By Debbie Schlussel
Methinks Toronto Star columnist Peter Howell surrendered his man card.
In a column decrying the film critics–including myself and Roger Ebert–who didn’t like “Sex and the City,” he calls us “sexist” and claims that we are “threatened” by the success of these four non-existent, fictional sailor-esque man-chicks:

A lot of people who should know better are stunned and appalled that Sex and the City made the Earth move with its $57 million opening weekend, the most ever for an R-rated comedy. [DS: I wasn’t shocked. I predicted it. Most American women are incurable sheep-ettes.]
Could it be these people feel a little threatened, too? . . .

Even female scribes have been hexed by Sex. Film blogger Debbie Schlussel socked it to the sisters with a screed titled “Hags and the City,” in which she declared the release of SATC to be “a national IQ test for women” that many failed when they bought a ticket.
“Unfortunately, (the SATC foursome) are Delphic oracles to far too many American women, if the long lines of drooling women who packed four large theatres at a promotional screening I attended were any indication,” Schlussel wrote.
Why do so many critics and commentators have Sex on the brain? Are they unable to accept a movie about four successful women?

Um, you mean the movie about four successful men. They wear skirts and make-up, but they behave like the aging frat boys in “Old School.” They don’t act like women. And they sure don’t act like ladies.
And, FYI, they’re NOT successful, with the exception of the sluttiest–and most masculine among them–Samantha, the sex addict. Miranda, the lesbian-looking, emasculating red-head lawyer whose bartender hubby is the shrewed up chick in the relationship, isn’t doing so well. Another, Charlotte, doesn’t work and marries rich men. Gold-digging is not a profession. Or maybe it is. The starring role, Carrie, is a loser who lost her column, whose books aren’t that big, and who needs to marry a man to get her gold, as well.
And you never see these women work. They just gab, lunch, shop, swear, and have sex in various positions. Their success is a figment of Hollywood.
But here’s my fave part of Peter Howell’s column:

I can actually think of a rough male equivalent for SATC. It’s a film franchise about a man with a huge ego and unfettered sense of entitlement, who cavorts with people who have spectacular budgets for clothes, cars and travel. Our hero consumes vast quantities of liquor and caviar and thinks nothing of trashing his high-priced toys.
His name is James Bond. His 22nd movie, Quantum of Solace, is currently being filmed. And when it is released this fall, you won’t find anybody seriously suggesting that the enjoyment of it is a chance to get men out of the house, a degrading of the national IQ or a recruitment opportunity for the Taliban.
And why is that?

Peter, if you need to ask, that means the castration procedure was a success.
Carrie Bradshaw is the new “James Bond”? Please help me stop laughing.