Despite the fact that the movie portrays alternative models of filiation, the underlying subtext insinuates that everything can be fixed with expensive gifts, preferably Spring collection designer items. The tension between tradition and progressive modernity permeates every major scene in the film. The luscious gay wedding at the start of the movie, in which Liza Minelli performs to Beyonce's "single ladies" (a new must at weddings), is embedded with five minutes of artificial language aimed at recapitulating each character's personality, particularly for aficionados of the series. Despite the exuberant display of subversive, same-sex marriage vindication, the couple culminates the ceremony with the Jewish ritual of the breaking of the glass, after which Carrie reaches the conclusion that "tradition sneaks in whether you like it or not". Although the movie presents four different types of women, that range from traditional (Charlotte) to unrestrained (Samantha), their common thread is their penchant for fashion, which contradictorily turns them into mere consumers of the latest trends if fashion. None of them wears "vintage" clothes purchased at a thrift store, or accessories made of recycled items, let alone garments manufactured in fair-trade zones.
This glorification of expensive bags and Manolo Blahniks is challenged when Carrie realizes at the Abu Dahbi market that beautiful things don't need to carry an exorbitant price tag. The elegant yet simple shoes that Carrie picks up for a mere twenty dirham evoke Western fable topoi (Cinderella) intertwined with "exotic" references (Scheherazade). Big is the modern Persian king that embodies traditional forms of masculinity reminiscent of Gary Grant (thus the intertextual black-and-white movies) who is about to behead Carrie's ideal of a marriage devoid of societal expectations when he insinuates to spend two days apart every week. Carrie confesses, over a long-distance phone call, to having kissed an ex-boyfriend she encountered in the market. Big reacts in anger but in the end secures the deal with a black diamond, wedding ring (tradition sneaks in...put a ring on it!). The Cinderella tale resurfaces as she returns to the market to retrieve her passport (she had left if on the counter at the shoe stand when she encountered the mirage of her former prince charming). As the shoe vendor refused Carrie's monetary reward she decided that the best way to compensate this old man's good deed was to purchase "shoes for everyone" (Of course!).
The deterritorialization of Carrie and her girls to Abu Dahbi, the city of the future, enables them to put their lives in perspective; after all, they are not wearing burkhas as their Islamic counterparts, right?. Nonetheless, the girls take a shot at masculine insecurities back home as Miranda realizes that her former partner in the law firm was not afraid of her because she was a woman but because she had a voice. A voice that may not be silenced with a veil but rather by a sense of conformity, both in the sense of conforming with societal expectations and in the sense of choosing not to break through the glass ceiling. The feminist, egalitarian part of the movie seemed promising until the local women that helped the four girls escape (after Samantha confronted the men) disclose that they get tips from Suzanne Sommers' book and wear the latest fashions under their burkhas, again, globalization and rogue consumerism at its best.
The movie glorifies the rhetorical topic of escaping to distant and exotic lands to find ourselves, places that tend to be more distant and less affordable to the average citizen. Had Carrie and her friends revised Emerson's writings on self-reliance and American exceptionalism, they would have found their new selves in their own back yard, imitation bags and vintage watches included. The priciest is not necessarily the most genuine.
