With the advent of the third wave of feminism in the early 1990s, when new feminist currents such as intersectionality, sex positivity, transfeminism and postmodern feminism were coming to forefront, Candace Bushnell, an American author and journalist of the New York Observer, published her newspaper columns titled Sex And The City into a book of the same name in 1996. Later Darren Star created a series based on the book which premiered in 1998. The series spans around six seasons and later two films are made as an extension of the series. Both Candace Bushnell and Michael Patrick King, the director and writer of the series however depicts feminism devoid of intersectionality and transfeminism, it endorses white feminism vehemently which makes their portrayal of feminism superficial to some extent.
Feminity in Sex And the City
Set in New York City, the series explicates the lives of four women- three in their mid-thirties, and the one in her forties who are best of friends, they confide in each other about their sexual and romantic lives and the problems surrounding them. Carrie Bradshaw, a journalist and writer(Sarah Jessica Parker), Charlotte York, an art dealer(Kristin Davis), Miranda Hobbes, a lawyer(Cynthia Nixon) and Samantha Jones, a publicist(Kim Cattrall). The four women remain inseparable throughout the series and the films, exploring their lives through the lens of their friendship, sexual encounters.
A show whose prime theme is to break all the stereotypes related to sexuality, these prejudices unfolds the hypocrisy of Bushnell and show’s makers who chose to be oblivious of the lgbtq and black feminism movements that was taking place around the world in 1990s.
The protagonist of the show Carrie Bradshaw who is Bushnell’s alter ego is the narrator, analyzing both her and her friend’s lives, raising modern social issues like safe sex, sexual desire and preferences of women and promiscuity.
Fashion and Feminity is intertwined in the series, all the women after the show’s release especially Carrie Bradshaw became a sensational fashion icon who wearing her Manolo Blahnik strides across the city in the search of fodder for her columns. The New York City represented in the series is enmeshed in the glam resembling an unreal world where women need to adorn themselves in chic fashion in order to attract men. This whole theory of fashion and feminism going hand in hand brings in a class difference definitely excluding the minorities and in a way essentializing a standard look for women, where women dressed in a certain way are labelled as attractive and sensual. Thus feminism that the show renders is highly exclusive making it deeply peripheral.
Prejudices of othering and racism
Though the show becomes groundbreaking for holding open discussions on sexuality and several issues related to it, keeping aside the characters of Stanford and Anthony who are practically the only two gay men in the entire series, there are certain episodes that expose the prejudice of these modern women such as in season 2 episode 10 titled as “Caste System” when Carrie and the girls puns on Charlotte’s date’s sexuality because he exudes the behaviour of a gay straight man, especially on Carrie’s part this reveals her absolute pretence since she considers Stanford, a gay man to be her male bestfriend but doesn’t hesitate to consider Samantha’s date to be a laughing stock, similarly in season 3, episode 4 over a brunch with her friends, Carrie describes bisexuality as a “layover on the way to gay town” and Miranda backs her stating bisexuality as “greedy” and a “problem”.
The other instance is in season 3 when Carrie labels Mr Big’s second wife Natasha as an idiot stick figure devoid of soul mostly because of their age difference but most importantly because Big chose her over Carrie. These episodes are a classic case of othering. Elements of racism are also evident in season 3 episode 5 titled “No Ifs, Ands or Butts” when Samantha gets into an argument with the sister of a black man she is dating, using racially insensitive language and in season 3 episode 18 where Samantha gets annoyed by black trans sex workers whose yelling outside her apartment disrupts her sleep during midnight, Samantha resorts to a vulgar way to deal with this problem, she uses a derogatory slur for the transgender people even throwing a bucket of water on them one night which is downright insensitive making it one of the controversial episodes of the series.
A show whose prime theme is to break all the stereotypes related to sexuality, these prejudices unfolds the hypocrisy of Bushnell and show’s makers who chose to be oblivious of the lgbtq and black feminism movements that was taking place around the world in 1990s.
Apart from women’s sexuality and their desires, the other two primary themes that the show focuses on are singlehood of a woman in her mid thirties and therefore her quest to find love and settle down in life evident in certain scenes such as when Charlotte states, “I’ve been dating since I was 15! I’m exhausted! Where is he?” Or when Carrie states, “I am looking for love. Real love. Ridiculous, inconvenient, consuming, can’t-live-without- each-other love” However the kind of love explored in the franchise is complicated and pernicious to some extent.
Masculinity and Materialism
Among the four women, the in and off romantic relationship of Mr Big(Chris North) and Carrie is the most hyped and popular in the entire franchise. Mr Big is initially introduced in the first season by Samantha as the next Donald Trump which implies that he is incredibly rich and in addition to that what makes him more alluring is his charming and handsome looks. Carrie and Mr Big after a few chance encounters gets into a relationship but it doesn’t work out well for both of them – Big who is a divorced man in his early 40s, scarred by his first marriage and past romantic relationships needs more time when it comes to be solely committed to a woman whereas Carrie being emotionally carried away, demands stability and security almost begging him to stand still with her through the thick and thin of life.
