Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 23, 2005; Page C01
Let me be the first to wish Sarah Jessica Parker happy birthday. The actress, who became a television icon playing sex columnist Carrie Bradshaw in "Sex and the City," turns 40 on Friday. Somebody send her a bunch of red balloons, a la Mr. Big, to mark the occasion.
Her milestone birthday might have passed relatively unnoticed but for the unceremonious dumping by the Gap, which announced Monday that Parker is being replaced by 17-year-old British singer Joss Stone as the clothing company's celebrity spokesmodel.
Let me also be the first to predict that indignant equal-opportunists will fling their Manolo Blahniks across the room and loudly decry yet another example of the sexism/ageism/injustice that afflicts the modern woman. Middle-aged actresses will sigh dramatically on "The View," dime-store feminists will offer the "how little society has really changed" exegeses and Gap executives will join Harvard President Larry Summers in the politically incorrect woodshed. Cue the violins and pour the cosmos.
Time out for a reality check.
The timing of the announcement was unfortunate, given that the Gap just unrolled its spring commercials with the khaki-clad Parker trilling "I Enjoy Being a Girl." It's tempting to assume the plotline of this particular celebrity breakup is "great older woman loses out once again to younger replacement." But remember, what "Sex and the City" did so brilliantly for six years was to slice through the stereotypes of modern sexual politics and teach that the easy explanation wasn't always the correct one.
A quick review: The last season of "Sex" wrapped up in February 2004, and shortly thereafter the Gap announced it had signed Parker to promote its casual wear. It was the first multi-season contract in the company's history, and the glamorous fashion icon was paid a reported $38 million to star in ad campaigns that started in fall 2004 and were to end this spring.
Let me repeat that: $38 MILLION. Assuming she started work on the project a year ago, that comes to roughly $3 million a month, or $104,109 a day -- not that she worked every day. (I'd give you the exact figure, but you know how tough math is for women.) This is in addition to her new HBO deal, her perfume deal, her closet full of amazing clothes, shoes and handbags . . . but I digress.
Gap was desperate for housewives, singles and anyone else to punch up sluggish sales. "I think they felt the need for an iconic but contemporary face to represent Gap. . . . I think they were perhaps feeling a little insecure, a little in need of some high luster around the brand," said Wendy Liebmann, president of WSL Strategic Retail. Parker, worshiped for her quirky urban chic, was supposed to draw in millions of women who wanted to look just like her. Robert Passikoff, president of Brand Keys, a New York market-research firm, calls it " 'Field of Dreams' branding" -- except in this case they didn't come.
So now the retailer is opting for professional models to sell "our product story of white denim" for the summer season, with the teenaged Stone and her music featured in television commercials, according to the company's statement Monday. It added that the company has "no future plans" to sign any more multi-season deals.
Substituting a 17-year-old celebrity for a 39-year-old celebrity could be another bonehead choice by Gap executives, but it's a free market and they are within their rights not to renew Parker's contract. Officially, Parker says the split is mutual, although the tabloids are already buzzing that she's really humiliated -- not because she's been replaced by a younger woman, but a virtual unknown.
Numbers are catnip for those who like to divide the world into the Favored and the Forgotten. But for the record: Forty is not the "new 30" no matter how cute you are, and most teenagers don't want to look like any 39-year-old, no matter how chic. The reality is that 40 is still 40, even with Botox and really cute khakis. The eyes still go, the knees aren't quite as flexible, and sometimes older and wiser is not a fair trade for crow's feet or alimony. The question is not if we age but how gracefully we do it.
Are ageism and sexism real problems? Yes. Are they the problem in this case? Impossible to know for sure, but to label it as such trivializes real cases of discrimination for qualified people desperately fighting to hold onto their jobs.
Please, please, please. Pay me $38 million for a year's work, then drop me faster than one of George Clooney's girlfriends. I'll live. Trust me.
Gap, Inc. is headquartered in San Francisco, California
 Sarah Jessica Parker has lost her fashion cache with Gap Inc. The U.S. clothier said it was dropping the star of its current and ubiquitous ''I Enjoy Being a Girl'' television advertising campaign and buying out her contract.

Parker who turns 40 Friday and is best known for  her role as the Manolo Blahnik shoe-crazed Carrie Bradshaw on the HBO comedy, ''Sex and the City,'' was ousted after less than one year of a multi-year contract.  She signed a three-year $38 million deal with the San Francisco-based retailer in mid-2004 and has only appeared in ads for the company since the 2004 holiday season.

"While Gap will always seek partnerships with celebrities, musicians and rising stars, we don't have any future plans to sign a single person to a multi-season deal like the unique and special relationship we enjoyed with Sarah Jessica," Gap said in a statement Monday, stopping short of calling the ad campaign a failure. One such rising star slated to appear in the upcoming summer white denim promotion for Gap is 17-year-old Grammy-nominated British singer Joss Stone. 

Although Gap would not say its Parker ad campaign was less than successful, the same can not be said for stock market pundits. "If you're like me, and have gotten a little sick of hearing Sarah Jessica Parker sing about how much she likes being a girl on those Gap commercials," Alyce Lomax, a stock market commentator for The Motley Fool web site, said. "Investors who have been watching this stock know that despite the best efforts of Ms. Parker and the creative teams that came up with the ads, Gap's quarterly fashion sense continues to be, well, flattish ... in the meantime, other, hotter retailers have stolen the show."

In a statement to reporters, Parker called the spilt with Gap a mutual decision, and walks away $38 million richer and recently signed a 2-year deal with former employer HBO to develop future programming for the network. Parker is also scheduled to appear in two upcoming comedy films, a movie adaptation of the Comedy Central series, ''Strangers with Candy'', as well as ''The Family Stone'', costarring Diane Keaton and Claire Danes.