Revisiting Sex and the City: Are Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda what they used to be?
I re-watched the first six seasons of the HBO cult series and I found myself having a completely different perspective of this TV show.
When I happily found out I had a free trial for HBO Max, I immediately started looking at their catalog to find out what was available. As I was flipping through, I decided to start by getting back to where I had been the happiest and that meant re-watching the six seasons of Sex and the City, one of the most beloved shows of my teen years. The show premiered on HBO in 1998 so what better thing to do to celebrate its 25th anniversary than to re-visit Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker), Miranda Hobbes (Cynthia Nixon), Charlotte York (Kristin Davis) and Samantha Jones (Kim Cattrall), the four brilliant women whom I followed like goddesses when growing up.
When Sex and the City premiered, I hadn’t even entered my teen years, and at that time, watching something from HBO in Europe was not that easy. I probably (definitely) had to do something illegal to catch a glimpse of it and when I finally managed to find it, it was one of the most revolutionary things I had ever seen.
For me, a young girl from a small European town, the lives of Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda were a dream. Four intelligent, fun, independent best friends living in the most fascinating or fabulous city in the world: New York. They had nice jobs, comfy apartments, great clothes, even better shoes, and men, a lot of men. And the best part about is they were not apologetic about any of it. Their sexual freedom and experimentation were liberating and it was the first time I ever saw women being portrayed like that on television.
The fact that of the four, three were not looking for marriage or deeply desiring to have kids was invigorating and represented a strong statement against society’s conservatism. It deconstructed expectations and clichés on what a woman’s life should be while simultaneously raising an imaginary middle finger to the ones who insist on pattingon the back and making pitiful eyes to everyone who might want something different. In the end, the lesson was simple: everybody should just live as they please without having to justify their choices or be judged by them.
They were everything I wanted to be when I grew up (a cliché, I know, I apologize in advance). I imagined that I would have my apartment in the city, work in an art museum, buy designer clothes and spend the weekends hanging out with my friends while eating at the best restaurants to then head to the best parties. I could also see exhibitions and shows and walk around town with a coffee in my hand. It turns out, I don’t even like coffee so, as you can see, my fairytale unfolded differently.
But the most important thing was the beautiful friendship. It was all about having your best ones by your side through life, in sickness and health, during the worst and best of times, to hold your head while crying and laughing hysterically in good times. Is about the power that women can have together.
Throughout the years, I have re-watched the show, or parts of it, many times, but it had been out of my radar for some years. So, when I saw it on the HBO Max catalog, I decided to give it another go. I was excited to revisit these four old friends in New York but the truth is I ended up kind of disappointed because it hit in a completely different way than I was expecting and I couldn’t help but wonder, have they always been like this?
I know I’m stepping into forbidden ground when talking about something so beloved to so many, myself included, but for every good thing Sex and the City had, I found two bad things that annoyed me and made me roll my eyes countless times.
First, the four characters are sold as smart, independent women who run their lives without needing a man to steer the bot. However, their lives and conversations seem to almost exclusively revolve around finding one. The numbers are not official but more than 70% of the show is them scrutinizing every single detail in every little interaction they have with a man. Of course, doing it while walking around New York in Manolo Blahnik is visually appealing and way more fun for viewers but I found it not only boring, repetitive and even vain, but also the opposite of everything they claim to be.
Being independent does not mean not wanting a relationship, is wider and deeper than that. Means knowing and supporting yourself and your ideas without anyone else commanding your life. Means being capable, having interests of your own and doing things for yourself that you enjoy. Means living your life by your ideals, not allowing anyone to undermine them.
If at first glance the characters may seem independent, the fact that their obsession and favorite theme of conversation seems to be everything in between meeting men and ending a relationship while lacking interest in other things, seems to say otherwise. Also, how they change behavior and shape themselves to please men combined with stopping having time for their friends, supports my theory.
