Thank You, You’re Beautiful

Look, Darren. Let’s just get something straight.

When Sex And The City made Manhattan into a glittery, all-white colony of the rich, navigated by a cloyingly insecure, materialistic, narrowly introspective sex writer with fabulous shoes, we all drank it up with a grain of salt (salt in this case being an overwhelming dose of good old-fashioned, status quo-enforcing, socioeconomic myopia… oh whatever.) Carrie proved herself to be a pretty shitty role model for women every time she “got to thinking,” which makes the pleasureability of the show all the more sinister, but the show did touch on a lot of ubiquitous relationship stuff, had great clothes in it, was often very funny, and if you happen to not be a rich white woman, well, tough luck! Your life story won’t make the network any money! Don’t be a Bitter Betty!

Manhattan is fair game for that. I mean, think about “Friends,” every romantic comedy shot in SoHo, etc etc. But Brooklyn still has a different legacy. I think of Spike Lee’s Do The Right Thing and She’s Gotta Have It, Saturday Night Fever, Dog Day Afternoon, Goodfellas, most recently The Squid and the Whale.

Yeah, Park Slope is full of yuppies and designer strollers and faux-hipsters and rich bobos and plenty of opportunities to Darren Starify the neighborhood. But we’re clinging to authenticity among outrageous gentrification, independent store owners losing leases, celebrities moving here to raise their chic-ly dressed toddlers, condos thrown up overnight in Gowanus. We don’t need anything helping it along. You’re gonna come here with your film crews and clog up the block and take over. Turn Park Slope into the faux-hood of grown-up Carrie Bradshaws. Make the Slope seem like it’s populated ENTIRELY by affluent, self-absorbed, fabulously dressed bourgeois breeders. It’s gonna suck.

That’s it. I’m going to get together a crew of old-timers and lesbians and meet you at the production site with burning pitchforks. I’ll round them up outside the Park Slope Food Co-op, stop at Tasti Delite for a vanilla cone with sprinkles and we’ll be ready to kick your ass.

But I don’t want to fight, Darren. So consider a different place. Staten Island perhaps? You can call it Sex and the Ferry!

The neglected borough is starving for attention. And they have a zoo! And the borough president is really into playgrounds! Trust me, you are gonna LOVE it there.

[CALL IT 'SLOPE IN THE CITY' - New York Post]