Andrew O'Hehir on Sex and the City 2
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It's offensive to an entire audience who came of age with these women and who remain breathtakingly loyal, and out of nostalgic affection may not have the heart to turn away from them. It's offensive to King's own creations, toward whom he now seems to feel nothing but contempt. It's offensive because it keeps cattle-driving a franchise once based on sparkle and economy toward new heights of painful, frantic emptiness. I kept telling myself, over and over, that Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte -- the real, flawed, funny, recognizably human ones, not these lobotomized zombie replacements -- would never do anything so dumb.
Wajahat Ali was correct to complain in Salon that King’s portrayal of the Muslim world is dumb and offensive: The “SATC2″ coven has no problem with the “new Middle East” when it’s all about private manservants, endlessly flowing fruity-tooty cocktails and a comped luxury suite that looks like Al Pacino’s house from “Scarface,” only less tasteful and metastasized to infinite proportions. The foursome develops a sudden concern with the oppression of Arab and Muslim women only after the pipeline of pornographic bling-juice is cut off…