53. Binge-watching SATC
I decided to re-watch Sex and the City (SATC) again. I would skip a couple of episodes due to cringe, second-hand embarrassment about Carrie's romantic flops, and just general boredom. But I'm back in the driver's seat again. I remember when I was a kid, there were all of these quizzes on these women magazines at the grocery store, asking readers if they're more of a "Carrie, Charlotte, Miranda, or Samantha?". Those references went over my head back then, but now that I'm "in the know" I can finally riff with the girlies.
If you are not super familiar with this show, it's a very "New York City" sitcom about 4 interesting women and their lives in the big city. It was filmed in the late 90's/early 2000's so a lot of their shticks can be super outdated and offensive, but I guess can just chalk this up to this being the mainstream humor at the time. There are some episodes that are just blatantly problematic that I couldn't help but wonder why they let this air on public TV.. (literally there's an episode in S1 about a friend of Carrie's who decides to record himself sleeping with models without them knowing and Carrie just... laughs it off and calls him weird?! No girl that is literally a crime?! Ugh. In another episode, Carrie dates a bisexual guy and she's freaking out over it like..?? come on?! she also demands unconditional [financial] support from her girlfriends when she's down in a rut? uh?).
I can drone on and on about the lack of diversity (they're in NYC!?) and how problematic the characters can be (especially Carrie, but she's the narrator so we have more insight to how toxic her internal monologue can be, therefore hating her more?), but that's not entirely what it is. SATC is about the timeless challenges that women face in their lives and it's a very well-written female-centric show and I really enjoy the girliness of it all.
It ages no differently than most shows from that time period, so I can't fault it for that. The main characters are straight white women, but that was never supposed to be the groundbreaking part. What I enjoy about this show still today is that it focused on the women's friendships first. It spoke about topics like abortion, birth control, and sexuality in ways that were new to me at least, and I think that's important.
Season 4, Episode 2 "Coulda Woulda Shoulda". HBO. Vogue France.
I recently saw an article from 2010 that said something along the lines of, "If Carrie were a writer today, she would totally have a blog instead of a sex column in the newspaper". It's been over a decade since those words hit the Internet and I think we have to readjust. I guess Carrie would be a 30-year old instagram model with a podcast like the Bitch Bible or Call Me Daddy? Sigh, The times have changed. Even Sarah Jessica Parker agreed that- although super iconic, the show would not work today. Its time in the spotlight has also been and gone, socio-politically speaking.
On that note, many people have said that basically SATC walked so that Girls can run, but I don't think Girls hits as hard as its predecessor. Flirty, fun, and clever female-led series are hard to come by, but I think they are well worth it. Their audiences are very loyal. Some shows that scratch the same itch that I can think of at the top of my head are: Girls (2012-2017), The Bold Type (2017-2021), Sex Lives of College Girls (2021- ), High Fidelity (2020)
Alright there's a new spin-off of the show where they show the main crew as 50 year old ladies living life and stuff. Carrie has a podcast in that series? My roommate last year was like, they're coming out with "And Just Like That" pretty soon. I told her that I simply had to rewatch all of the original series before diving into that (I had watched certain episodes of SATC before, but I don't remember the entire chronology... hence, a binge-marathon)
It's hilarious, it's cathartic, it's really well-meaning and I'm relishing every second of it.
~ i couldn't help but wonder,
<3 K