Sex and the City 2: Anti-Muslim, or dhimmi to a fault?

I hate everything about "Sex and the City" but I almost want to see this movie simply because Muslims are complaining about it.

Debbi Schlussel has a fine nose for what is bovine fertilizer, and worse, in this tawdry
movie.... here is her review

Mark
--------May 26, 2010, - 3:59 pm

“Sex & the (Islamic) City 2″: Ugly American-ettes v. Glamorous “Ugly” Muslims

By Debbie Schlussel

Painful.

That summarizes “Sex and the City 2,” which debuts in theaters at midnight tonight. The movie was so long, slow, and boring, I wondered how long its 2.5 hours was in Sarah Jessica Parker dog years. Or is that . . . Sarah Jess-equine Parker horse years?

Ba-dum-bum-ch.

Yup, my two jokes about this movie are funnier than most of the really bad, sex-laden puns and vulgarities that populate this cheesy, annoying waste of time. The movie–which mostly took place at a gay wedding and a trip to Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates (actually, filmed in Morocco)–had so many dumb R-rated double entendres and was so punny unfunny (”Bedouin Bath & Beyond”–haha, funny), it felt as if it was written by senior citizen pornographers who started a second career as bad nightclub act comedians in the Catskills. Blechhh. This horrible movie makes the first “Sex and the City” movie (read my review)–which I hated–look like Shakespeare.
Also, I didn’t know for whom to root: the ugly Americans who are the female (at least, I think they’re “shes”) embodiment of everything the Islamic world claims is bad about us, or the sleazy Muslim phonies the movie tries to tell us are so charming, luxe, stylish and uber-modest. Yes, the movie does take some satisfying digs at the uber-intolerant Muslims, but only at their prudishness, which isn’t the most accurate or even objectionable part of Islam or the Gulf States and the Middle East. And just because a movie makes statements about the obvious, while still mostly glamorizing Abu Dhabi, doesn’t make it a great movie. This is Exhibit A that it’s otherwise.

So, what is the movie about? I wasn’t quite sure, other than to watch ugly, aging women in gaudy clothes and make-up bitch, whine, and moan at and about their husbands, jobs, and nannies, and then try to have sex in the Middle East, after hanging out at the most painful-to-watch gay wedding. Memo to gay men: this film didn’t do ya any favors. The gay wedding was the most atrociously gaudy, corny thing ever, filled with every gay steretype in the book, including Liza Minnelli performing the Beyonce’s “All the Single Ladies” with two Liza impersonators. And did they really have to impress upon us that one of the gays in the wedding is a Jew, and pervert every wedding tradition of my religion into a gay circus?

I’m not sure which was worse–the gay wedding or the scene of the four women singing feminist anthem, “I Am Woman,” during karaoke at a club in Abu Dhabi. If these four “are woman,” G-d help us. There ain’t no roar here. Just a lot of kvetching.

When the gay wedding is over, we see a whole bunch of Sarah Jessica Parker whining, nagging, and bitching at her husband (yup, that’s the unbliss of hetero marriage the filmmakers want you to see versus the gaudy-but-pleasant love of the gays). She’s mad that her husband, “Mr. Big,” wants to stay in, eat take-out, and watch TV. Oh, and he put his feet on their expensive couch. She scolds him that “there’s no sparkle,” whatever that means. And, of course, at the end she’s bought off with “sparkle”–a giant diamond. Yaaawn. Watch “Divorce Court.” It’s more creative.

Ditto for the gratuitous “wet t-shirt contest”-style scenes of Charlotte’s bra-less nanny. I guess that was thrown in for the few moron guys who aren’t man enough to get out of being forced to sit through this sad flick with their girlfriends and wives.

