Photo: My daughter and I at the Empire State Building in 2011. Shared with her permission.
Like a lot of Gen X women, I watched Sex and the City, the sitcom that chronicled the lives and loves of four women in New York City. There was Carrie Bradshaw, the fashionista and writer of a weekly newspaper column called “Sex and the City”; Miranda Hobbes, the independent and driven lawyer; Charlotte York, the traditional one always on the hunt for a husband; and Samantha Jones, the (lots of) sex-lovin’ publicist.
I was a late comer to the show but managed to watch most of the episodes in reruns. It was considered groundbreaking for its time but wasn’t without its critics. I remember wondering why there were so many white people in New York, one of the most diverse cities in the world.
The show, which ran from 1998 to 2004, is now on The Netflix in the U.S.; we don’t get it in Canada, otherwise I’d likely rewatch it. I have read that the younger Gen Z thinks the show is cringeworthy.
The show was turned into two movies. The first, Sex and the City: The Movie, was released in 2008, and was horrible. Somehow, the second movie, Sex and the City: 2, which came out in 2010, was more atrocious. I literally said, “WTF?” many times when I watched it.
I am single and live in a city and my life is nothing like this show. Sure, I have dated and I like clothes and shoes, although I buy less than I used to. I am a writer, too, and would often wonder how Carrie could afford her New York apartment and all of those clothes and expensive shoes just by writing one column a week. I’m not very good with the suspension of disbelief required for sitcoms or movies.
I live in a city. Well, I live outside of the downtown core. From my living room window, I can see downtown core, as well as my local legion, the red-and-white smokestacks of the coal-fired power generating station, and the city harbour, although a residential tower that’s under construction is blocking part of that view.
Some people in my neighbhourhood love to set off fireworks. It ain’t no Manhattan.
If I look down at my feet, I don’t see a pricey pair of Manolo Blahniks, but a pair of pale blue Crocs, paired with black socks. Sexy in the city, indeed.
Fictional depictions of single life often miss the mark, and there’s not a lot about Sex and the City I recognize in my own life, but they also get some of it right.
Carrie Bradshaw was often a disaster of a character. That’s especially true of her on-and-off again relationship with Mr. Big, or just Big, whose name, as we learned in the first movie, was John James Preston.
There was a lot of drama in that relationship, and with Carrie herself, and it largely dominated the entire series. Miranda, Charlotte, and Samantha, who all had relationships on the show, rightly pointed out all the flaws with Big himself and Carrie’s relationship with him, but she ended up with him anyway. Is this how happily ever after looks? Chaotic?
But many women have dated their own versions of Mr. Big. I have but won’t chronicle that in this post. Being single is certainly better. People shouldn’t marry their Mr. Big, but they do.
I’ve often thought that the characters in Sex and the City wouldn’t really be friends in real life. They seemed too different from each other. But maybe each of them represented parts each of women have in ourselves. We are all a little dramatic, traditional, independent, driven, and sexy.
There was also the off-camera drama between Kim Cattrall, who played Samantha Jones, and Sarah Jessica Parker, who played Carrie Bradshaw. The drama is apparently so bad between these two, Cattrall didn’t return for the new version of the show, And Just Like That. Honestly, I don’t blame her. Somethings just need to end.
One of my favourite shows ever is Golden Girls. I always say there wouldn’t have been a Sex and the City if Golden Girls hadn’t been created before it.
While Dorothy, Rose, Sophia, and Blanche all went on dates and had relationships, the men really weren’t the focus of the show — okay, maybe they were for Blanche. That show was also groundbreaking for its time in that it focused on the lives of older women, including their dating lives. The show also took on serious topics such as racism, chronic illness, depression, and more. I joked recently that I moved from my Blanche phase to my full-on Dorothy phase.
Golden Girls was far less superficial than Sex and the City. And, of course, it was hilarious. Besides the 1980’s fashion, I think Golden Girls had aged better than Sex and the City.
Still, Sex and the City has its moments I remember well.
There’s a line Samantha Jones says in the first Sex and the City movie. If you don’t know the plot, Jones’ character ends her long relationship with Smith Jerrod, the young, very hot actor, whose career Samantha helped establish. Now, Smith Jerrod was a good guy, and did I mention hot? But also, Samantha felt she lost herself in that relationship, too. Here’s what she said:
“I’m gonna say the one thing you aren’t supposed to say: I love you… but I love me more. I’ve been in a relationship with myself for 49 years and that’s the one I need to work on.”
And just like that, that line hit me.
We may not have our own New York apartments and expensive shoes or lanais in Miami and an endless supply of cheesecake, but single women are all a little bit of Carrie, Charlotte, Miranda, Samantha, Blanche, Dorothy, Rose, and Sophia. We may have romantic relationships at times, but it’s the relationship with ourselves we’re always working on.
Suzanne
Being myself in the city