Sex and the City vs. Lipstick Jungle

Original Channel

Sex and the City: HBO

Lipstick Jungle: NBC

Creators

SATC: DeAnn Heline, Eileen Heisler

Lipstick Jungle: Darren Star

Stars

SATC: Sarah-Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Cynthia Nixon, Kristin Davis

Lipstick Jungle: Brooke Shields, Kim Raver, Lindsay Price

Air dates

SATC: June 6, 1998 – February 22, 2004

Lipstick Jungle: February 7, 2008 – January 9, 2009

Season structure (Season One)

SATC: 12 episodes of 30 minutes

Lipstick Jungle: 7 episodes of 47 minutes

Why?

NYC women balancing love and careers in their 30s

     

Similarities

Female friendship: SATC has 4, LJ  has 3, but female friendship in a tight-knit group ties the shows together. Even though we see their respective story lines, the characters are always brought back together at certain points to discuss their problems and get advice from each other. That support is what helps them through the ups and downs of their relationships and careers.

SATC as a predecessor: Lipstick Jungle isn’t an exact SATC copycat. Rather, it picks up where SATC left off. These are women at the height (or almost) of their careers. They’re in their late 30s, married with successful careers, and even a few children. When SATC started, they were all single and in their early 30s, doing well in their careers but not quite at the point of the LJ ladies. LJ is less “single girl” than SATC was at its start.

Differences

Work Focus: We see Carrie et al. in their various jobs at certain points, and Carrie’s column serves as the voiceover for SATC. However, Lipstick Jungle’s main theme is the ups and downs of women pursuing careers. That idea of power and how it affects all aspects of their lives, including relationships, is the main focus, whereas in SATC the focus is solely on relationships. For example, Wendy is a career woman; she and her husband struggle with her being in the position of power and her husband dealing with the kids. This is similar to Miranda and Steve later in the series for SATC, but her work isn’t referred to quite as much. There’s a lot of talk on LJ of the ways women have to deal with failure and success.

Sex: It’s in the name for one of them. LJ refers to it and shows bits and pieces, but it definitely does not take center stage like it does in SATC. SATC’s central focus and theme is really female friendship and navigating relationships, but part of that involves sex. While it’s not always realistic, the way it’s discussed and shown is still far more realistic than in LJ, where the friends talk around it rather than tackle it head on. Because of this, it does seem watered down and less revolutionary for television than SATC was, not just because it came 10 years after.

Conclusion

These really are two very different shows, even though they may seem similar on the surface due to their “glamorous women in NYC” vibe. Lipstick Jungle is more about careers, with friendship and relationships on the side, while Sex and the City is the reverse. SATC is also more comedic, and doesn’t try so hard to, you know, say, something about women. It just does it. This probably has to do with it coming first, and making a statement that LJ then tried to follow and copy somewhat. SATC also benefits from its depiction of sex in relationships, which doesn’t seem superfluous as it is so often on cable. This time, it exists for a reason, and makes the show better for it.