By Valentina Swan
Carrie Bradshaw, a successful column writer for The New York Star, graciously shares her romantic life with the women of New York in the HBO original, “Sex and the City.” Bradshaw, played by actress Sarah Jessica Parker, spends her time writing about her fascinating dating life and shares insights on finding the “right” man. She frequently struggles between saving money like a responsible 30-year-old or splurging on fancy dinners and the latest pair of Manolo Blahniks. Women’s problems must always revolve around clothes, shoes and relationships, right?
Set in New York City, Carrie and her three best friends, Miranda, Charlotte and Samantha, bond over the fact that they are single in the greatest city in the world. Throughout the show’s six seasons, the girls flow in and out of both casual and serious relationships with a wide variety of men (and women), learning many things about themselves along the way.
John Preston, more commonly known as Mr. Big, is Bradshaw’s controversial on-and-off love interest who leaves her in some pretty tough situations. In some of these situations, Bradshaw finds herself compromising her own sanity just to go back to, frankly, a mediocre man, which can be quite relatable to the female audience. This leaves us watchers with the question, how do we know when to walk away from a relationship that no longer serves us? This, and many other themes throughout the show, are relatable to women everywhere.
“Twenty-Something Girls Vs. Thirty-Something Women” and “Ex and the City” are two of my favorite episodes, filled with drama and important lessons. The first wrestles with the reality of growing older as a woman and how it relates to dating. The show’s main characters are in their thirties, which is not old by any means, but when their love interests blow them off for “20-something-year-old girls,” it’s a no-brainer that they become self-conscious about it.
As women, we are so frequently judged by our appearance, so the idea of growing older and losing our youth can be challenging to grapple with. The show’s producer, Darren Star, and the actresses themselves do a great job of showcasing how women, despite their age, can be beautiful and still have an exhilarating life in this episode and throughout the show.
They even have a “SATC” reboot titled “And Just Like That…” which began filming in 2021 with the same cast (minus Kim Cattrall), making the girls in their fifties. Seeing endless social media posts this past summer of Sarah Jessica Parker strutting around the West Village filming has been pretty compelling to start watching.
The episode “Ex and the City” (spoiler alert) revolves around Carrie finding out that her ex-boyfriend, Mr. Big, is engaged. Carrie ends the episode with this famous quote: “Later that night, I got to thinking about the ex-factor. In mathematics, we learned that ‘x’ stands for the unknown. ‘A’ plus ‘B’ equals ‘X’. But what’s really unknown is: what plus what equals friendship with an ex?” Even in the real world, figuring out your relationship with an ex can be confusing, and this episode does a great job of displaying that internal turmoil in a relatable manner.
On the other hand, there are many storylines and conversation topics that have not aged well. For a show that revolves around women and their sex lives, there is some major, questionable slut-shaming that is prevalent in some episodes. Snarky comments from Carrie and judgmental facial expressions from Charlotte happened a lot more than you’d think.
This left me wondering about the true dynamic of their friendship and the overall message of the show. I feel as if “SATC” lacks that feminist angle of the storyline that so many women crave nowadays. Further, misogyny is not the only issue that is prevalent! This could just be because the show was made about 20 years ago, and times have changed, but why has this show surged in success in recent months?
In my opinion, VICE Magazine puts it best, calling the show a “fierce champion of female friendship” due to its ability to be “unapologetic in its depiction of female sexual desire.” As a young woman who grew up in New York City and is a journalism student, I am the target audience of “Sex and the City.” That also means that I know this isn’t the reality of life. There are life lessons here and there, but it’s important to make sure you take them with a grain of salt.
To put it bluntly, “Sex and the City” is a show made for amusement. Even the author of the book the show was based on, Candance Bushnell, said that “SATC” fans shouldn’t base their life on the show but instead view it as entertainment. Although this is true, it may be hard for fans not to idolize these characters due to the glamour of the show, which has made me wonder if this show is more problematic than empowering.
Regardless, if you have some time on your hands, “Sex and the City” is one of those shows that doesn’t take much brain power to focus on. It is one of the first shows ever created that unapologetically displays the power of female friendship. It’ll make you laugh, teach you a couple of surface-level life insights and make you really want to move to New York City.