Globe reporters and real-life couple Dave McGinn and Siri Agrell have been together since Season 4 of Sex and the City aired on HBO. Throughout the run of the TV series, they would occasionally watch the show together, and he would sometimes pretend to listen while she talked about it. This week, they attended a screening of Sex and the City 2. They couldn’t help but wonder, would the movie end their relationship?
Siri In the sequel, Carrie Bradshaw and her husband of two years, John Preston [Mr. Big], consider living apart two days a week. I worry that we’re going to have to do the same once this conversation is over.
Dave It’s just a movie. Which, by the way, I thought was ridiculous.
Siri Ridiculously awesome!
Dave I had no idea that a movie that starts off with a pants-less Liza Minnelli could actually get worse.
Siri They did come out of the gate strong. What didn’t you like about it?
Dave I understand the reason behind the first film: There needed to be a resolution of Carrie’s relationship with Big. But the second one, there’s no real reason for it. It’s just about four girls out having a good time.
Siri And yet you go and see every superhero sequel ever made. Don’t you apply that same standard? Of course they made a second one. The first one was hugely successful.
I keep hearing people say that women want to be like these characters. I don’t think that’s true. I think we want some of their clothes and we worry that we are like them, deep down. — Siri
Dave Yeah, but with SATC 2, so many scenes are just about celebrating the brand’s own success. Liza Minnelli just shows up to perform at a gay wedding. That would never happen in real life. All four of them singing I am Woman? Scenes like that just say, ‘Look how great Sex and the City is.’
John Corbett and Sarah Jessica Parker in Sex and the City 2.— Craig Blankenhorn / Warner Bros.
Siri The scene where they sing I am Woman in a Middle East nightclub actually made me pull my shirt up over my head. But at the same time, I kind of respect them for doing it. Remember when Amy Poehler did that rap in front of Sarah Palin on Saturday Night Live? I remember cringing because it was so awful and awkward but at the same time thinking, ‘Wow, does that ever take balls.’ To have half-naked middle-aged women sing that song in a Muslim country, that takes balls.
Dave What do you make of so much of the film being in Abu Dhabi? Is that them trying to remind people just how important the show was for sexual politics?
Siri I think so. There was almost too much of that in the movie. It felt like it was almost constantly winking at its critics. So taking them to the Middle East was a way of saying, ‘You guys say you’re so tired of us and that we’re not shocking or feminist, but outside of Manhattan and the West, this is actually groundbreaking.’ And I respect that, but I don’t know if it’s necessarily what I want to think about when I’m at a Sex and the City movie.
I had no idea that a movie that starts off with a pants-less Liza Minnelli could actually get worse. — Dave
Dave On one hand, there’s some slapstick and women dealing with marriage getting boring (a problem you’ll never have, by the way). But then there’s people getting arrested in the Middle East. I think if you’re going to get into it, you have to treat it seriously.
Siri Oh, come on! I think people have this idea that because it’s a film starring women it needs to be a serious women’s film. It’s a comedy! There have been comedies that have taken light-hearted approaches to all kinds of world issues. In Spies Like Us, does Chevy Chase have a responsibility to accurately portray the Cold War?
Dave What did you think of all the puns? They were working the word ‘inter-friend-tion’ really hard. Listening to a bunch of 40-year-olds talk like teenagers is embarrassing.
