The American Spectator

To: Spectator editors
From: Reid Collins

What are you people thinking of? A lot of stuff about Kerry, Dean, Haiti, Iraq, cluttering up the site Monday and not a word about that which endureth forever: Sex. Not just sex any old where, but Sex and the City! (exclamation point added). Are you insane? Don’t you get any of the public prints? The damn show is over and you haven’t reviewed, speculated, or even grieved its passing.

Where else but on HBO’s cable and satellite feed would you get six full years of commoditized copulation, relieved only by some high-heeled fashion fillets and pretty women using the “f” word in public, male figures drifting through their lives like so many expended condoms floating down the East River? Five Emmies, eight Golden Globes and two Screen Actors Guild Awards, and you guys sit there like eunuchs on a log without a word on whether Carrie the sex columnist finally finalizes something with Big (apologies to Dickens here) or gets carried off by some expatriate Russian toe dancer (Mikhail Baryshnikov — honest).

Not one word on The American Spectator site about Samantha, the gorgeous cupful of concupiscence who has lost her hair on account of radiation therapy but has acquired a young stud who cuts his hair out of sympathy and likes her for more than, well, you know. Nothing on Miranda, either, the redhead, who was impregnated a long time ago but finally decides to marry the father of her young son. Or Charlotte, who married a little bald guy, converted to Judaism, and is infertile anyway. Where else could you see stars you know the names of actually doing it on screen every Sunday night without having to pay extra? In real life, you know, Carrie is the one married to that guy who starred on Broadway in The Producers. (Not that one — the straight one).

Has anybody there got any idea of how Sex and the City must have affected a young woman trying to live a sane and celibate life in Manhattan, when all the beautiful ones were flouncing around in designer clothes (or no clothes), saying “f” in fancy restaurants, and comparing the gustatory variations resulting from fellated acquaintances? Smoking cigarettes, too.

Since you people obviously don’t watch the show and probably spend Sunday evenings reading policy briefs on the Balkans I will not spoil it for you and tell you how it ended Sunday night, except to say it took an extra 15 minutes to wrap it up. And there’ll probably be repeats and of course a movie. Sufficient to say the toe dancer is still on point in Paris. Big’s real name is John and he realizes a good deal when he’s had one. Miranda is paying the penalty for marriage by being saddled with a failing mother-in-law. Charlotte and the little bald guy are being rescued from childlessness through the largess of the world’s most populous nation. And Samantha, well, we see her buck naked in her final scene doing what she is most known for. We’ll remember her that way.

How to remediate the cultural failings of The American Spectator? All suggestions fall short save one. Rename the site, in keeping with the true interests of America in this brave new century: American Voyeur.
— Reid Collins