On Thursday, I am going to see the new Sex and the City movie here in Bangkok, Thailand. It opens almost a week later here than in the US, so I will already know how successful the opening weekend was in America.
Here in Thailand, it will probably be exceptionally successful as, because it is such a conservative country, many Thai girls will be flocking to see it.
I’m going to see it with two Thai women from work and one of their friends.
One of the women is obsessed with clothing and shoes, so she can’t wait to see the new fashions in Sex and the City. She loves Carrie and Miranda and, in actual fact, dresses very much like Carrie.
Last week, she brought her cell phone to my office to show me. On it, she had 98 photographs of 49 pairs of shoes that she had taken the night before.
Each pair of shoes was placed beautifully together and was photographed from the front, then from the side. She plans on printing them out and putting the photographs on the front of the box of each pair. Then, she doesn’t have to rummage through her closet every time she needs one.
She’s now on her search for her 50th pair of shoes and, like Carrie, she almost bought a pair last week that she “just loved”. They didn’t fit her, not even close, but she was so tempted to buy them. “They were cute. Why not?”
The difference between her and Carrie though is she gets amazing bargains. Her dresses have cost as little as $3.50 and her shoes as little as $3. She has amazing style and is pretty, so it’s fun to see her every day and see what she’s wearing today.
The other Thai woman loves Samantha.
Here in Thailand, many of the women, even in their late 20s and 30s are still virgins and actually seem to know very little about sex. So a movie like Sex and the City is fascinating for them.
They are thrilled that sex can be talked about so freely as in Thailand, the second woman told me, even among her closest friends she never talks about sex.
She hangs out in a group of four women; the other three are now married. But, even though they now have experience and ‘knowledge’ about sex, they still haven’t shared it with her.
I’m a fan of Carrie and Charlotte. Charlotte, because she used to be so uptight, but she’s lost much of that. Carrie, of course, because of her gorgeous clothes and because, even though she’s flaky, you know she has a heart of gold.
Sex and the City opens in Bangkok this week.
Thai movie theatres are wondrous places with perfect seating, phenomenal screens and sound, and cheap movie theatre snacks.
I have never actually seen a movie in Thailand that talks so much about sex (actresses don’t even kiss properly on TV or in movies here), so I will probably be just as interested in the audience’s reaction as in the movie itself.
Meanwhile, while Thailand is becoming more open-minded and slightly less conservative, I am still not so sure it’s ready for Charlotte, Miranda, Samantha and, of course, Carrie.
We will see.
