New loads to Carrie
As Sex and the City gets a reboot 17 years on, a look at things that need to change, to ensure this second coming ages better than the first
Like it or not, they’re back. Carrie, Charlotte and Miranda (but not Samantha Jones) will strut down Manhattan’s streets in their Manolos, discussing relationships and celebrating female friendship. HBO’S And Just Like That… (AJLT), the long-promised Sex and the City comeback show, starts shooting in May. (Kim Cattrall turned down the offer to participate, saying, essentially, that life is too short.)
The original series, based on Candace Bushnell’s 1997 book, ran for six seasons, until 2004. But like a comet with a long tail, it’s had a vivid afterlife in reruns, pop-culture references, New York City bus tours and a rise in demand for Cosmopolitans.
Two movies followed too, in 2008 and 2010, notable largely for their racist stereotypes and overall giddiness. The show was path-breaking for its camp portrayals of love, money, singledom and sex. But the world has changed in the 17 years since it ended. Audiences have feasted on Fleabag and Succession and snacked on performative wokeness on social media. How will the new show fit in, all these years later? Or will it, as with the movies, not even try? Here are five things the show could fix, so its second coming ages better than its first:
More colour
Through its entire run, Sex and the City’s key characters were White. Black men appeared from time to time, only to serve the usual sexual stereotypes and be dismissed. Then Jennifer Hudson was cast as Carrie’s designer-wear-hungry assistant in the 2008 film. She was given a Louis Vuitton handbag, then ejected from the plot. Audiences have since watched as the musical Hamilton and the Regency show Bridgerton have recast history to include people of colour. AJLT will hopefully find that it too must represent more.
Add more of the rainbow
The show had two gay characters in recurring roles, but Stanford and Anthony were caricatures given to over-the-top clothes, gesturing and gossip. Meanwhile, when one of her boyfriends came out as bisexual, Carrie declared, “I’m not even sure bisexuality exists. I think it’s just a layover on the way to Gaytown.” Samantha once said she had a problem with a trio of transsexual sex workers’ very existence. As for the other colours on the Pride flag, they were met with gasps and innuendo.
Dial down the toxicity
Carrie is left at the altar. Miranda is asked if her being too busy might have had a role to play in her husband’s infidelity. Samantha is fat-shamed. Sure, relationships are hard, but these plotlines are hollow at a time when shows deal far more sensitively with loneliness, abandonment, body image and issued faced by women in the workplace.
Let the real world in
The women of Sex and the City seemed to take no notice of a world on the cusp of change, a society coming apart even as it got more connected. Cynthia Nixon announced her campaign for Governor of New York in 2018. It would be interesting to know her character Miranda’s thoughts on reproductive rights, climate change, data privacy, the wage gap or undocumented migrants. Even then, women viewers cringed at being reduced to endless rounds of brunch and shopping. It’s not hard to weave in themes of adoption, surrogacy, family dysfunction, childhood trauma – Friends, for all its shortcomings, sometimes did in a single episode.
Show signs of life
Girls, HBO’S other show about four White women in a post-recession New York, showed how hard it is to survive in the city. The luxury market is indicating that young women today aren’t crazy about collecting Hermes handbags. Dior’s T-shirts now read We Should All Be Feminists. AJLT could perhaps allow Miranda to explore what it’s like to be partner at a law firm today, allow Charlotte to leave her bubble on the Upper East Side. And finally tell us what love means to Carrie when it’s not embodied by a cardboard cut-out of Mr Big.
EXPLORE WHAT IT’S LIKE FOR MIRANDA AS A PARTNER AT A LAW FIRM, LET CHARLOTTE OUT OF HER BUBBLE ON THE UPPER EAST SIDE