YESTERDAY! TODAY! FIVE MINUTES AGO! NOW!

Can we all agree that the new Sex and the City 2 billboards are an assault not only to our senses, but also our intelligence?

Apparently someone thinks that we should no longer be privy to Carrie’s real hands, face, and even SKIN COLOR.

Carrie on with what, billboard? With our decision to take our diamonds, crush them up and have them surgically encrusted onto our bodies? (What hath Edward Cullen wrought!)

Remember this?

It was a bit much, sure, with the muscles and the rose and those other muscles that you didn’t even think existed. But it was simple, accurate and displayed a naturally-attainable color palette. You may not have agreed with her size-twelve-girls ensemble, but you couldn’t deny that it was great that she hadn’t listened to anyone telling her not to wear it, even if it looked like her hulk arms had denied the shirt its natural sleeves. At least the rhinestones were still on her shirt. The aesthetic was pure and the brands were almost nonexistent.

I mean, is anyone still unaware that over ten years have passed since this show started? I don’t think anyone forgot?

I really, seriously want to know why this marketing aesthetic is now the original of its opposite. What focus group agreed to this gold-plated x-ray version of Carrie? Who are the women who prefer Edwardface instead of a SJP face? What happened to au naturale, and who, in the past decade, is responsible for its dissolution? Is the market so weak and the consumer so dulled that they have to take a face we all grew up with in one way or another and be told that it, in fact, didn’t? Or that even if it did, we’re not allowed to see it? I’d really like to trace the path from the bare-midriff, fuck all pale, etc, to mineralface, since it now apparently symbolizes our times.

We need a bit of New Old up in here, and not the kind they’re going for.