Something and the city
by Bob on June 19, 2007
Well, this had to be addressed. A very dear friend wrote to me about this extremely popular television show, "Sex and the City" which was on TV from 1998 until 2004, and it was very heavily watched and well reviewed and awarded. The actors and actresses were very good and highly experienced, and played well.
I was born and raised in New York City, "The Big Apple", Manhattan. I am obliged to have an opinion on the subtle connotations and images conveyed by the TV show which was written to take place in NYC, and actually filmed there, on location, and in Queens (another borough of NYC) at the Silvercup Studios. It is called "Silvercup" because it used to be a huge bakery for Silvercup bread. But I digress.
I wanted to make it clear what life is really about. That show, although entertaining and somewhat cute, and well-acted, provides an illusion about my hometown. Like many movies and TV shows. We must be careful to realise what is real and what is simply entertainment. It also makes some men and women sad to think their life is not working because they are not living a life as portrayed on the screen. This is an unfortunate side effect of certain kinds of entertainment media, especially TV and films.
When we see a classic opera, we know it is based on some old stories or maybe not, but we take it as a relief from the everyday pain of joy of existence. It is not supposed to say that our lives should be like the lives of the actors and actresses on the stage. Unless it is a morality play or opera. That's more complicated and has religious connotations.
So many people here in the West, seemingly especially young ladies, live and die in their heart by comparing themselves to people in movies and on TV and in fashion magazines. That's not realistic or even desirable. Not everyone should be skinny like a fashion model, or handsome like a leading man in a movie.
People are much more real than that. Actually, I have had friends who are actresses and actors. Most don't look anything like what they play on stage --- at least in reality. And that is the trick of their trade and talent.
Some of the most beautiful people in the world are not in movies. They are right around your home or in your town or city. And they are just regular people who don't need cosmetics and make-up powder to look beautiful.
Grandparents may look old but they are to be cherished and respected an treated as beautiful for what they have done, especially bringing us into this life, and for their exprience and wisdom and love.
So, let us take such TV programs with a grain of salt and praise the really beautiful people in life -- the common people.
Of course, we are allowed to have some fun in life and enjoy the TV program for its playfulness and illusion. Going back to the ancient Greeks, and the mission of Dionysus, patron of theatre, and even before that in many cultures and societies, such as in Asia, we realise that music, theatre, literature, verbal story telling, sports, and art, take us away from our everyday toils and worries. That is excellent as a mission statement fulfilled.
I do easily and happily admit that some people have natural outer beauty with which they were born. But such stunning natural beauty is rare by definition and by far, the exception. And like the Sibyl of Cumae in the ancient world, one can be tricked into believing it will last forever. The poor Sibyl, as Petronius relates the story in his Satyricon, asked to live forever, but forgot to ask for her beauty to persist. So she lived forever, but withered and shrank into old age.
And we all age, too, and beauty changes. If we simply only judge by external faces.
I am once again reminded of the motto and seal of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, and whence this seal and motto came. Their seal has two figures intertwined and the words, Beauty and Truth representing them. That's it. That is a very succinct picture of John Keat's 1820 poem, "Ode on a Grecian Urn" wherein he writes:
"Beauty is truth, truth beauty, - that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."
And, although it was likely said in different ways in ancient times, and in all cultures, since it comes from the heart, we can look also to Friedrich von Schiller, who wrote, before Keats did:
"Truth exists for the wise, beauty for the feeling heart".
Finally, there was a beautiful but poignant 1983 film I saw when it opened, called "El Norte" ("The North"). It was about a young brother and sister, Enrique and Rosa, coming up from Central America from a very small village north to the USA and Los Angeles to find more money and a new home, and have a supposed better life, free from the persecution for being indigenous people in their country. It was directed brilliantly by Gregory Nava. Many things which were acted and said in this film stuck with me, but I recall one part where the sister Rosa, when she sees women in LA all dressed up and cosmetically made up, doesn't realise that they are just regular people and asks, "Why are these people dressed and made up like clowns?". There must be a message in that. And the film received an Oscar nomination for best original screenplay.
And Shakespeare did write in his great play "As You Like It" that "All the world 's a stage" and we are just players. But I am not sure he quite envisioned fims or DVDs or TV programs, etc. Or, on second thought, perhaps he really, really did.
So it goes.
* * *
from "As You Like It" by William Shakespeare, Act II, Scene VII.
All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.