HBO’s Sex and the City turned twenty-five a couple of weeks ago. Despite the show premiering a quarter of a century ago, its characters and silly and serious premises have remained more relevant than ever in contemporary culture’s psyche. I’ve recently joined the throngs of people watching and re-watching the show, largely to heal the Succession- and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel-sized holes in my heart, as those two series (two of my favorites) recently came to an end. Although I’m only just wrapping the second season of the show (which contains six seasons, as well as two accompanying movies and an ongoing reboot), I have some thoughts to share. Perhaps a better way to start this article is how Carrie Bradshaw would: “I couldn’t help but wonder…” Sorry, I couldn’t resist.
Sex and the City has been revered by feminists and film scholars alike for its depiction of single women in their thirties simultaneously experiencing success in their careers, authentic friendship with other women, and fulfilling sexual experiences that they largely exercise control over. For years, women have been fed a scarcity model of life - one in which you can’t have the job and the man, or the friends and the man, as your financial security and independence will scare men off and your devotion to a boyfriend will leave you with no time for friends. However, Sex and the City paints these metropolitan gals as living in the land of plenty - there’s room in their lives for independence, companionship, and professional accolades.
The age of the women in this show is important. For years, the spinster stereotype has painted unmarried women past age twenty-nine as undesirable, unhappy, and crazy. The spinster is viewed as overly promiscuous and unfocused in life, misplacing her priorities and repelling men with her bad looks and uncouth demeanor. The male equivalent of a “bachelor” doesn’t carry the same weight - a bachelor is allowed to focus on personal success and sexual gratification without being shamed for not settling down.
The women of Sex and the City certainly grapple with their own internalized version of the spinster stereotype, but for the most part, the show makes them seem joyful and their lives look quite fun. Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte, and Samantha are constantly running around Manhattan, attending lavish events, meeting interesting people, eating at nice restaurants, and deepening their friendship bonds as men come and go. After years of consuming male-driven media, in which women are mere accessories, seeing men act as the supporting arm candy is a palate cleanser, especially for a show released in 1998. And in a society and entertainment industry that often regards women as disposable after age thirty (though that number seems to decline each year), it’s refreshing to see onscreen depictions of grown women feeling whole and secure in their careers, friendships, and personhood.
All that being said, Sex and the City is not without its faults. Women of color are virtually absent in the show, and when they are present, they’re often written as textbook stereotypes - like Sum, the subservient and jealous Thai servant of one of Samantha’s rich beaus in season two, episode ten. In true mainstream media of the 1990s and 2000s fashion, gay men are often accessorized as “gay best friends,” investing most of their time and energy into supporting the straight women in their lives, like Stanford Blatch with Carrie Bradshaw (though I do enjoy the brief moments when we get to glance into Stanford’s life). The show’s four lead women also have a handful of one-liners that lean anti-feminist, particularly Charlotte’s comments about suppressing emotion, bodily function, and independence to please men. With the show’s campy nature, some of this definitely also leans satirical (we’re surely meant to laugh at many of Charlotte’s old-fashioned relationship views), but other moments are downright derogatory.
An aspect of the show that has stood out to me the most, both in its ability to age terribly and tremendously well, is Carrie’s on-and-off relationship with Mr. Big. Big is Carrie’s first serious boyfriend on the show and embodies the Manhattan masculinity tropes to a tee. He is stoic, often emotionally reserved, has a playboy past, smokes cigars, and is mysteriously rich (yet his profession is never revealed). Big and Carrie have a circus of a relationship that manages to offer a few insightful nuggets for viewers. For example, the two often have conversations about boundary-setting (typically initiated by Carrie), including discussions about relationship labels, space-sharing, checking out other women, and meeting friends and family. Such topics were and still are important for relational partners to discuss, so I find it interesting that the show displays them so candidly.
However, the constant tug-and-pull between the two characters has quickly made me love to hate their relationship - and Mr. Big in general. Upon researching others’ thoughts on Big, I found that I am unsurprisingly not alone in my resentment of his character. However, I have some reasons for disliking Big that I didn’t see reflected in articles online, spurring me to write this piece.
From what I gathered, people seem to hate Big because of his royally Big (lol) screw-ups on the show. To name a few in seasons one and two, Big doesn’t tell Carrie that he may be moving to Paris for work, doesn’t introduce her to his mother, refuses to meet her friends or stay at her acquaintance’s wedding reception, never wants to spend the night at her apartment, and often doesn’t apologize when he makes her feel undesirable. All of these actions communicate to Carrie that Big doesn’t want to make space for her in his life - something she often expresses to him.
If all of these items existed in isolation, it would become clearer to Carrie that this relationship is one she should ditch. But these actions don’t stand alone - they are accompanied by Big almost always turning up at the last moment and doing the right thing. Which leads me to the main reason why I detest Big: he’s not bad enough to hate but not good enough to love.
Big embodies the lukewarm, purgatory-like partner whose maliciousness thrives off his indifference. He is too cool to show that he cares, until, of course, the very last second when it seems like he might lose what he wants, upon which, he turns up like Superman, saving the day in his pressed suit and gelled hair. Sure, he eventually does the right thing, but not until Carrie suffers so much that she’s showing up teary-eyed at his apartment for what seems like the tenth time that week.
