Retracing the legacy of ‘Sex and the City’
In 1998, Sex and the City premiered on television screens, quickly becoming one of the decade’s most popular shows. It aired for six seasons, ending in 2004, before spawning two movies and a spin-off series. Sex and the City follows four single women living in New York City, each with distinctive personalities to which audiences could attach themselves. For example, to be a Charlotte means you are traditional and hopelessly romantic, but to be a Samantha signifies being highly independent and fearful of monogamous romantic relationships.
Over the six seasons, the characters deal with the trials and tribulations of being single, 30 and 40-somethings in a world that expects women to adhere to stereotypical gender conventions. Sometimes Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte and Samantha uphold and perpetuate these stereotypes, and other times they intensely reject them. The characters are far from perfect, and the show’s questionable attitudes towards minorities have tainted its legacy, making it a highly contentious topic of discussion. The main characters are all wealthy white women, and the show typically employs people of colour to play lesser roles, such as service workers and maids. Moreover, the characters can be seen spouting some straight-up homophobic and transphobic rhetoric, such as Carrie infamously quipping: “I’m not even sure bisexuality exists. I think it’s just a layover on the way to Gaytown”.
The show’s tone-deaf attitudes to minorities cannot be overlooked. In many ways, the women’s ignorance towards anyone that wasn’t a privileged white person epitomised the world in which they operated. The bustling pre-9/11 New York depicted in the show’s earlier seasons reflects the coldness of capitalism, which promotes an inherent sense of individualism and selfishness. In no way is that an excuse for their behaviour – merely, their attitudes reflect a specific cultural zeitgeist of which they were part and one we, as contemporary viewers, can learn and move forward from.
Looking back at Sex and the City, plenty of storylines and dialogue wouldn’t swing today, but that doesn’t mean the show is entirely valueless. The show depicts women’s experience (albeit one specific brand of white womanhood) in a world still designed for men, where these female characters, now out of their 20s, are expected to settle down with husbands and children. Capitalism’s isolation convinces the characters to find comfort in different ways, such as material items (Carrie) or casual sex (Samantha). Sex and the City spoke to a generation of women – and still does – who feel lost in a world that expects us to act a certain way, despite often conflicting with our own desires. At times, the characters resist the demands of patriarchy, such as expressing unmaternal sentiments, making them relatable sources for viewers that also feel disconnected from expected gender conventions.
At the heart of Sex and the City is not romantic love but friendship. Throughout everything, the women have each other, if no one else, stressing the importance of female camaraderie and support. Men come and go, but Carrie, Charlotte, Miranda, and Samantha have each other’s backs. In the show’s most endearing moment, Charlotte tells the others: “Maybe we could be each other’s soulmates. And then we could let men be these great, nice guys to have fun with”. At this point, female friendship had rarely been depicted on screen so well, making way for future shows that nurtured the importance of female companionship.
Some audiences have criticised the show’s ending, in which each woman finally finds romantic love. Although it appears that the characters only find true happiness once they have a man in their life, it is not inherently anti-feminist to desire companionship, especially in the face of an isolating, capitalist hellscape. With that, at the show’s end, the characters reject many of the capitalist and patriarchal fantasies they previously flirted with. With a breast cancer diagnosis and confidence knocked by hair loss, Samantha finds a man who loves her regardless of her worries. Similarly, Charlotte embraces a genuinely loving relationship that forces her to question her previously held traditionalist beliefs.
Sex and the City, despite its many flaws, depicts the complexities of being a woman in a heavily saturated, consumerist era. Although the characters move between perpetuating and rejecting expected gender roles, the importance of female friendship triumphs over everything. The show poses the idea that companionship, whether that be platonic or romantic, is essential to surviving capitalism.
