Memo to Kim Cattrell: 

I know you are appearing on a British talk show tonight.  I know you are speaking in a (well-publicized) English accent, that is purported to be your own.   I imagine you want to broadcast, LOUD AND CLEAR, that you are an actress, playing the role of Samantha Jones on Sex and the City.  In other words, you are an actress, not an actual American person whose name is Samantha Jones.  Okay.  I got it.

The demands of the acting career for women are insane.  I know.  The cultural demands on women are insane.  With   lauded exceptions,  my personal favorite being Meryl Streep,  actresses sign the invisible contract,  should they be lucky enough to land it,  to remain strictly inside the confines of one identifiable character. That character is Samantha Jones.  Yes, I know you’re rehearsing a Noel Coward play in London.  But remember: you are a famous American female character.  America comes first! 

More emphatically, you created America’s real hope in delivering Samanth Jones; strong, successful, sexual.  You are the trailblazer giving women permission to express aggressive, uninhibited sexuality, which men have forever claimed as their natural born right, on and off the screen. 

And here’s the kicker, Kim: your Samantha is over 50!  You have turned both ageism and sexism for women characters–and for all women–on its head.  We got you, babe, and we’re not letting you go. 

Here’s the thing.  You were way too good in that role.  It’s too late.  It’s too late to have a British accent.  Don’t traumatize your audience.

In making Samantha Jones, you have made yourself responsible for the psychological well-being of,  probably,  a generational mob of women. 

Don’t fuck us up.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 5th, 2010 at 9:41 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.