The problem with men like Big is that on paper, they’re dotting their i’s and crossing their t’s - in the end, they do more or less “show up,” but have to be pulled across the finish line to do so. In season two, episode eleven, amid an argument, Carrie asks Big what he wants, to which he responds “Let’s save an hour. Why don’t you just tell me what I want?” He fails to get to the root of what’s bothering her, seeking to do the song-and-dance of an apology rather than actively arrive at conflict resolution.
It’s no secret that people don’t want to beg for their needs to be met. When asked to help out more around the house, women don’t want to have to assign their husbands housework like administering chores to their sons. They don’t want to have to ask their boyfriends to ask them how their day was, manufacturing a dyadic conversation when they are, in reality, scripting both sides. They want someone who will actively take part - show investment in their lives and what they care about. Step up to the plate with an eagerness to help, accepting blame where it’s due rather than positioning their teeth to get yanked. Carrie doesn’t want to beg Big to take an interest in her friends or spend the night at her place or consider her when making a substantial career move. She wants to come to mind organically.
I largely blame our popular culture and its supporting media for disseminating the idea that women can self-actualize through heterosexual relationships and that men - born as fully actualized human beings by simply being men - transform into feeble “simps” the second they’re “tied down.” Each narrative is in complete conflict with the other - and we wonder why relationships can’t seem to stick! Walk down any block in lower Manhattan (now I’m really sounding like Carrie Bradshaw) and you’ll hear women upon women discussing Hinge date horror stories over sparkling rosé. Getting stood up, pressured into sex, faced with a partner of many years unwilling to fully commit, you name it. The hallmark of many of these conversations is the “but.” “My boyfriend won’t stop liking and commenting on Instagram models’ photos, BUT, he said he’s going to start trying to stop.” “Yeah, my boyfriend of six years doesn’t help out with the nightly dishwashing, BUT, he does take out the trash every other day.” “He won’t stop texting his ex, BUT, he told me I have nothing to worry about.”
Like Big, these men show up in ways adjacent to the ways their partners want them to. They never quite stick the landing but they attempt some kind of faux leap of change to convince their partners they care about their concerns. And like Carrie, they’re placing their girlfriends in relationship purgatory. Don’t get me wrong, relationships involve give and take - compromises naturally are made because conflict is inevitable. Relational blunders are inescapable and forgiveness is a powerful salve. And yet, my heart aches for women that are holding out in relationships because of the few glittering moments when they feel heard and respected. The flip-flopping between respect and disrespect that these types of men perform - out of conditioned male entitlement, privilege, and gendered relationship expectations - put women in hell’s waiting room. Be good or be bad - just commit to the bit so they know whether to stay or leave. And even then, even when things do get bad, there is often still pressure for women to hang on to hope.
Carrie is, by no means, a perfect partner - she has wronged Big as well, and from the few show spoilers I received, it seems as though she has many missteps to come. Nonetheless, the Mr. Big Effect appears alive and well even twenty-five years after Sex and the City’s premiere. Men tossing out breadcrumbs of respect, watching women hang on to relationships by their fingernails, lending a hand only right before they fully slip.
In the age of Call Her Daddy feminism, I’ve seen many women advise other women to essentially harden their hearts and submit to the fact that men are going to mistreat them. In the face of that maltreatment, you should accept your lesser status in the relationship or disrespect men right back, giving them a taste of their medicine. I can see why those approaches are tempting, as they involve relinquishing angry energy through surrender or aggression. I do think women should protect their hearts and face the harsh reality that no man is fully able to save them, just like they are unable to fully save a man. However, it’s neither a woman’s responsibility to accept relational debasement nor their job to fix it entirely themselves, as it’s impossible to do so.
The only way men can stop disrespecting women is if they stop disrespecting them on their own. Men viewing women as fully human as they view other men - as brains and hearts, as beings with emotionally rational and rationally emotional minds - is how that will happen. As glamorous as Sex and the City makes Carrie and Big appear (at least in the first couple of seasons), there is little to be desired about a relationship consisting of a man, a woman, and a carrot dangling off a stick. If there is one lesson I’ve learned from the show thus far, it’s that relationships - romantic and otherwise - are most satisfying when both partners are fully invested in whatever level of commitment is deemed necessary. And when respect is a guarantee, not a perk.
Oh yes! Mr Big was someone who I lived to hate. Carrie could have done so much better. 😆
There are men out there who don’t mind being the second biggest breadwinner, who ask about your day and listen to your answer... and NO they aren’t all gay! 😉
I loved the power and friendship between these women; I also loved their vulnerability.
Inspired by Samantha, I had boudoir photos taken after my divorce. I chose three favourites and hung them over my bed to remind me of my feminine power and sexuality daily as I readied myself to meet the challenges life presented.
Contrary to my exes’ comments that I “should be grateful he is still attracted to me”, I felt like I was coming into my sexual power at 45.
Thank you for the reminder of the great lessons from Sex in the City. 💞
Emotional Labor by Rose Hackman is a great book to complement this essay.