'Lipstick' Smudges on a Big-City Collar

The Big Apple? Get real. New York City—at least the one showcased in NBC's Lipstick Jungle—is more akin to a gigantic, juicy passion fruit.

Lipstick, one of the heirs apparent to HBO's much-buzzed-about Sex and the City, is all about the perils of being rich, powerful and a woman in the wilds of Manhattan. What, you say? It doesn't sound so tough? Hey, don't judge these high-income beautiful people until you've walked a mile in their stiletto-heeled shoes.

We're Kidding
Take Wendy, for instance. She's a movie studio exec who, when she says, "jump," a dozen underlings instantly turn into grasshoppers. But she's got a family, too: husband, kids, a cat with stomach issues. Don't laugh. It's got to be torture juggling hundred-million-dollar movie projects with morning pancakes. Just ask any of your neighbors who have the same problem.

Then there's Nico, the magazine editor. She's really got it tough, what with her demanding job and dealing with her husband who, alas, isn't giving her all the lovin' she wants. So she hooks up with a twentysomething pretty boy in a conveniently located ladies' room and they begin a tawdry affair. And if that's not a tricky secret to keep I don't know what is.

Not feeling compassionate yet? Well, what about Victoria Ford, a former "it" fashion designer who's fallen on hard times and can barely afford her tony New York townhouse and the hand-blown beads with which she works. Victoria must be completely, utterly miserable, finding her only solace in the arms of her billionaire boyfriend.

OK, so maybe you have a point. This isn't exactly a show loaded with everywomen dealing with pithy problems in a realistic (much less moralistic) way. This is drama-by-Barbie, if Barbie's Malibu Dream Home came with a well-stocked bar and barrels full of contraceptive devices.

Rumble in the Jungle
Lipstick Jungle and ABC's Cashmere Mafia are in a television face off for Sex and the City's rabid, spurned fan base, and both have a debutante-like pedigree. Lipstick is helmed by Candace Bushnell, the brains behind Sex and the City. Cashmere is produced by former Sex producer Darren Star. Both new shows take place in New York, feature powerful women and serve up high fashion and low humor. The main difference would seem to be that Cashmere boasts four main characters to Lipstick's three. More is better, right?

Not so. In terms of ratings, Lipstick is kicking Cashmere around with its high-heeled boot—a bit of a Pyrrhic victory for family advocates, as it's a touch more family friendly. But just a touch, mind you.

While Cashmere is almost completely obsessed with sex, fashion and cocktail hour, Lipstick occasionally trots out positive messages. Wendy, for instance, obviously cares for her kids, even (perhaps especially) as she tells her 14-year-old daughter she can't have a cell phone. When a teen star's mother/manager tells Wendy that her daughter wants the lead in a sexually explicit film, Wendy steers the girl to a project geared more for young adults. She also tells Mommy Dearest, "Your client needs a mother right now more than a manager."

And when Nico bemoans the fact that her out-of-wedlock beau has slapped her with a sexual-harassment lawsuit, Wendy's support goes just so far.

"It makes no sense," Nico says. "I mean, we were so intimate."

"No, you weren't," Wendy responds. "You were naked. Intimacy is what you have with [your husband]."

Ouch
But those moments do little to dab away Lipstick's smudges. Every episode features at least one steamy sex scene full of passionate kisses and lingering shots of exposed flesh (legs, backs, etc.). Wendy and her husband have sex on a thumping washing machine. Nico and her boy toy have sex on a food-laden table.

You get the idea.

And while sex may be the show's most noticeable bugaboo, it's not the only one. Indeed, Lipstick Jungle revels in a veritable shopping spree through the Seven Deadly Sins. Characters sometimes swear and frequently drink. (We see alcohol so often that the credits should include a proof label.) But tops on the sinful shopping list—even above the sexy one of lust—is avarice. These women have incredible lives. And what's their biggest collective problem? It's not enough to satisfy: They want more. Bigger careers. Better sex. Happier families. Firmer abs. They cling to their success with an air of desperation—as if their six- or seven-figure paychecks validate their lives.

"I am a very strong believer that we should be telling teenage girls that a great deal of fulfillment and happiness comes from having a career, from working hard and from really pursuing achievements," said Bushnell during a recent conference call.

That can be true. But the way Bushnell's ethos comes out on the screen peddles the myth that women—that all of us—can live lives without sacrifice, where every aspect of our day can be filled to the brim. It treats days, weeks and months like multi-colored credit cards with no limits and no need to ever pay the bill, never really acknowledging that there's always a bill. Everything worth doing requires time to do it well: careers, marriages, families, our own sanity. We spend that time on what's most important to us, and we only have a limited amount of time to spend. When push comes to shove, life is about choices. We can't have it all. And no amount of wealth, power or prestige will ever change that.

So, to review: 1) Time is precious. 2) We all must make choices with how we spend that time. 3) Lipstick Jungle is an hour-long program that airs every week.