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American Morning

Interview with Michael Medved, Dennie Hughes

Aired August 07, 2002 - 08:48   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What did you do last night?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Went to a movie.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: With who?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Myself.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: On date night?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Are we still going to have to call it date night in our 50s?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I would just think that all the people would be looking at me thinking, That poor pathetic girl.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Kind of like the way I'm looking at you right now?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: They're the queens of what some people consider the shallow singles scene, but off screen, the four stars of "Sex and the City" have far more traditional lives.

In a recent op-ed piece, syndicated radio talk show host Michael Medved took the show to task for glamorizing a dysfunctional lifestyle instead of the lives that the ladies are leading themselves. He is joining us from Seattle, Washington this morning, and with us on the other side of the country, and the other side of the discussion, from Tampa, Florida, "USA Weekend" columnist, Dennie Hughes -- good morning, ladies and gentlemen.

MICHAEL MEDVED, TALK SHOW HOST: Good morning.

DENNIE HUGHES, COLUMNIST, "USA WEEKEND": Good morning.

KAGAN: Michael, you stirred this one up, so let's start with you. Are you basically offended by "Sex and the City"?

MEDVED: Oh, not at all. It's a very clever show, it is a very witty show, so it is on HBO, so it doesn't have the same kinds of restrictions that you have on broadcast networks. But my point in the column was simply that it is ironic that the creator of "Sex and the City" in the first place, the character that Carrie Bradshaw is based on, Candice Bushnell (ph), just got married, and she said when she got married on July 4 that this is a natural thing to do, everybody does this. And everybody, that is, except for the people who are characters on the show. In real life, Sarah Jessica Parker is pregnant, she is forced to hide it on the show. Cynthia Nixon is pregnant. The Samantha character, Kim Cattrall, wrote a book about the joy of sex inside marriage, and yet they have a mandate from the producers of the show that you can't show that kind of thing on TV. It is kind of ironic...

KAGAN: But Michael, that's why they call it fiction. They make it up. They're actors, it's pretend.

MEDVED: Sure. Of course it is.

KAGAN: It's not an autobiography of these people's lives.

MEDVED: I understand. But most people in America get their impression of real life from TV, and that's simply the way it is. Once upon a time, they prettified (ph) dysfunctional behavior on TV. You had people who were stars and icons of the TV world who were very dysfunctional in reality, and yet on screen they were wholesome, and baking apple pie. Today, it works in the opposite direction, and it's sort of peculiar, it is an odd kind of hypocrisy where you're not allowed to show wholesomeness that you may choose in real life.

KAGAN: Well, Dennie, let's bring you in here, a girlfriend to girlfriend moment. Do you get a reflection of what our real lives are as women by watching "Sex and the City"?

HUGHES: You know what, Michael's a terrific writer, but he's so obviously never been a single woman, dating.

KAGAN: Boy, Michael, do we need to have some talks with you.

MEDVED: Well...

HUGHES: Single women in the city, this is what they do, they deal with, like...

KAGAN: Well, to a certain respect.

HUGHES: ... crazy relationships, they sleep with people, yes. And the character differences -- you're talking about people who may be a little bit more immoral than they are in real life, but the way I see it, you have Miranda, who just had a baby. Miranda, it could have -- it's an "oops" baby, she could have aborted that baby. That was a decision she didn't make, and it was kind of like true to life for her. Kim Cattrall had -- has a relationship now, and she wrote a book about it...

MEDVED: It's not a relationship, it's a marriage.

HUGHES: ... but in "Sex and the City," she's trying to have a relationship.

KAGAN: No, in the show, Michael. She had a brush with commitment, the Kim Cattrall character.

MEDVED: Right. I understand what you are saying...

(CROSSTALK)

HUGHES: They are all trying to have these commitments, and Candice Bushnell (ph), yes, she got married at 43, but if you don't think that she was having this fun when she was young, it is about being young and single and dating.

KAGAN: I will tell you one thing that is not realistic, Michael...

(CROSSTALK)

MEDVED: But the thing is that lots -- lots of people who are young and single and dating, including all the single women that I know, not only want to get married, but many of them often do, as people in the show -- the actresses behind the scene's show. One of the things that I think is destructive here, is not the idea that, one, you have people who live in New York who wear great outfits and sleep around. Obviously, that is a reality, but what is destructive here...

HUGHES: It's a reality everywhere.

MEDVED: Of course it is. But what's destructive here is the notion that somehow once you get married, life isn't exciting enough to tell a story about, and that simply is not true for most of us (ph)...

(CROSSTALK)

HUGHES: No, what's destructive here...

KAGAN: But Michael, there are other shows -- there are other shows on television that reflect married life. I think what was refreshing...

HUGHES: Sure.

KAGAN: ... and attractive to young women, young single women is, wow, here's a show about four girlfriends, and it doesn't necessarily have to have main male characters. It focuses on the female friendships, and those lives. It's just different.

MEDVED: Of course I understand that.

HUGHES: And let me tell you something...

MEDVED: By the way, I'm not attacking "Sex and the City"...

HUGHES: Oh, I didn't think so.

MEDVED: ... as some kind of assault on the foundations of the republic. What I'm talking about a peculiar kind of hypocrisy that we have that reverses the old style hypocrisy. I think it's much more dangerous, frankly, to have people who may choose wholesome values in their personal lives who then can't express them in public, in their creative lives, in their fictional lives, if you will. That's more dangerous than the other direction. Oscar Wilde said...

HUGHES: It's acting. It is an acting role.

MEDVED: .... that "hypocrisy is the tribute that virtue pays to vice," -- pardon me, "that vice pays to virtue." And that tribute it seems to me is worth paying, it is sometimes worth paying to actually talk about functional values.

KAGAN: Perhaps. Perhaps it's just a gender thing.

HUGHES: I think the hypocrisy here -- can I just say...

KAGAN: Real quickly, Dennie.

HUGHES: ... the hypocrisy here is you saying that marriage and children is the ultimate joy of life, because for many people, gay couples who don't -- who are not able to get married legally in this country, for people who choose not to have children, that is not the ultimate joy in their lives, and I think that is kind of a broad statement.

MEDVED: And that is a very, very small number of Americans, frankly.

KAGAN: I can hear the e-mail, I can hear the click, click, click, on the keyboards now. The e-mail is going to start coming in.

Dennie and Michael, thank you to both of us -- to both of you for joining us.

MEDVED: Thank you.

KAGAN: And I will just say, the most unrealistic thing about "Sex and the City" are the high heels those women wear. There's no way you can walk around New York City in those shoes.

HUGHES: I can.

KAGAN: Then you're going to have to come give me some lessons because I have reverted to tennis shoes. Dennie, thank you. Michael, thank you for joining us.

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