The Social Construction of Place

I Heart NY



The clip of Sex and the City that I chose was one called “I Heart NY”. In this scene the main character Carrie is having her last moments with her boyfriend Big. Big is at the time getting ready to move to Nappa in California while Carrie will be remaining in New York. The move is actually a surprise to Carrie and she is upset that Big wasn’t even going to tell her that he was moving.
I believe that this scene is a great representation of “The Social construction of place” that Chris Barker talks about in his book “Cultural Studies”. When the scene starts out Carrie has just arrived at Big’s apartment, only to see that all of his stuff is either gone or in boxes. According to Barker’s idea of Gendered Space, the home is what is known as the feminine domain. The fact that almost all of Big’s things are out of the apartment symbolizes that a man has no place within the construction of the home. Figures like Martha Stewart and Nina Campbell only further demonstrate that in today’s society a woman is constructer in the home.
Another demonstration of Gender Construction in this scene is when Carrie and Big are taking the carriage ride at night. Barker says that “attempts by some women to ‘reclaim the night’ are essentially spatial practices”(377). This carriage ride is an attempt to make the evening more romantic, and therefore feminine. This is demonstrated when Carrie is called to help a friend in labor, Big says “I can’t believe you are leaving me alone with a horse and buggy”, he clearly doesn’t find the ride an ideal means of transportation. Especially since the guy usually takes a girl on a carriage ride to please her not himself.
I found this scene quite interesting in how it shows that social construction of place really does exist in the world. It is just an unconscious habit that we have to make the woman chose how the house is going to be decorated while the guy goes to work, or how we limit the places that a woman is allowed to go at certain times in the day.