Throughout the series Mr Big is this mysterious man whose profession is never disclosed, even his real name wasn’t divulged until the last episode of last season. He is like a New York magazine’s crossword puzzle whom Carrie wishes to decode. The character of Mr Big is inspired from Candace Bushnell’s real life love interest Ron Galotti, the former publisher of GQ and Talk magazine. He was a big personality in New York City as shown in the series and Bunshell in one of her interviews with the New York Magazine in 2004 states that, “I called him Mr Big because he was like a big man on campus”.
Read More : Analyzing ‘All Of Us Strangers’ Through Sigmund Freud’s Dream Theory
Mr Big is everything that Carrie aspires to become one day, beginning from his financial stability to acquiring his classic taste in music, food and fashion. When Carrie asks Mr Big if she’s the one, Big refrains from answering the question and also contradicts his own statement of never getting married by eventually marrying Natasha, a woman who is a complete antithesis of Carrie’s personality leaving Carrie devastated whereas Carrie behaves exactly like Big when she turns down Aidan’s marriage proposal even after declaring that she loves him. Both Mr Big and Carrie can never let go off each other because they are both drifters when it comes to emotions. Morever Aidan being a furniture designer would have never been able to get along with Carrie’s extravagant lifestyle whereas Big who mostly makes his appearance in the show with his car and chauffeur is a tycoon always highly appreciating Carrie’s fashion sense and style.
Later in the first film, Carrie demands from Mr Big, a big closet as her wedding gift to accomodate her collection of dresses and shoes and Big surprises her by gifting her the most amazing closet, which implies that their idea of love is somehow mercenary. In most of the scenes when Mr Big and Carrie made love, they shared cigarettes together symbolically referring how self- destructive they are for each other yet more than love it’s materialism that ties both of them together in the long run.
Besides this fact, Mr Big is a microcosm of the New York City itself, a dazzling city of fashion and glamour as presented in the series, in episode 18 of season 4 when Big decides to leave New York City deciding to shift to Napa, Carrie states, “You can’t leave New York, you’re the Chrysler Building!”, which adds to one more reason why Carrie is obsessed with Mr Big. Mr Big is this unattainable figure, way out of Carrie’s league, a father figure almost because he address Carrie as a kid most of the time in the series and Carrie therefore yearns for this haven, a sense of security and warmth which she expects from Big and eventually gets after a lot of harrowing experience.
Masculinity and Materialism goes hand in hand in the entire franchise, even Carrie’s other love interests with whom she wishes to settle down for example- Bill Kelley, the powerful politician and Aleksandr Petrovsky, the Russian is a wealthy artist, Charlotte’s both husbands- Trey and Harry are a rich doctor and lawyer, Samantha’s serious love interests- Richard and Smith are a wealthy hotel manager and an actor. We see these male characters giving their women fancy gifts such as expensive jewelleries, shoes, dresses throughout the series and these women going almost gaga over such gestures which shows more than love it’s the luxury that Big and men like him emanate thereby making women like Samantha and Carrie drool over them initially until they discover the shortfalls in their relationship with such men.
Whereas men like Steve (Miranda’s on and off love interest and later her husband) who is a bartender by profession is often shown as an imbecile and an insecure man who feels intimidated when her girlfriend tries to gift him because she is a lawyer and has a more successful career than him. Their relationship starts to work out soon after Steve owns his own bar. Therefore along with love, class and status plays an important role in uniting these couples.
Though some amends of the shortcomings have been made in the films and sequel series, “And Just Like That” especially the inclusivity of gender, however there are some major takeaways from Sex And The City franchise which justifies the hype revolving around the show even after almost 26 years. Foremost is the friendship shown between the four women. Women being there for one another, appreciating and standing up for each other. Charlotte in one of the episode states that, “Maybe we can be each other’s soul mates. And then we can let men be just these great, nice guys to have fun with” which in a way sums up the beautiful camaraderie shared between these four women. Secondly the embracing of singlehood until a woman finds the right man.
It’s still very much prevalent in society to impose upon single women the burden to get married soon or making them believe that they will end up being lonely and ugly if they take longer to figure out but Carrie says in one of the episodes that, “Being single used to mean nobody wanted you. Now it means you’re pretty sexy and you’re taking your time deciding how you want your life to be and who you want to spend it with”, a big shout out to Carrie for reminding us that life is too short and we should be living it on our own terms.
And lastly the franchise’s brilliance in dealing with the themes of body positivity, women’s financial empowerment, self-love and somehow setting unrealistic crooked expectations of getting the right guy at the right time. In the words of Carrie Bradshaw, “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 that you love, well, that’s just fabulous.”
It’s been more than two decades since SATC aired, yet it’s sensational across time and space. Despite it’s flaws it’s one of the first series ever made revolving around women’s sexuality, their sexual experiences and desire, imparting Sex Education to women thereby breaking the taboo of closeted sexual discussions thus making it one of the most popular American drama series till date.
Picture Credits : GoodFon , Wikimedia Commons, Wikimedia Commons, SATC Wiki
