Will ‘Sex and the City’ look dated on Netflix?
Are we heading into another reassessment of “Sex”? On April 1, Netflix will begin streaming all six seasons of “Sex and the City,” the comedy that ran on HBO from 1998 to 2004. Sometimes, when Netflix picks up an old show, it undergoes a new round of attention and analysis, something we’ve seen in the past with “Gilmore Girls” and most recently with “Suits.” It’s possible that “Sex and the City,” which already has a reboot called “And Just Like That” on Max, will wind its way back into The Conversation and be reevaluated.
When it first premiered, “Sex and the City” was considered groundbreaking and progressive, compared to what had come before. It was primarily about women and the supportive friendship between them, and, while it was about dating, it focused on their options and their sex-positivity. It gave us the world of urban romance and love-making from a female point of view, and it didn’t pander to cultural conservatism and cliches about women and sex. Thanks to the then-evolving world of cable originals, and a new era of shows made without network restrictions, the women could be explicit about their experiences in the bedroom.
But now, from the perspective of 2024, “Sex and the City” looks a lot different. Oftentimes, shows don’t age gracefully. If “Sex” finds new viewers, new generations, and older rewatch viewers on Netflix, it will likely generate a new set of takes about its approach to women’s lives. The New York-set show has already been called out for its white bubble — note the diverse cast of the reboot — and it has been criticized for its superficiality, what with all its expensive-fashion love. What will new viewers make of the way the characters spend a very large amount of time talking about the men they’re seeing? Will Carrie’s obsession with Big — and her repeated victimization — elicit more groans than it may have 20 years ago? I’m thinking yes.