Recently, Emily Nussbaum of the
New Yorker wrote an excellent piece about "
how Sex and the City lost its good name" i.e. how it went from groundbreaking television to "shameful" guilty pleasure in less than a decade. I agreed with many of her points, mostly because
I made some of them years ago (I win!). Most of the blame can be placed on the truly terrible movies, but it still saddens me that SATC is seen in such a poor light (seriously, can we please
Eternal Sunshine the movies, especially the sequel, from our brains?!)
One of the main points Nussbaum makes is that no show about or starring women is heralded in the same way we laud praise on
The Wire or
The Sopranos or
Breaking Bad, all shows about and starring men. The only shows that come to mind that are both pretty much universally loved and star exceptional women are
Friday Night Lights and
Mad Men, but even those, when it comes right down to it, are mostly about men. So sexism is a factor, but then when is it not.
SATC was for women my age a new world of conversation and ideas. Like the women on HBO, my friends and I were dealing with bad boyfriends, guys we hung on to way too long, those we let get away (I love you, Aiden!). We were also figuring out our friendships...learning that fights happen and we get through them, that we're not always gonna like the guy she's dating and that's okay because he probably won't be around long anyway. We saw women on television who were assertive and confident and loving and funny and supportive of one another. It was heartening. I learned a lot about relationships and female friendships and myself by watching SATC, something I should maybe be ashamed of, but I'm not.
The real problem I find watching SATC today (beyond the truly terrible Carrie puns) is not how it's been co-opted and emulated by the Real Whoevers of Whoknowswhere, but the materialism. Watching it now, in the era of Occupy Wall Street and so many people struggling financially, it seems almost tacky for Carrie to strut around in
$700 shoes and Samantha to covet a
$20,000 handbag. It no longer feels aspirational (if it ever did). It just feels wrong.
But, that said, it's still a shame that the most successful show ever about real female relationships is tarnished and doomed to be remembered mostly for frank talk about sex and popularizing the Cosmo. It's so much more than that. The last line of the show really, perfectly sums up the experience and what SATC was trying to say (and here, I think it's important to note, I think Carrie is talking about all relationships, both platonic and romantic):
Later that day I got to thinking about relationships. There are those that open you up to something new and exotic, those that are old and familiar, those that bring up lots of questions, those that bring you somewhere unexpected, those that bring you far from where you started, and those that bring you back. But the most exciting, challenging and significant relationship of all is the one you have with yourself. And if you find someone to love the you you love, well, that's just fabulous.
SATC is about relationships...with friends, with lovers, with yourself. It should be remembered for the doors it opened and conversations it started rather than the Dubai desert where it ended up.
