There has been a good deal of buzz around the May 28 release of Sex in the City 2. Confessing I have never watched one of these movies or programs, Audra Fediurek volunteered to write this month’s letter.
On a late May Friday night in Toronto, I and every other young woman in the city (or so it seemed) gathered for the premier of Sex and the City 2, the sequel to the 2008 blockbuster movie Sex and the City, which is based on the infamous television series of the same name.
For those of you who do not follow the series, or alas, have never heard of Sex and the City (I’ve heard rumours that you exist), it’s the story, which takes place in New York City, of four (very liberal) women and their fashions, friendships, relationships, and careers. This time, however, the four ladies packed their Louis Vuitton luggage, left the Big Apple and headed to The United Arab Emirates’ Abu Dhabi, the setting for Sex and the City 2.
So, for me personally, not only was this sequel a chance to see the latest trends in fashion and relationships, it was a chance to see a mainstream Hollywood depiction of one of the Middle Eastern countries for which our company recruits (and which I have visited).
There wasn’t an empty seat in the theatre. Far from just another night at the movies, it was a festival of fashion, girlfriends, and cosmopolitan women paying homage to the four main characters of the series: Carrie, Charlotte, Miranda, and Samantha. The theatre buzzed with high-pitched anticipation. What has become of our beloved women of New York? Will there be new romance? What will they be wearing? And how will they fare in the Middle East?
Having been to the UAE (as well as the surrounding countries of the Arabian Peninsula), I was surprised that movie producers would choose a Muslim country as the backdrop for the film. Sex and the City is about … well, you can figure it out, and couples certainly do not (ahem) embrace, or even talk of it, publicly in countries of the Middle East. Also I wondered (actually I feared) if they were trying to cut back on their fashion budget by filming in a country where women cover from head to toe in the traditional hijab and abaya.
The movie begins when Samantha, a successful publicist, is invited to Abu Dhabi to promote a luxury hotel. She convinces her three friends to accompany her to what she describes as “the New Middle East,” a liberal, glamorous, “Westernized” country, which does not conform to the same restrictions as other Middle Eastern countries. Essentially, they expect New York City but with sand, camels, and Arabian nights – of course, they were wrong (to an extent).
Fictional and light-hearted though the movie was, it was not far from a common misconception that people often have about the UAE (which includes Abu Dhabi and Dubai, and five other emirates). Yes, the UAE is more liberal than other countries of the Middle East, for example Saudi Arabia. In the UAE, women are not made to wear the abaya (though most Muslim women still choose to), women can drive, alcohol is available, and public dating is allowed. Still, Muslim tradition is prevalent, and a respectful visitor will be conservative in both action and dress. So as these women pushed the boundaries of the country’s cultural restrictions and even laws, they found themselves in a place not as accepting of their revealing clothes and promiscuous behaviour as they had anticipated.
The women did get one thing right though: Abu Dhabi is just as glamorous as New York City and equally fashionable. In one scene of the movie, the ladies are led into a room, which is full of local women who are completely covered in the traditional abaya and hijab, leaving only their eyes uncovered. However, in the company of only women, they start to remove their coverings and reveal the newest clothes and trends from New York and European runways. This, in fact, was no Hollywood tale. The truth is, behind those abayas, Middle Eastern women are incredibly fashionable. In fact, their malls are equally, if not more equipped with all the latest trends in purses, shoes, and accessories. The glamour is there, you just have to look a little harder.
The film ended and we trickled out of the theatre. My excited friends started to discuss how they too would like to discover “the New Middle East.” They were quickly deflated with I reminded them that though the film was set in Abu Dhabi, they were not allowed to film there – the movie was filmed in Morocco.
Audra Fediurek
July 2010
