SHE'S A VERY FREAKY GIRL... :

Private decency, public sleaze (Michael Medved, 8/01/02, USA Today)

Why should members of the entertainment elite feel embarrassed by marriage and motherhood? Why would a popular TV show insist on glamorizing a dysfunctional lifestyle considerably less wholesome than the more conventional arrangements its sexy stars have chosen for themselves in real life?

These questions arise in connection with the heavily hyped fifth season of the top-rated HBO comedy Sex and the City. Of the four stars whose characters' freewheeling romantic adventures comprise the substance of the show, two are proudly pregnant and involved in long-term relationships, one has written a book touting the glories of sex within marriage, and the fourth feels so embarrassed by the content of some episodes that she says she won't allow her parents to watch them.

Even Candace Bushnell, the real-life New York sex columnist and novelist whose work inspired the show and who provides the model for the Carrie Bradshaw character played by Sarah Jessica Parker, has turned away from the adventurous singles life she once celebrated. On July 4, the 43-year-old glamour girl got married on a windswept Nantucket beach to a 33-year-old ballet dancer she met eight weeks earlier. ''One has to be open-minded when the right man comes along,'' Bushnell told The New York Times. ''And I know it's freaky, but this just seems like the natural thing to do."

Boy, here in the red states we just don't find marriage the least bit "freaky". Of course, we also don't watch Sex in the City. Posted by Orrin Judd at August 3, 2002 12:56 PM