And then when that stuff gets tiresome, the girls go on an all-expense paid trip to Abu Dhabi, courtesy of Sheikh Khalid, an Abu Dhabi royal who hires publicist Samantha to do wonders for his emirate. “It’s the NEW Middle East,” he tells her. “I can hear the decadence calling,” one of the “Sex” hags later declares. They’re so impressed by their luxe airplane accommodations, which are so ugly and gaudy they resemble Saddam Hussein’s palace. “Pringles in Arabic.” Are Hollywood’s Americans that dumb that they think these Islamic barbarians don’t have American products with Arabic stamped on them? Is it that impressive? Here’s a tip: American foods and clothing (even if, in some cases, it’s underneath a niqab–the Islamic full-ninja face veil) doesn’t make you moderate. It doesn’t mean you’re any less extreme.

And guess what? There’s Hebrew Bazooka bubble gum, too. Hey, maybe they should do a movie. I guarantee no one in Tel Aviv or Eilat will arrest Samantha for kissing in public.

Once in Abu Dhabi, the women are chauffeured around in their own personal Maybachs, feted by their own personal butlers, and hosted in a giant set of suites occupying an entire floor. They’re shown drinking alcohol all over the place (an Islamic no-no), and dazzled that an Islamic woman’s niqab (again, the full-Ninja face-veil) is decorated with fashionable embroidery. One of the characters, Miranda tells us:

Younger Muslims are accepting old traditions in new and personal ways.

Yeah, whatever. Tell it to all the women who’ve been honor-killed for being too Western and all the child brides who–well, I’d love to see how they accept old traditions in “new and personal ways.”

And, of course, Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) runs into her past love and former fiance, Aiden. Because–don’t you know?!–all lost loves are found in Abu Dhabis souk (Arab market). And when she loses her American passport in the confusion, the kindly Muslim shop-owner saves her passport and returns it to her, days later. Because, in the Muslim Mid-East, they’d NEVER sell your American passport and copy it a million times, right? The shop owner is so nice and so honest, he won’t even take a small tip for saving her passport. Yup, that’s so like the Arab market, isn’t it? Hey, Hollywood, stop exoticizing the Arab street. It’s neither as charming in real life nor as magical as you want us to believe. Not even close.

Even though we’re shown that Abu Dhabi natives are prudes, sex is mostly glamorized in Abu Dhabi in this movie. A handsome Dutch architect tells Samantha that Abu Dhabi makes him “feel like a boy again,” because in Paris he’d already have his hand down her shirt but here he must be restrained and take things slow.

Eventually, the women learn that Abu Dhabi isn’t actually the Western sex paradise they thought. Samantha gets arrested for kissing on the beach. Their luxe trip is suddenly no longer on Sheikh Khalid’s tab, and they have to leave Abu Dhabi.

Charlotte, a convert to Judaism has a passport in her waspy maiden name and not her husband’s Jewish surname. When she’s asked why by Sarah Jessica Parker’s character, Carrie Bradshaw, it’s clear she gets it. That’s where some of the rare, great dialogue and lines in this movie–which are few and far in between–come in:

Carrie: York? What happened to Goldenblatt? It’s the “new Middle East.”

Charlotte: It’s the Middle East.

Carrie: It’s the new Middle East.

Charlotte: It’s. the. Middle. East.

In the end, when they are in the Arab market, again, trying to get Carrie’s passport, Samantha’s purse drops and condoms fall out, just as Muslim men are answering the call to prayer. The men get very angry. But I wasn’t sure for whom to root–the vulgar slut or them. It was like my many “Feuds I Wish Would Go On Forever & That Both Sides Would Lose.”

“Yes, I have sex!” she shouts at them. “I have sex! I have sex! I have sex!” I laughed, but at both her and her Muslim antagonists. She’s a disgusting whore, and they are vile anti-Western creatures who–in real life–would sleep with her if they could get away with it. Ultimately, the women sneak away in full-ninja niqab face veils and robes to get away. But not before we’re shown the “moderate” Muslim women who help them. Those women open their robes to reveal high-fashion low-cut outfits from designers in New York. Is this supposed to mean sisterhood? Does Hollywood not know that the most anti-Western, anti-Semitic, prudish wives of emirate Sheikhs and merchants are Fifth Avenue’s biggest customers? Sorry, chicks, but haute couture doesn’t mean you’re not an Islamo-Nazi. It just means you’re a rich one.

