Carrie Bradshaw is a menace to society
👠 I couldn’t help but…SHUT THE F**** UP
A few weeks ago I wrote a love letter to my current crush, Bowen Yang. Today I’m doing the opposite…talking mad shit on someone (fictitious) whom I hate.
When I was in college (2001-2005), Carrie Bradshaw was the blueprint.
She was a professional writer living in New York. She had all the autonomy and NONE of the commitments or burdens that I saw most “grown-up” women have—like husbands and babies. It was so damn freeing to watch her leap over puddles in her $400 Manolo Blahniks (props to me for spelling Manolo Blahnik properly the first try) on her way to cocktails with her best friends. I couldn’t have conjured up a more aspirational character / body / life. I wanted to *be* Carrie Bradshaw.
But now, after my 8th (????) rewatch, it’s never been clearer that Carrie Bradshaw is a narcissistic, judgmental, loathsome character who deserves every bad thing that happened to her on that show.
At best, Carrie is quirky and self-absorbed. She’s not a normal girl, she’s a CooL giRL. Her hair changes every season—nay, every episode. She’s hungover for photoshoots and missing deadlines. She’s grabbing froyo with her besties and talking shit on kind, normal men. Oops! She accidentally stumbled into a shoe store and bought $500 she doesn’t have on a new pair of size 7s (is it embarrassing that I know her shoe size?) One could argue she’s just an entitled, irresponsible gal who doesn’t make the best decisions all the time (which would make for a very boring HBO show).
But at her worst, Carrie is an emotional terrorist. She is constantly demeaning her friends, using them as emotional dumping grounds while ignoring their own issues and injuries, and ditching them ALL THE TIME. I frequently wonder why and how she has any friends at all.
She’s petty, mean, shallow and insecure. She’s a narcissistic, irresponsible self-saboteur in size 2 designer clothes.
I’m not alone in this take. There are lots of think pieces and blogs devoted to this Carrie Bradshaw Takedown. My favorite recent Carrie Bradshaw opinion though is from 29-year-old rapper, Megan THEE Stallion, who has been watching Sex and the City for the *first* time. She recently went on Jimmy Fallon’s late night show and shared her take on the show.
“[Carrie] is nuts. But you know what? I see a lot of myself in this character…like Carrie really loved drama. Like she would literally wake up and figure out how can I mess up everybody’s day? How can I be my cutest messing up everybody’s day? How can I make my life more complicated? Simply, she could have always made the right choice. She could have chosen sanity, but she always chose insanity. And then I had to wonder, is that me?”
May it please the court to review the following evidence I am submitting towards my argument that Carrie Bradshaw is heinous.
Just a handful of times when Carrie was the worst:
Carrie’s most egregious crime is how awful she is to her “best friend” Miranda. I mean, all the women are pretty insensitive and mean to Miranda after she gets pregnant and then has her son Brady; she’s exhausted and overwhelmed and the only one of her friends with a kid. Not only does Carrie not help Miranda at all, but she actively makes fun of her boobs when she is trying to breastfeed her baby. STRAIGHT TO JAIL.
Carrie cheats on her boyfriend Aiden with her married ex-boyfriend Big *so frequently* that she’s mistaken for a sex worker at one of the hotels they frequent. She decides to confess to Aiden right before they have to leave for Charlotte’s wedding (in which she’s a bridesmaid). She’s then shocked by the consequences of her behavior and can’t believe her boyfriend doesn’t want to go as her date to this wedding anymore that starts in 5 minutes. Mind you, she’s not 23 when this all goes down. She is in her late 30s and she should know better.
After Carrie and Big end their affair, Carrie tries to talk to Big’s wife, Natasha. She calls her at work. Leaves messages. Even approaches her at a restaurant. The chutzpah of this woman to try and talk to Natasha after destroying her marriage is unreal. It’s also interesting that we see SO little of Natasha; it’s as though the show-runners purposefully keep her away from the viewers so we don’t dislike Carrie more.
Carrie and Aiden eventually get back together. In fact, she BEGS him to take her back and try again. He’s reluctant (good instincts!) but they eventually decide to date again. He’s having a hard time trusting her (I WONDER WHY) but she eventually breaks down his walls. Finally, just after he starts to feel emotionally secure and safe, he proposes, she says yes and then breaks it off with him. For no real reason…she’s just not really feeling it anymore.
