Genre, performance and Sex and the City

This chapter explores the television series Sex and the City from a cultural studies perspective, and, in particular, through the notions of genre (Miller 1984) and performance (Butler 1990). It considers the ways in which the lead characters, Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte, construct particular identities as they engage in the genre of casual conversation. The chapter argues that what, to some people, may seem natural in their interactions is a result of what Butler (1990: 33) calls “a set of repeated acts” and a “repeated stylisation of the body”. Sex and the City, we argue, provides an example of its lead characters doing gendered (and other identities) as they participate in the genre of casual 
conversation.