Television review | The nails are out in 'Sex & the City' in a business suitThe nails are out in 'Sex & the City' in a business suit
January 5, 2008
BY DOUG ELFMAN Television Critic
Wine, whine, men are swine. On "Cashmere Mafia," men cheat. Men cower. Men are afraid to ask their beloveds to simply "relax," lest they get their male heads chewed off.
If you're a female excited by such characterizations, help yourself to this pile-on-a-thon of pricey nails and dicey males.
Surprise, surprise, "Cashmere" airs on ABC, continuing the network's proud role of exacting revenge on the lesser 49 percent by presenting this latest femme fa-tale. It's like a business-suit "Sex & the City," starring Lucy Liu, estrogen and Frances O'Connor.
Liu plays Mia, a magazine muckety-muck who competes against her fiance for a big job. Somewhere else in Manhattan, O'Connor's character Zoe answers calls from her high-priced nanny even though she's conducting a CEO-type meeting.
Theoretically, I'm in favor of rah-rah-women-are-rocking-the-house stories, especially since Caitlin (Bonnie Somerville) is discovering she is an emerging lesbian, and it's always heartwarming to see closeted people coming to grips, so to speak.
But the quartet of cashmere Mafioso (rounded out by Miranda Otto as Juliet) do not wear cashmere. Worse, this light drama (whose tone is light comedy half the time) is another standard female fantasy constructed in plastic TV terms. The women aren't real, realistic, real-ish, real-esque or real-y. They don't even seem genuine in being fake.
They're kind of cruel at times, snapping at men and women alike. To quote Kipling, the female of the species is more deadly than the male.
Feel free to moan when women leave phone messages phrased, "Call me! Big kiss!," and defend themselves awkwardly by chirping, "Do not judge me!" Women love exclamation marks, apparently; also, sitting in restaurants with absolutely no food on their plates, only Champagne and red wine.
If the first two episodes are an indication, "Cashmere" will follow the same storylines regularly as each woman juggles a job and a lover. Their narratives beat a robotic rhythm. It's so linear and symmetrical. Not a hair out of place. By the second show, Liu is even dressing like Prince. You don't get more impenetrably designed than that. And who likes impenetrable women? Raise your hands.
delfman@suntimes.com
BY DOUG ELFMAN Television Critic
Wine, whine, men are swine. On "Cashmere Mafia," men cheat. Men cower. Men are afraid to ask their beloveds to simply "relax," lest they get their male heads chewed off.
If you're a female excited by such characterizations, help yourself to this pile-on-a-thon of pricey nails and dicey males.
Surprise, surprise, "Cashmere" airs on ABC, continuing the network's proud role of exacting revenge on the lesser 49 percent by presenting this latest femme fa-tale. It's like a business-suit "Sex & the City," starring Lucy Liu, estrogen and Frances O'Connor.
Liu plays Mia, a magazine muckety-muck who competes against her fiance for a big job. Somewhere else in Manhattan, O'Connor's character Zoe answers calls from her high-priced nanny even though she's conducting a CEO-type meeting.
Theoretically, I'm in favor of rah-rah-women-are-rocking-the-house stories, especially since Caitlin (Bonnie Somerville) is discovering she is an emerging lesbian, and it's always heartwarming to see closeted people coming to grips, so to speak.
But the quartet of cashmere Mafioso (rounded out by Miranda Otto as Juliet) do not wear cashmere. Worse, this light drama (whose tone is light comedy half the time) is another standard female fantasy constructed in plastic TV terms. The women aren't real, realistic, real-ish, real-esque or real-y. They don't even seem genuine in being fake.
They're kind of cruel at times, snapping at men and women alike. To quote Kipling, the female of the species is more deadly than the male.
Feel free to moan when women leave phone messages phrased, "Call me! Big kiss!," and defend themselves awkwardly by chirping, "Do not judge me!" Women love exclamation marks, apparently; also, sitting in restaurants with absolutely no food on their plates, only Champagne and red wine.
If the first two episodes are an indication, "Cashmere" will follow the same storylines regularly as each woman juggles a job and a lover. Their narratives beat a robotic rhythm. It's so linear and symmetrical. Not a hair out of place. By the second show, Liu is even dressing like Prince. You don't get more impenetrably designed than that. And who likes impenetrable women? Raise your hands.
delfman@suntimes.com
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