And Just Like That I’m Out of Love With Sex and the City
But I still really want us to be friends
Way back in the last millennium when “Sex and the City” debuted, women didn’t talk about their age. Rather, they didn’t admit their age. They talked about being some other, younger age than they actually were. They were sly and witty, but rarely honest. This included women in their 30s, the age of three of the four main characters. This included me.
I’m one year older than Sarah Jessica Parker, Kristin Davis, and Cynthia Nixon. These women — on and off screen — are my peers. That’s one reason the show resonated with me at the time. It was a beautifully frothy bit of escapism from my life as a single mother, but it was also about the strength and importance of friendship, and it was filled with optimism that things would work out — also important to my single mother self.
It addressed sex in a far more realistic way, on a regular, per episode basis, in a way that nothing previous had ever done. It was a little radical, a little revolutionary, a little scandalous. It was perfect for the changing times. Times always change, and continue to change, but “Sex and the City” tapped into things happening during a societal cusp, when women demanded in ever greater numbers to be heard and seen in authentic ways, and old taboos were questioned and abandoned. The sex in the show was alternatingly titillating, messy, hot, and awkward. So were the relationships. Well, so were their lives. It wasn’t perfect, but it was more relatable than anything else I’d seen.
The show “talked” about things, in a fairly honest way, that women had not been comfortable talking about before. Except age.
It was also a show that wasn’t diverse, was sometimes cringeworthy, and that spent a lot of time in the superficial, shallow end of the pool, and not always in a fun and flirty way.
Then, along comes “And Just Like That” to right the wrongs of the original show.
Looking back, I realize that I really, really loved “Sex and the City”. I loved the clothes and the glamor, the love between the characters, and the episode where they realize that they are each other’s soul mates, and maybe a soul mate doesn’t have to be a man.
