. (Bushnell 81)

For these urban ladies, the country housewives and their lives is everything they detest, the least thing they want themselves to be: marriage, the bridal shower, hours of afternoon tea and gossips of things happening in the neighborhood. The life pattern in the countryside is beyond their comprehension, and to some extent, beyond their ability:

“I think I could get into it,” Sarah said moodily, staring out the window. “They’ve got houses and cars and nannies. Their lives look so manageable. I’m jealous.”

“What do they do all day? That’s what I want to know,” Miranda said. (Bushnell 86)

The interaction and intercommunication between the city and the country is not yet so clear-cut. The essence of the city relies on a comparison to the country. The city may de defined as what the country is not. Yet, between what is and what is not, there is still a range of blurring areas of in-between. The definition is interchanged and is fluid, subject to change at any moment. Therefore, an emotional and symbolic link is still there. It is just that the city dwellers are not aware of the linkage; it is just that they get jealous sometimes.

IV. Conclusion

There is no clear-cut boundary between the city and the country, as there is no pure essence of either the city or the country. The city may provide a structured space for the urban faddish ladies in this story to roam in, and the rules to play and to survive in the city may be concise and clear, however, the essence that makes the city a city is itself a constructed conception, or, an imagination that has been based upon a coerced binary opposition to the country: everything about the city is based upon everything the country is not. This paper tries to argue that all that have been regarded as the urbanized pattern of human behavior in this story is driven by an assumption that the urban space in contrast to the country space. Whereas, the politics, the body, and the sex existed in this story are not only reflections of the urban reality, but are parts of the attempt to create and to reinforce the structure of the imagined community of the urban space. Although the constructed urban may endow a selected taste, an elitist lifestyle, and an implicit sense of superiority over the rural space, it induces possibility of border crossing, transgression as revealed by an inner paradox in itself.

Works Cited

Bushnell, Candace. Sex and the City. New York : Warner Books, 1996.

Watson, Sophie. “City A/Genders” The Blackwell City Reader . Eds. Gary Bridge and Sophie Watson. Oxford : Blackwell, 2002. pp, 290-96.

Willaims, Raymond. The Country and the City. New York : Oxford UP, 1973.