Cristy Turner, "Fabulousness as Fetish: Queer Politics in Sex and the City"
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Stanford's Glitter

Gay men play a crucial role in Sex and the City as ambassadors of style and stand-ins for heterosexual relationships; gay men are the gatekeepers of all that is fabulous. Stereotypes of hyperfeminine, creative gay men—clichéd tropes of mainstream gay culture—create an idealized notion of glamour, the missing component in straight women's lives. The repetitious pairing of straight woman / gay man creates a glittering, cosmopolitan substitution for drab visions of conventional heterosexual monogamy and girls-only singledom. In this schema, male homosexuality is recoded as normative and decidedly nonsexual, while female sexuality is perpetually confined within gendered hierarchical relations of pseudo-heterosexuality. The heterosexual male is circumvented in the relationship, creating a space for identity and associations outside of heteronormative constraints. In this sense, the friendship seems to hold progressive potential because of its transgression of heterosexual authority. Yet, sexism and misogyny can and do exist among gay men, who still enjoy certain privileges as men in patriarchal culture. In this type of gay-straight/male-female dyad, women are exchanged for cultural acceptance in homophobic society while reifying heteronormativity. As Michael Warner argues, the intense "shame" attached to homosexuality is alleviated through efforts at assimilation into heteronormative society, often by public distancing from actual, bodily acts of sex in favor of sanitized, sexless subjectivity in mainstream culture (1999). Homophobic notions of immoral, seedy gay lifestyles are de-clawed through relationships with straight women.

On Sex and the City, Carrie's "gay husband" Stanford offers a prime example of both the assimilationist roles of gay male characters and the simultaneous paternalism of the relationship. "All That Glitters . . ." (episode 62), a particularly salient episode in season 4, depicts a burgeoning friendship between Carrie and Oliver, a handsome gay shoe salesman. They begin secretly to "date," unbeknownst to Stanford. He soon discovers their clandestine friendship and is visibly jealous, accusing Carrie of cheating on him. He cries, "I was prepared to lose you to [your fiancé] Aidan, but not this!" Carrie and Stanford's relationship takes on a decidedly heterosexual nature as Claude Levi-Strauss's notion of the exchange of women's bodies in kinship systems is literally played out in the interaction between Oliver and Stanford. The men bicker over who gets to "have" Carrie, who serves as a bridge between them. Cultural critic Helene Shugart argues that gay characters subtly exercise "paternalistic control of women . . . refram[ing] gay male sexuality as an extension of heterosexual male privilege predicated on control of female sexuality" (Shugart 80). The importance of homosocial bonds and the exchange value of women extend across male subjectivities, working to reify hierarchical gender relations and subtly condone sexism. Further, Oliver and Stanford seem to argue over who deserves to enjoy the privileges available through assimilation into heteronormative culture. This scene not only reflects the power of upward mobility for gay men, enabled through companionship with heterosexual women in a homophobic society, but also replays the straight woman's fantasy of having men fight over her. Homosexual interactions remain secondary to heteronormative relationships. The exchange of women delimits discourses of gay male sexuality, overshadowing relationship development and the exchange of sex between men. Why are these men fighting over Carrie instead of fucking each other?

Despite the necessary presence of gay male characters to buttress the fabulousness of straight female characters, heterosexual relationships and heteronormativity still take center stage. Gay men are useful only for their color swatches, fashion tips, and cheeky one-liners, as audiences are encouraged to ignore the sexual and gender politics deeply embedded in these social relations. Similar to screen relations in "black buddy" films of the 1980s, which dictated that "interracial buddies can be such only when the white buddy is in charge" (Bogle 272), Sex and the City's gay characters exist as accessories for increasing the cultural capital and "cool" of the female characters. Forever relegated to secondary status, the buddy serves a dual purpose: as a supportive presence for the protagonist, and as a cultural spokesperson for the marginalized group within mainstream discourse. Bogle notes that in interracial buddy films, "the black performer function[s] as a sidekick . . . or bless[es] his white friend with a tender loyalty and imparts some comforting spiritual insight" (272). We can see the similarities in Stanford's loyalty to Carrie; in times of crisis, he serves as a shoulder to cry on, stylish second opinion, or catty relationship guru. The buddy also perpetuates a strategy of containment, delimiting "safe" space around a non-normative character in order to neutralize possible alienation of dominant audiences. According to Ed Guerrero, the buddy formula attracts the "demographically broadest possible audience while negotiating, containing, and fantastically resolving the tangled and socially charged issue of race relations on the screen" (240). In a similar manner, the gay sidekick, contained within a normative role as the asexual, fabulous friend, presents a semblance of "diversity" or progressive intent. Yet ultimately the role works as a sanitizing and assimilationist attempt at demarcating the boundaries of acceptable queer culture within white heteronormativity rather than portraying the nuances of realistic queer life. Further, like the black buddy, the gay buddy is isolated from queer culture in the larger sense. Shugart observes that gay characters are presented as "capable of being wholly grafted onto established heterosexual communities and contexts; and second, that their presence is used as a catalyst for heterosexual characters' growth and understanding" (69). Just as well-adjusted and non-threatening interracial buddy characters serve as mediators for larger racial tensions in society, desexualized, fun-and-fruity gay characters stand as envoys of homosexual culture in a heteronormative society. Through Stanford, Carrie is able to disidentify from the mainstream marriage culture represented by her engagement to Aidan, but, in an unexpected turn, Stanford's stealth straightness repositions her in the same objectified and secondary gender position she would have occupied as a wife; his gay glitter is hardly queer gold.