Carrie invites her ex-boyfriend, Big (who she had cheated on Aiden with), to Aiden’s country house because he’s sad. Can you imagine…
After her and Aiden break up the second time, shit is messier because they were engaged and he bought her condo. He says he’s willing to sell it back to her at the exact price he paid, but oh guess what: Carrie has no money. She goes to her bank to try and get a loan and they say she has $700 in her checking account and $957 in her savings account. That is fucking wild! There’s a scene where she’s helping Miranda shoe shop and the dialogue goes:
Carrie: The lady at the bank said I was an unattractive candidate for a loan. Where did all my money go? I know I made some.
Miranda: At $400 a pop (picks up shoe), how many of these do you have? 50?
Carrie: Come on…
Miranda: 100?
Carrie: Would that be wrong?
Miranda: 100 times 400, there’s your down payment.
Carrie: Well that’s only $4,000.
Miranda: No, it’s $40,000.
Carrie: I spent $40,000 on shoes and I have no place to live? I will literally be the old woman who lived in her shoes.
Though Samantha and Miranda (who is pregnant with her first child) both offer to loan her the money to buy the apartment, Carrie is offended and fixated on the fact that Charlotte (unemployed and recently divorced from Trey) didn’t offer her financial help. So Carrie ambushes Charlotte at her apartment, shaming her for being a bad friend, and refusing to take any accountability for being financially irresponsible. Eventually Charlotte gifts Carrie her old engagement ring from Trey which Carrie sells to use the money for the downpayment, but wow. The entitlement and lack of self-awareness is WILDLY unhinged.
Carrie is SO self-absorbed that she starts to ruminate over a conversation with one of Aiden’s other exes who implies that Carrie really fucked Aiden up (OF COURSE SHE DID). Carrie proceeds to emotionally dump on a postpartum Miranda and newly-in-love Stanford. She doesn’t ask them shit about themselves…just talks AT these people like she’s been doing for 5 years straight. Anyway, justice for Stanford.
Carrie uses a blaccent any time she talks to a person of color; I noticed it in in the VERY transphobic “Cock-a-Doodle-Do” episode and in the episode called “Anchors Away” when she is flirting with a Black guy. But yikes. It’s not cute.
Throughout the series, Carrie is a megabitch to so many nice, normal people and men…like the cute bisexual guy she just abandons at a party. A bunch of women who paid to take her course about love/relationships at The Annex (which she did ZERO preparation or work for). She stands up a whole group of lovely French fans who throw her a party for her book. Just truly unheard of behavior.
She has a bunch of traumatized roosters who were rescued from cockfighting moved to the basement of the animal clinic near her apartment :( Evil.
She doesn’t vote!
So there you have it; she’s trash.
And now, for good measure, below are the 5 episodes (out of 94) that I think have aged the worst. There are plenty of casual homophobic, transphobic, fatphobic, racist, agist, ableist jokes throughout the show, but below are the episodes that are truly wild. (If you’re curious about all of the episodes, Vulture so generously ranked them all here. Vulture is truly doing the Lord’s work).
The top 5 Sex and the City episodes that have…not aged well…
Boy, Girl, Boy, Girl (Season 3, Episode 4); for all of its progressive sex positivity in the late 90s, this show just did not believe in bisexuals, period. The thesis of this episode is that “bisexuality is just a layover on the way to Gaytown.” I think this singular line of dialogue severely fucked me up for a solid 10 years.
Cock-A-Doodle-Do (Season 3, Episode 18); this is a super transphobic episode in which Samantha fights with the trans women outside her condo. She is absolutely heinous to them. Icks all around.
No Ifs, Ands, or Butts (Season 3, Episode 5); Samantha dates a black man whose sister does not agree with their interracial relationship. Then Samantha pulls the “I don’t see color” and “reverse racism” cards to claim that they are being racist against HER. No.
Cover Girl (Season 5, Episode 4); Miranda joins Weight Watchers…lots of yucky fatphobic and bizarre jokes and dialogue here. Hate.
Boy, Interrupted (Season 6, Episode 10); Carrie agrees to go on a date with her high school boyfriend who is staying at a mental health facility in Connecticut; tone-deaf and insensitive mental health jokes abound.
What am I missing? Any gems?
It was never easy watching her break down Aiden. I appreciate the part when he finally yells at her “YOU BROKE MY HEART!!” and it’s like yeah Carrie back off. Let the man be. Yet he still somehow shows back up in “And Just Like That” which totally threw me.
Carrie sucks!!!!