Are SEX fans the new Trekkies?

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Are SEX fans the new Trekkies?
By Miko - Fri, 30 May 2008 15:48:13 GMT
Originally Posted at: Dead Parrot Tavern

====================

From the Calgary Herald today. The second last paragraph is most true.

Are Sex fans the new Trekkies?
Film’s release like ‘Super Bowl
for women’
MARK MEDLEY CANWEST NEWS SERVICE
If a television show turned cultural phenomenon spawns diehard fans who recite dialogue by heart, wear costumes inspired by the show and buy all the tie-in products, are these devotees nerds? If the show in question is Star Trek, The X-Files or Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the answer is certainly yes. But what if we’re talking about Sex and the City?


On Thursday, hundreds of fans gathered in downtown Toronto to celebrate the release of the HBO series’s bigscreen debut. Fans have been waiting for this day since Feb. 22, 2004, when the show went off the air after six seasons and 94 episodes. After months of planning, the party promised to be both a swanky soiree and an occasion for diehard fans to grow even more frenzied about the movie, which opens today. It was to feature a pink carpet, on-site manicures, trivia games, designer labels and cosmopolitans galore. Some attendees came from as far away as Nova Scotia, or the United Kingdom. They talked favourites: episodes, characters, moments, shoes. The sold-out party was the brainchild of 23-year-old marketing consultant Yvonne Kai.


“I am Sex and the City,” she laughs. “If they do a new version of Sex and the City, it would probably be a reality series based on my life. And that’s the truth.”


Kai — who even went so far as to craft tiny pink stilettos to send out with the invitations — loves the show for the way it combines fantasy and reality. “What girl doesn’t want to wear Roberto Cavalli and go to the supermarket?” she asks. “What girl doesn’t want to complain about stepping in dog poo in $500 Manolos? Every girl wants that.”


Well, maybe not every girl, but when Kai first advertised the party, she received thousands of responses from fans who wanted nothing more than to glam up in designer cocktail dresses and high heels, sip martinis, and talk about the adventures of Carrie, Charlotte, Miranda and Samantha.


On the geek barometer, 400 fans gathering the night before the release of a movie based on their favourite TV show — most wearing clothes from said show — to partake in things like trivia, would seem pretty nerdy. So are Sex and the City fans the female equivalent of, say, Trekkies?


Filmmaker Roger Nygard knows a thing or two about nerds. He directed 1997’s Trekkies and its 2004 sequel, documentaries about Star Trek fan culture. He sees many similarities between the two groups.


“Having studied Star Trek fans firsthand,” he says, “I could say that I have seen the same fervour, the same symptoms if you will, in the (Sex and the City) fans. My girlfriend bases her daily wardrobe on ‘What would Carrie wear?’ ”


But not all chronicles of geek culture are convinced these uber-fans fit the mould.


“Women who follow Sex and the City are not geeks,” says Annalee Newitz, editor of science fiction blog io9 and co-editor of the book She’s Such A Geek. “They are doing what soap opera fans have always done: obsessively reading about their stories, and buying related consumer items. Are women who read Vogue geeks? Are women who know every detail about Sephora cosmetics geeks? No. You can’t expand the term ‘geek’ to mean anyone who is interested in something without draining the term of all meaning.”


OK, so maybe they don’t stock their apartment shelves with hermetically sealed boxes of Jimmy Choos, but why is it that Star Trek or Star Wars fans get ragged on for dressing up, watching every movie or episode ad nauseam and being able to cite arcane bits of knowledge, yet Sex and the City fans get away with much of the same behaviour.


And while fans aren’t yet lining up days in advance for the movie’s release, as they did for Star Wars: Episode 1, tickets to the premiere are reportedly going for $2,500 on Craigslist, leading Radar to quip, “It really is the Super Bowl for women.”


Film’s release like ‘Super Bowl
for women’
MARK MEDLEY CANWEST NEWS SERVICE
If a television show turned cultural phenomenon spawns diehard fans who recite dialogue by heart, wear costumes inspired by the show and buy all the tie-in products, are these devotees nerds? If the show in question is Star Trek, The X-Files or Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the answer is certainly yes. But what if we’re talking about Sex and the City?


On Thursday, hundreds of fans gathered in downtown Toronto to celebrate the release of the HBO series’s bigscreen debut. Fans have been waiting for this day since Feb. 22, 2004, when the show went off the air after six seasons and 94 episodes. After months of planning, the party promised to be both a swanky soiree and an occasion for diehard fans to grow even more frenzied about the movie, which opens today. It was to feature a pink carpet, on-site manicures, trivia games, designer labels and cosmopolitans galore. Some attendees came from as far away as Nova Scotia, or the United Kingdom. They talked favourites: episodes, characters, moments, shoes. The sold-out party was the brainchild of 23-year-old marketing consultant Yvonne Kai.