Like I said, this movie takes a couple of digs at Abu Dhabi and Muslims after almost two hours of glamorizing both and denigrating American women as sex-crazed nutjobs. And that’s not enough. It also didn’t make it watching this utter monstrosity. (Sorry, but watching Muslim Arabs singing Foreigner’s “It Feels Like the First Time” at a karaoke bar ain’t my idea of fun.)

Sitting through all the bad jokes, crotch-cams, naked men’s butts, crying melodrama, and other vulgar stupidity (not to mention bad Arabic pronunciation) isn’t my idea of how to spend ten bucks and nearly three hours. I’ve said it before–when I reviewed the first “Sex and the City” movie: these four women are dirty guys in ugly, aging women’s bodies covered in expensive bad clothes.

If I wanted to see the real thing, I’d watch “The Hangover.”

"Eventually, the women learn that Abu Dhabi isn’t actually the Western sex paradise they thought." Etc. etc.

Typical stupid Americans, including the writers. They know little about the world. Most any superior European knows the difference between Abu Dhabi and Dubai...

Having been a woman in my 20s and 30s in New York City in the 60s and 70s no less, I refuse to even watch these brainless, aimless bitches running around yelling about how they have SEX. IN. THE. CITY!

Beenthere,donethat,gotthet-shirt. Please shut up and go away.

PEOPLE, sorry to change subject but there's this AMAZING INTERVIEW with AYAAN HIRSI ALI...1-3 PARTS! Gotta watch!
Ayaan Hirsi Ali-on Danish Television 3. of May 2010 3 parts http://bit.ly/a8WMpR AMAZING!!!Once again!
It moves into english very soon after the introduction!
E.E.J.J.O.O.Y.Y

The characters of 'Sex and City' remind me in too much clarity of many Europeans visiting Dubai; Vain, self-centered, shallow, and very willing to turn a blind eye to the inequalities inherent in a Islamic society. I'm no expert on Dubai or the UAE, I never made it out of Dubai due to a conference I attended. However, it was glaringly clear that Dubai(and I think this can safely apply to Abu Dhabi) was a Islamic society with the veneer of Western civilization. Scratch beneath the surface and you'll find a nasty society based on medieval Islam underneath.

While my brief time in Dubai was revealing and disturbing, what was troubling was the large number of Westerners willing to check their morals and ethics once they hit Dubai. The Westerners, like Carrie and her co-hedonists which I met were largely average in talent and intelligence and very willing to overlook the mistreatment of foreign maids and labourers by their Muslim employers. They were willing to overlook the rampant corruption of Dubai as a hub for embezzling Iranian/Saudi theocrats and their Persian/Russian/Philipina prostitute girlfriends. Even in my brief time there one didn't need to look hard to see that Dubai was a wretched place full of wretched people. It's clear that like many Westerners in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, Carrie, Charlotte, Samantha, and whomever chose to look the other way.

This movie gets widely distributed and is shown all over the world.

And "The Stoning of Soraya M"? You'll have to buy the DVD, since it had a limited showing and disappeared in the media with hardly a ripple.

Which one accurately portrays an Islamic culture?

If we want to our not, we live in dhimmitude.

I think this is a glass half full scenario, rather than a glass half empty scenario.

For a mainstream movie not trying to pick a fight with Islam, the movie actually includes many scenes/lines/references that show the negative impacts of living in a Shariah state.

The movie could easily have been far worse from a Jihad Watch point of view. Not a great piece of art, but far more realistic than the villains in Iron Man 1, the last season of 24, etc.

I can think of a much better idea for a movie, and one that would cover the topic of 'honor' murder and much else besides.

