Response Paper

Entourage and Sex and the City

Entourage asheds light on our primary text, Sex and the City. The parallels between Entourage and Sex and the City are paramount, for both texts consist of a quartet of single friends who talk about the opposite sex. It is recognized that Entourage is for men what Sex and the City is for women. They talk about similar things, i.e. one night stands, cheating, and three-ways, and it is interesting to hear the same topics being approached and talked from two different viewpoints. These two television shows represent the differences in the way men look at sex and the way women look at sex.

Chris Barker acknowledges the fact that there is a considerable body of evidence to suggest genetic and biochemical difference between men and women in relation to language ability…sex drive…” (286). He attests that women are more verbal, co-operative and organized than men (286), and that men have a higher propensity to find multiple partners, and are less inclined to verbalize emotions (287). This difference between men and women is exemplified through Entourage and Sex and the City. The women in Sex and the City gather around and talk their heads off about boys, sex, relationships, and then, most importantly, they analyze it. The men in Entourage gather around and talk about all the women they slept with, but they do not verbalize their emotions or analyze the situation as much as the ladies.

This difference between man and woman reminds me of Derrida’s argument in Différance, where he declares that words and concepts are themselves different from other words or concepts and this difference gives their meaning. Woman is perceived as the other, the second sex, or different from man.

It is written in Simone de Beauvior’s, The Second Sex; “The body of man makes sense in itself quite apart from that of woman, whereas the latter seems wanting in significance by itself ... Man can think of himself without woman. She cannot think of herself without man.” Although this statement is a bit bold, the idea of this can be demonstrated through Sex and the City and Entourage. In Sex and the City, while the women are very open with their discussions of sex, much like men, there always seems to be an underlying hope of a relationship as well. They want that comfort and to be a part of love. In Entourage, there is really no mention of being in relationships. They are just living in the now without worrying about being in a relationship.

Although both the texts follow the stereotypes of man and woman, there is a character in each show that breaks this label. In Entourage, there is a character that actually likes being in relationships and he has his heart broken, and he doesn’t just sleep around. And in Sex and the City, there is a character that purely just likes to sleep around. She is a man-eater and never in a committed relationship. Society has slowly changed the stereotypes of men and women, and we are beginning to see more variety in the way that each sex handles the other.

According to McDonald, “the radical romantic comedy emerged because of the changes in society (59), and “a new era of realism in the depiction of sex began” (61). “The radical romantic comedy is often willing to abandon the emphasis on making sure the couple ends up together, regardless of likelihood, instead striving to interrogate the ideology of romance” (59). I would say that these two texts fall under the radical romantic comedy easily. They both realistically represent sex and relationships. Not one man or woman actually has their “romantic comedy” ending.

I would also say that Entourage and Sex and the City is a part of ‘raunch’ culture. According to Barker, raunch culture “liberally employs references to pornography and celebrates sexual objectification and physicality” (312). Both shows clearly represent raunch culture. They are revolved around the freedom of sex, their physical needs, referring to the other sex as an object, and the fixation with one's body.

In conclusion, while both shows have amazing parallels, they show that men and women are clearly very different in the way that they approach sex. But there is one thing that these men and women do have in common, and that is the underlying theme of friendship. Both quartets have such a strong bond and even though men and women come and go, they still have each other.

Works Cited

Barker, Chris. Cultural Studies: Theory and Practice. 3rd edition. London: SAGE Publications

Ltd., 2008.

De Beauvoir, Simone. "Introduction: Woman as Other." (1949).

Derrida, Jacques. “Différance.”

McDonald, Tamar Jeffers. Romantic Comedy, Boy Meets Girl Meets Genre. London: Wallflower Press, 2007.