“I am Sex and the City,” she laughs. “If they do a new version of Sex and the City, it would probably be a reality series based on my life. And that’s the truth.”


Kai — who even went so far as to craft tiny pink stilettos to send out with the invitations — loves the show for the way it combines fantasy and reality. “What girl doesn’t want to wear Roberto Cavalli and go to the supermarket?” she asks. “What girl doesn’t want to complain about stepping in dog poo in $500 Manolos? Every girl wants that.”


Well, maybe not every girl, but when Kai first advertised the party, she received thousands of responses from fans who wanted nothing more than to glam up in designer cocktail dresses and high heels, sip martinis, and talk about the adventures of Carrie, Charlotte, Miranda and Samantha.

On the geek barometer, 400 fans gathering the night before the release of a movie based on their favourite TV show — most wearing clothes from said show — to partake in things like trivia, would seem pretty nerdy. So are Sex and the City fans the female equivalent of, say, Trekkies?


Filmmaker Roger Nygard knows a thing or two about nerds. He directed 1997’s Trekkies and its 2004 sequel, documentaries about Star Trek fan culture. He sees many similarities between the two groups.


“Having studied Star Trek fans firsthand,” he says, “I could say that I have seen the same fervour, the same symptoms if you will, in the (Sex and the City) fans. My girlfriend bases her daily wardrobe on ‘What would Carrie wear?’ ”


But not all chronicles of geek culture are convinced these uber-fans fit the mould.


“Women who follow Sex and the City are not geeks,” says Annalee Newitz, editor of science fiction blog io9 and co-editor of the book She’s Such A Geek. “They are doing what soap opera fans have always done: obsessively reading about their stories, and buying related consumer items. Are women who read Vogue geeks? Are women who know every detail about Sephora cosmetics geeks? No. You can’t expand the term ‘geek’ to mean anyone who is interested in something without draining the term of all meaning.”


OK, so maybe they don’t stock their apartment shelves with hermetically sealed boxes of Jimmy Choos, but why is it that Star Trek or Star Wars fans get ragged on for dressing up, watching every movie or episode ad nauseam and being able to cite arcane bits of knowledge, yet Sex and the City fans get away with much of the same behaviour.


And while fans aren’t yet lining up days in advance for the movie’s release, as they did for Star Wars: Episode 1, tickets to the premiere are reportedly going for $2,500 on Craigslist, leading Radar to quip, “It really is the Super Bowl for women.”


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Big Don

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OK, show of hands, who saw the title of the thread and DIDN'T think of Sex and the City first?
Hell, my first thought was: Who isn't a fan of sex?
 

Carol

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OK, show of hands, who saw the title of the thread and DIDN'T think of Sex and the City first?
Hell, my first thought was: Who isn't a fan of sex?

:wavey:

Here I am thinking...hmm....I like Trek. I like sex. Am I, like, finally cool? :ultracool :lfao:
 

tellner

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:wavey: I've never seen Sex in the City and didn't think of it. Mind you, I'm a fan of sex in the city, small towns, countryside, bottom of the ocean and Low Earth Orbit...
 

ShelleyK

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I was never a "Sex" fan to begin with...I think the show is quite boring....Give me action any day over a bunch of whiny women! LOL
 

CoryKS

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:wavey: I've never seen Sex in the City and didn't think of it. Mind you, I'm a fan of sex in the city, small towns, countryside, bottom of the ocean and Low Earth Orbit...

You forgot mountains.
 

bluekey88

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And I would do it in a box, and I would do it with a fox. i would do it on a plane or in a car or on a train, I would do it it here AND there

Say, I would do it ANYWHERE!

:D

Oh, and I wasn't thinking abotu Sex and the City when I read the OP.

Peace,
Erik
 

Twin Fist

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i hated that friggin show. lemme put it this way, if new york women are like that? I wouldnt touch any of them with a 10 foot pole
 

tellner

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And I would do it in a box, and I would do it with a fox. i would do it on a plane or in a car or on a train, I would do it it here AND there

Say, I would do it ANYWHERE!

The Erotic World of Dr. Seuss. An instant classic!
 

Big Don

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And I would do it in a box, and I would do it with a fox. i would do it on a plane or in a car or on a train, I would do it it here AND there

Say, I would do it ANYWHERE!

:D

Oh, and I wasn't thinking abotu Sex and the City when I read the OP.

Peace,
Erik
would you, could you with Lox?
 

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