Taboos in Space

(Please focus on the first minute of this clip).
In this clip from “Sex and the City,” we see Samantha, the middle aged successful businesswoman with her boyfriend/model Smith, who is a good twenty years younger than her walking down the street in the daytime in the city. Although they have been in a long-term, monogamous relationship, Samantha is afraid to hold Smith’s hand in public, amplifying the role of place in the behavior between humans. As Barker explains in the section, “Space and Place in Contemporary Theory,” spaces are divided to encompass different definitions for social interactions (374). For example, someone’s dining room in their house is known as an intimate space where people can act however they like, whereas the restaurant is a public place where people abide by specific social rules. We can employ “Goffman’s (1969) concepts of ‘front’ and ‘back’ regions,” to relate this video clip to cultural theory (Barker 374). Samantha and Smith are in front space, as if they’re on a stage with other city people as their audience. When they’re at home or with a group of friends, those spaces are the “back” in that they are figuratively “behind the scenes” (374). Culture defines what is appropriate for the front and back regions of space, and it is evident through this clip that the culture these elite socialites inhabit may not be accepting of their massive age gap. This clip pokes fun at the presumed absurdity of this idea by causing Samantha to break her toe in avoidance of the taboo act.