It starts with a couple of young IDF soldiers on patrol in the bleak Arab Muslim-devastated hills of Judea.

They find the barely-breathing 13 year old victim of an attempted 'honor' murder. (The murderers dumped her down a wadi or somesuch, thinking they'd succeeded in killing her.

This opening sequence, by the way, is based on fact. Here's the story:

http://solomonhezekiah.wordpress.com/2008/04/27/the-price-of-honour/#comment-617

April 28, 2008 at 6:35 pm

"This [honor murders] is one of the things that makes me scream that Islam has no business being named in the same sentence as Christianity and I do scream it, well mention it, as often as possible when the whole “three great religions” bumph comes up.

"Many years ago, in a galaxy far, far away (ie, my youth) I worked for a year for Magen David Adom

"*and in a pub one night I met this big, horrible, skinhead Russian import who was doing his time in the IDF* {my emphasis - dda}.

"He was about 18 and was back from a tour of duty in the West Bank

"**where he and his buddy had found a 13 year old girl battered senseless, barely alive and wrapped in a plastic sack** {my emphasis - dda}.

He was, honestly, not the nice face of the IDF or anything else but he was sober and crying. I never forgot."

I don't see any reason to distrust the person who shared that story. It has an awful ring of truth.

I don’t know what happened next, whether the girl survived or not, and so on.

But let's use it as the opening gambit for a story.

Let's be inspired by the stories of those Muslim girls who *have* jumped the fence out of the Ummah (like Hannah Shah did, in the UK) or tried to (that girl in Switzerland who was murdered for having taken a Swiss Christian lover). We should remember that many victims of 'honor' murders are the pretty, smart, feisty ones, targeted *precisely* because they are potential rebels and defectors; targeted, sometimes, because they are caught making at a non-Muslim man.

So here’s my fictional plot.

The lads scoop up the half-dead waif and call the medics, and the girl is taken into Israel and nursed back to life by Jewish healers in Israel. She is sheltered and psychologically healed by women like Phyllis Chesler. The family of one of the soldiers who found and rescued her, befriends her. She *apostasises from Islam*; like Nonie did, like Ayaan did, like Wafa did, like Hannah Shah did (and some of these ladies could surely advise the film-makers on how to realistically depict the process of apostasy; how you rid yourself of the terror, the brainwashing). She gets a real education and, like Ayaan Hirsi Ali, eats it up whole. Ayaan and Nonie and Magdi Allam could advise the film-makers on how to realistically show the girl losing her Islamically-inculcated Jew-hatred...because that's what *they* did.

And the movie ends with her, all grown up, free of Islam, converting to Judaism and marrying...a Jooo. If you want to go for full-on chick-flick romantic slush, she marries one of the guys who found her in the first place.

One way of telling the story would be to begin with a beautiful young woman stripping off and stepping naked into the mikveh for her pre-wedding ritual bath...you see that there are terrible scars on her body…

and then as she sinks into the water and it swirls around her, it’s as if the images of her terrible past start to wash out of her, like ink or blood, and the flashback begins (and this is where the grim reality of 'honor' killings and Islamic family violence can be tackled head on) -

So the first half of the flashback, the first half of the film, would cover her childhood in a violent polygynous Arab Muslim family, incestuous sexual abuse, a terrifying attack by her whole family, blackout,

being found by the young Jewish soldiers (pure terror, to find herself being held by a Jewish man, whom her culture has taught her to regard as demonically evil, and bewilderment to realize that he’s CRYING over her);

Then the second half of the flashback covers her 'resurrection' in the Israeli hospital, and her long, hard journey away from nightmare toward the light. Like Daniel Shayesteh, another apostate put it: an exodus from darkness.

At the point where she remembers her Jewish lover's proposal, the story would return to the 'frame' of the opening scene: the young bride steps out of the bath into the welcoming arms of the female attendant, and is dressed in her wedding garments; free and alive, leaving the darkness and madness of Islam behind her, like mud and blood washed away by living waters.