I know we are social beings and everybody (almost) wants to fall in love and find that perfect somebody with whom to share life and for those who are looking, the quest may not be easy and will have a lot of bumps, so it’s essential to have friends to help you go through the hard stuff and celebrate the victories. But life is much more than one-night stands, first dates and relationships and reducing it to boy trouble seems limiting. I understand the word sex is in the name of the show and their main point is to scrutinize relationships and sexual life from a woman’s point of view but you can do it without doing JUST that.
The show could be so much more interesting if they comprehensively explored what is it like to be a woman. The scene between Carrie and Charlotte when she has a miscarriage feels minor and lacks the intensity it could have had when it comes to depicting such a strong moment in a woman’s life. When so many still suffer in silence when going through something so heartbreaking, they could have done better. Especially when comparing other moments in the same episode, for example, when Miranda talks endlessly with Carrie on the phone in a hysterical mode because she didn’t say “I love you” back to her neighbor and boyfriend, Dr. Robert.
Despite this example, I felt that, thankfully, in the last two seasons, the series evolved and embraced more openly other subjects like work-life balance, motherhood, fertility and even sickness, which made it much more interesting and real in depicting the struggles women have to face.
Another thing that broke my heart is how my thoughts about Carrie Bradshaw have dramatically changed and I appeared to have gone from love to well… dislike (to be polite)! She seems to be an annoying person, full of herself, self-centered, queen of bad puns and whose dialogue with men consisted of little more than bad small talk while making little laughing faces.
Also, isn’t she the most selfish character ever? Her typical behavior consists of spending hours obsessing about her dating life without paying little attention to her friend’s problems. And even other characters get fed up and call her out, as Stanley and Miranda rightly did. Her relationship with Stanley is an example of how not to treat a friend: she’s disrespectful, selfish and completely alienates him. In fact, Stanley sometimes only seems to exist in the show to fill in the gay friend quota every fashionable woman needs to have. It’s annoying.
And when others try to engage in a conversation about other subjects, she appears insubstantial and small-minded. In the last season, when she meets Aleksandr Petrovsky, is painful to see how she has no interest in art or poetry, just Vogue and clothes. Don’t get me wrong, I love clothes too, but man, you can like that and other things at the same time, don’t limit yourself.
And don’t even get me started on the whole Big and Aiden thing. She was the most insufferable character when in a relationship with them both. With Big, she was a needy girl desperate about how uncommitted and emotionless he was while with Aiden she behaved the opposite way, acting just like Big. And the affair? Was it just me or did she assume the victim role, unwilling to have one person dare to say to her she was being unloyal? I’m sorry, I’m trying not to get annoyed but I simply can’t.
Before I end my list I need to address the group dynamic towards Charlotte. She was the conservative one who existed to represent women’s traditional behavior and even though I do not identify with her manners and opinions on most subjects, she’s allowed to think that way and to want certain things for her life. The side eyes and annoyed faces between the other members of the group got on my nerves. Shouldn’t we act differently from the ones we criticize? Don’t we criticize women who look at us differently when we say we don’t want to get married or have kids? Why do the same things to the ones who want?
Sex and the City was innovative and it will always have a place in my heart because it marked my teen years and it showed me that was fine to have fun as a single woman, wanting other things for your life than marriage and kids. It’s still freeing to see women running through New York City laughing with each other while being free adults who live as they please. It also has great TV moments and it surely marked a generation. Who hasn’t cried and laughed countless times watching it? Who hasn’t worshiped Carrie’s outfits and the whole fashion of the show? Who has never said “I’m a Carrie” or “I’m a Samantha”? Who has never been with friends at a Sunday brunch and said “We are just like them?”. Don’t lie! We all did at some point in our lives.
So, I don’t know if it’s because I’m older, in a different period of my life and just see the world differently, or if the world changed so much that what was ground-breaking at the time just feels limiting in 2023. Maybe it’s a sign society has evolved and having women openly talking about their sexuality and desires it’s so normal that we want more or maybe when we see something so many times, we start looking at other things we don’t notice the first time around and see the unnoticeable flaws. I’m not sure what it is, I just know it felt different this time and not in the best way.
