There are a lot of awful men in Sex and the City. There was Greg, the 27-year-old Charlotte met in the Hamptons who gave her crabs; Harvey, a wealthy conquest of Samantha’s who had a servant; and let’s not forget Ethan, who could only have sex with Miranda with porn blaring in the background. (There was Aidan too, who I personally think was the ultimate fake, but that's another story.) But all 107 men Carrie and the girls dated and slept with pale in comparison to the biggest creep of them all: Julian Fisher. You remember Julian: He was briefly Carrie’s editor at Vogue in season four’s “A Vogue Idea” after her first editor, Enid (Candice Bergen), was made to appear like a critical ice queen for having high standards and deigning to tell Carrie her article was too self-involved, meandering, and not up to the magazine's ideals. Carrie whined, and poof—a menschy male editor appeared.
From the start, we understand Julian—played by industry vet Ron Rifkin—won’t be tough on "Cookie"—his inexplicable pet name for Carrie. He’s the fun one! The throwback who drinks during the day, plays jazz in the office, and tells Carrie she belongs at Vogue—but not before taking credit for her being there. The episode famously culminates in a sexualized cat-and-mouse scene that’s played for laughs: Once Carrie hits "save" on the final draft of her story, late at night in Julian’s office, he rewards her with a trip to her personal Mecca: the Vogue accessories closet. Inside, while Carrie covets a pair of mythical Manolo Blahnik Mary Janes, Julian pulls down his pants and stands with his hands on hips—wearing nothing but a pair of black Versace underwear.
When Carrie notices, she bellows, “What are you doing?!” To which Julian says, “Just showing you these briefs!” He goes on to snap the band of his Versace’s while Carrie hides and pratfalls over her own feet, blushing behind a rack of handbags. He doesn’t touch her, or force anything on her, and after a few awkward moments, Julian eventually puts his pants back on, leading the viewer to possibly conclude that he’s just a quirky guy. A real kook. This was just a page from a cringe-y, old-man-flirts-with-younger-woman playbook—nothing more. Or so I thought in 2001, when this episode aired.
But now, framed against the backdrop of #MeToo and the constant conversations we’re having about powerful men abusing their influence, I see Julian wasn’t just a mensch—this feels like textbook sexual harassment. So much so that he certainly would have earned himself a spot on the “shitty media men” list if such a thing existed back then.
And let me tell you, watching the episode again, which I did a few days ago, was shocking. From their first scene together, I felt that Julian appears to start using grooming tactics on a clearly vulnerable Carrie. He gently touches her chin, he grandly compliments her work and her “vision,” and he plies her with dry martinis in the morning—office door visibly shut—after she’s feeling rejected by Enid. Sure, you could say he was just trying to be nice and that the show was tapping into the glossy early-2000s media stereotype, but this time around I had a hard time shaking the vision of Carrie getting so drunk before noon that Julian actually has to hold her up, rag-doll style, while she walks out of the office.
After that, he takes her to dinner at a Japanese restaurant, and while, at first glance, it seemed like they had a meaningful conversation, I see now that Julian deftly extracted sensitive, personal information from Carrie and ultimately used it against her.
During the meal Carrie admits she’s thinking about quitting Vogue, and Julian asks, “What would your father say about your quitting?” to which she replies, “He wouldn’t have a whole lot to say about me quitting—he quit my mother and me when I was little.” This is actually the only time in the entire series Carrie talks about her father, and it’s because a powerful man brought it up. He then goes on to muse, "It’s interesting, your father leaves without any answers, and you spend your life asking questions about men.” Later, when Carrie rejects the half-nude Julian in the accessories closet, Julian uses Carrie’s “daddy issues,” to try to persuade her into sex. He tells her, “Cookie, as someone who really cares about you, I think you have some serious issues with men…. An older man can help you work through some of issues, Cookie.” Oh my God.
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Yet Julian’s behavior wasn’t the only trope familiar to me in this story. How Carrie presumably reacted was also part of a too-common narrative. After the incident, she ended up working with Enid, who we were made to dislike at the outset, and never reported Julian. She just shook it off. And since these incidents never happen in isolation, and typically indicate a larger pattern of abuse, it’s safe to assume Julian went on to harass more junior fashion editors and fledgling writers.
However, what struck me the most is that despite having access to Carrie’s internal narrative, we never get to hear how she truly feels about the incident. She doesn’t tells the girls about it over brunch, and the episode’s final monologue is a speech about how you’ll never have the perfect boss or parent. There’s no mention of the Versaces, not a Cookie pun, or even a reference to whether or not she got to keep the damn Mary Janes. The experience appears to have been completely erased.
Because for Carrie, and for women for far too long, workplace harassment wasn’t something you talked about. It was a dirty secret, something you had to grin and bear to get ahead. Think about it. Carrie chose to have a long and fruitful relationship with Vogue—even appearing in bridal couture in the mag’s pages during the Sex and the City movie. Would she have continued to work with the magazine if she had reported Julian? We’ll never know.
But now, 20 years after the premiere of Sex and the City, and nearly a year into the #MeToo movement, I’m reporting it for her.
