Awards Daily’s Megan McLachlan wonders whether Carrie Bradshaw, the queen of all singleton icons, has forgotten her roots.
For 25 years, Carrie Bradshaw has been synonymous with the idea of being single. In fact, I bet if you’ve been a single woman over 30 at any time over the past two and a half decades, someone has said to you, “Look at you, Carrie Bradshaw!”
Of course, Sex and the City really changed the narrative around women expressing their sexuality and seeking opportunities outside of marriage and children. We all know where we were when we watched Tatum O’Neal’s Kyra force Carrie to remove her Manolos at a party, lose the shoes when one of the party-goers takes them, and then scoff at Carrie’s suggestion she pay for a replacement. Every single woman cheered when Carrie recounted all of the money she had spent on wedding showers, weddings, and baby showers for this friend, and how single women never receive the luxury of being bestowed gifts (or money!) for milestones like promotions and anything other than getting married and having kids.
However, that episode, “A Woman’s Right to Shoes,” aired 20 years ago, and when you think about it, with Sex and the City celebrating 25 years of existence this year, Carrie Bradshaw has really only been single for, like, 6 of those years, essentially the duration of the original series. That means for the last 19 years, she’s been coupled, either with Big, mourning Big, and now back with Aidan (. . .for now?).
I contend that most of And Just Like That has been a reminder of how Carrie actually doesn’t know how to be single and really hasn’t for nearly two decades. (I hoped the show would explore Carrie finding her single self before she settled on Aidan, but here we are.) The earliest mention is in AJLT Season 1, Episode 4’s “Some of My Best Friends,” where she tells real-estate extraordinaire Seema Patel, “It’s great that you’re still putting yourself out there.” Every single woman knows this patronizing line. It’s in the same vein as, “Have you tried online dating?” or “Maybe you’re just being too picky!”
And Seema immediately picks up on this, telling Carrie: “Maybe there’s a part of me that doesn’t feel sorry for you because at least you found the love of your life and you had him for many wonderful years, and in my eyes, that’s something still worth putting yourself out there for.” (Eek. More on Big being — or not being — the love of Carrie’s life later.)
I like to think of Seema as having the same spirit as Samantha Jones, only Seema wants to fall in love, whereas Samantha is more comfortable with having many different loves of her life (and maybe even loves of the week!). Even though her heart is open to love, Seema is happy with herself and rarely whines about not having a man (she was more upset when she lost her hair stylist). Seema really gets to the heart of what it is to be single in a way that the original series didn’t, because, really, none of the original four went uncoupled very long.
Meanwhile, in Season 2, Episode 8 of AJLT titled “A Hundred Years Ago,” 50-something Seema has to deal with some high-school-level bullshit from 50-something Carrie who thinks it’s okay for her ex-boyfriend to crash the Hamptons for the summer. That’s why the scene between Seema and Carrie outside of the hair salon is so powerful. Not only does she once again call Carrie out on being lucky to have two great loves, but she also protects herself from what could be a toxic situation.
“There’s no way to say this without seeming petty or pathetic,” says Seema. “From everything I’ve heard, it sounds to me like you’ve had these two great loves, and I’ve had none. Please don’t say I will, because I might not. I can live with that. But I can’t do this summer. That’s not true, I could, but I don’t want to. I don’t want to spend a fortune having this feeling.”
Ironically, Carrie has become Tatum O’Neil’s Kyra, having grown insensitive to single women and the fact that Seema might not want to spend a fortune on a place so her friend can shack up all summer with a 60-something man who suffers from a crippling fear of her apartment (red flag, red flag!). It was supposed to be a summer of two friends enjoying each other’s company (and money!), not a third-wheel situation where Aidan and Carrie can take Seema out to dinner—on Big’s dime!
Earlier in this episode, Carrie questions whether she chose poorly all those years ago, and instead of Big — whom SHE ONCE CALLED THE LOVE OF HER LIFE – she should have chosen Aidan, simply because of the amazing orgasms? (Sounds like she’s thinking like Miranda after her tryst with Che in Carrie’s kitchen.)
But while Carrie questions her choice, I also questioned And Just Like That’s and the Sex and the City universe. When it comes to a more nuanced portrayal of being single or the true essence of “Sex and the City,” I’ve been asking myself, maybe Carrie was a big mistake, and we should have been following someone like Seema all along.
