Sex and the City is on Netflix. Perfect – gen Z are a bunch of Charlottes
If you’re uninhibited and prone to monologues about your pelvic floor, you’re a Samantha. If you’re a narcissist who’s knee-deep in Klarna loans for your RealReal purchases, you’re a Carrie. And if you subscribe to the revisionist take that Miranda’s pragmatic, no-nonsense approach to life makes her an unsung hero of feminism – then your choice is obvious.
Any woman with a television has at some point in the past two decades played “which Sex and the City character are you?” I’ve met self-proclaimed Carries, Samanthas and Mirandas. But very rarely does one ever meet a willing Charlotte.
And why would they? She’s the most maligned of the foursome. Sex and the City was a groundbreaking show that revolutionized TV’s portrayal of what it means to be a single woman. But Charlotte, a prim gallerina whose sole aspiration consists of locking down a Wasp husband, remained a bridge to the past. Her prudishness was a foil to the sexploits of her more adventurous friends. She’s “Park Avenue Pollyanna”, a killjoy and moralist who literally runs away from the table when a playful brunch conversation turns to the topic of how semen tastes.
All six seasons of Sex and the City launched on Netflix this week, spawning manythinkpieces with writers worrying that gen Z cannot “handle” the watch. After all, this is a show that’s long been criticized for its lack of diversity, offensive portrayal of LGBTQ + characters, and out-of-touch class politics. These writers fear that, much like Charlotte, gen Z takes itself too seriously to understand that comedy is a product of its time that usually doesn’t hold up years later.
But as a gen Z elder who has watched the entire series no less than four times, I would like to say that this is unfair. Despite generalizations about my cohorts being too sensitive for even the slightest discomforts of adulthood, I have full faith in us to understand that times were different 26 years ago. We can handle it.
Having said that, I think my generation’s read on the show will be different. For millennials, Miranda was always the coolest of the foursome. But for gen Z, I think Charlotte is finally going to get her due. In many ways, my generation has been saying “I’m a Charlotte” even if they don’t know it. Here’s why:
She’s a foremother of “quiet luxury”: There’s an aspirational gen Z trend of dressing richly, but not ostentatiously. Think stealth wealth: Sofia Richie wearing a simple white – but expensive – Prada dress on a summer day, or a TikToker romping around Paris in the $1,130 Toteme scarf jacket. Charlotte, similarly, idolizes old money glamour, signaling her status in understated Ralph Lauren, Oscar de la Renta, and Vera Wang – all very desirable these days. Every day was a weekend at the country club for Charlotte. She didn’t need to splash sartorially like Carrie in her tutus or deliberately dress down à la Miranda’s proto-normcore. Your coastal grandmother wishes she could flex that subtly.
She’s a prude: Charlotte has her share of sexcapades – she’s the only one of the main four who admits to performing “tuchus-lingus”, justifying this by the fact that she’s only done it under the sanctity of marriage.
But overall, many of her bedroom antics, or lack thereof, are framed as Victorian. She hates blowjobs and waits to have sex with her first husband until they’re married.
That’s all fodder for jokes about her virtue. So-called “Puriteens” are generally having less sex, delaying the age we start, and eschewing the type of hookup culture Samantha Jones enjoyed in favor of fewer partners.
She’s a horse girl: Charlotte is proof that if you ride out a dorky trend long enough, it’ll become cool. Sex and the City was filmed when Central Park still had an operating stable. In season two, Charlotte pays the location a visit in an attempt to get over her childhood fear of horses. (She was thrown from one named Taddy.)
More than two decades later, gen Z reclaimed the archetypical “horse girl”. Once a term for the type of pony-obsessed middle schooler, it’s now a bona fide aesthetic, with Stella McCartney building a collection around the theme, tapping the gen Z model Kendall Jenner to pose naked on a white steed.
She’s a trad wife: Charlotte’s wifely ambitions clashed with the third-wave feminism of the show’s heyday. She’s essentially an Upper East Side trad wife who quits her job upon marriage to throw herself into a strenuous life of townhouse decorating and party planning.
Sounds a lot like those stay-at-home girlfriends you see perform their days on TikTok, rejecting a life at the office for a leisurely existence of midday Pilates classes and sponcon housework, all funded by an off-camera benefactor. Gen Z has long flirted with these “tradwife” pretensions, boasting about their lack of ambition and hated for their fullthroated embrace of gender roles.
She’s actually a good friend: According to the Washington Post, 55% of gen Z and millennials say friendship is more important than a romantic partner. Reminds me of wise (and showdefining) words that came not from SATC’s lead Carrie, but its underestimated backbone, Charlotte: “Maybe our girlfriends are our soulmates and guys are just people to have fun with.”
Charlotte is proof that if you ride out a dorky trend long enough, it’ll become cool
This is a woman who volunteered to plan Miranda’s baby shower while she was dealing with her own infertility issues. She gave Carrie her engagement ring, the last reminder of a marriage that ended painfully, so it could be sold for a down payment on her apartment – because, whoops, Carrie spent all her money on shoes.
And lest we forget, when Charlotte did get pregnant and ran into Big at a restaurant during her last trimester, she screamed so hard at the guy for breaking Carrie’s heart that her water broke. If that’s not a ride-or-die, I don’t know what is.
• This article was amended on 5 April 2024 because Charlotte gave Carrie her engagement, not wedding, ring, and it was for a down payment, not to pay rent as an earlier version said.