Selling "Sex and the City"

The poster for the new movie, “Sex and the City 2” can be seen hanging in movie theatres, adorning windows of public places everywhere, and even covering every inch of the façade of a building around 42^nd Street and 6^th Avenue in Manhattan. The poster is immediately recognizable and easily identifiable as the poster for the new movie, even though it includes no pink, no Cosmos, no Manolos, and only one of the fabulous foursome of Carrie, Charlotte, Samantha, and Miranda.

In fact, what is most interesting about this ad is that it does not say “Sex and the City” anywhere except in tiny, almost unnoticeable print at the bottom of the poster, advertising the link to the movie’s website. Yet the image of the poster still firmly denotes “Sex and the City”. We do not need to see the actual name of the movie. We only need to see Sarah Jessica Parker as the always fashionable Carrie Bradshaw and the giant “2” behind her to understand what the poster is trying to advertise. Sarah Jessica Parker could almost be called an indexical sign because as Bignell says that “smoke is an index of fire”, SJP is an index of “Sex and the City”.

The ad also has many connotations. It may just be a picture of a woman in front of a number “2” with some faint images of Manhattan in the background, but we still associate the poster with fashion, beauty, sex, friends, relationships, and most of all, love. And once again, the reason we draw these associations is due to the image of Sarah Jessica Parker—she is the signifier that represents and encompasses all these greater concepts, these signified concepts.

Also interesting to point out are the words “Carrie On” near the bottom of the poster. The play on words with the SJP character’s name “Carrie” in the place of “carry” is quite clever, but this phrase also represents the myth that we should continually pursue love until we find it, never giving up, no matter what happens. This is one of the main myths presented in “Sex in the City” as well, that there is someone out there for everyone, and that if you believe in love, you will find it and everything will work out. The marketing minds that conceived this poster got a lot of “bang for the buck”. The imagery and the minimal words speak the message clearly and completely and create excitement for the upcoming movie.