Candace Bushnell May Be A Feminist, But That Doesn't Mean We Have To Like Her

Dear Pop Culture Universe, please, for the love of all that is entertainment, give us a female paradigm that is that is not Carrie Bradshaw. There's a profile of Sex and the City scribe / Carrie Bradshaw alter ego Candace Bushnell in the Times of London, which is only entertaining for the ambivalence the profiler, Janice Turner, feels towards the entirely superficial Bushnell. "She is rather intense and serious, vulnerable, and, most surprisingly, an ass-kicking feminist," Turner writes, before quickly (and cattily) describing Bushnell's eating habits. "Why there isn't a spare gram on her tiny frame is explained when we eat: she nibbles through an undressed salad and just half of her small rocket pizza, and I dispatch 90 per cent of our 'shared' dessert."

My problem is not that Bushnell calls herself a feminist — she is, without a doubt, as is anyone who believes that men and women are equal — but I still don't understand what that has to do with Botox, Jimmy Choos, not eating or bitchy, wealthy Park Avenue fauxialites.

Again, I feel the same way about Candace Bushnell as I did about Jenna Jameson. I get the idea that we're supposed to respect and look up to these women because they're self-made. Because they made a lot of money and have a head for business. But they both also did so while pushing agendas — in Bushnell's case, rampant materialism, and in Jameson's case, porn catering to the male gaze — that aren't things which are particularly admirable. For Bushnell, it seems that "capitalist" is the "ist" she most embodies, rather than "feminist."

However, both Bushnell and Jameson offer their brand of power as funneled through highly palatable packages. In Turner's profile of Bushnell, she writes, "Her looks were her entrée to New York highlife. Too short to model, with no acting talent, she began chronicling the Studio 54 set in a New York Observer column that became Sex and the City. Later her beauty was her supreme marketing tool: she posed discretely naked for New York magazine."

I don't fault Bushnell for her choices or begrudge her success, I'm just sick of her and her fucking expensive shoe fetish. If I never write the word "Manolo" again, I can die a happy woman. Can't we find better icons than this?

Finding True Love, By Sex And The City's Candace Bushnell [Times of London]

Contact information for this author is not available.

publish on Facebook

Upload an image | Add an image URL ×

Image URL: ×

Youtube URL: ×

Choose a file to upload:

×

Dsmvwl  Admin  Promote to frontpage Approve user Ban user ×

Loading comments ...

Earlier discussions | Other discussions | Show all discussions | Show featured discussions only | Expand all replies Hide all replies
Start a new discussion