Transcription
Sex and the City. Now, like every young woman in New York City when this originally aired, I watched it. I watched it every Sunday. It was part of that HBO lineup. It was like unbeatable. It was Sopranos night. It was Sex in the City. There was always something else. Who remembers what that was?
Um, but I'm going to say that unlike most every young woman in New York City, I was a hate watcher. I was a hate watcher. Now, before we get to Carrie Bradshaw and the actress who plays her, Sarah Jessica Parker, I just want to say that I think this show has done an enormous amount of damage to generations of young girls and women, okay? And not just because of the toxic romantic relationship that was at the center of this entire six six season run and that you know was framed as like the love story of the ages. It was really quite a sick relationship and we'll get into that.
But I cannot tell you, especially working in media, how many young female transplants to New York City I would meet over the years who would I would liter I would be embarrassed for them overhearing these conversations. This was back when people really went into offices. Like overhearing these conversations in which they would without a shred of irony, without so much as a wink, be talking quite seriously about whether they were a Carrie or they were a Samantha or a Miranda. I mean, nobody ever wanted to be a Charlotte, you know, and they all thought it was really cute. Like, it was like, aren't I aren't I aren't I just so whimsical? I spend my meager salary because working in media, especially when you are starting out, you are like poverty level paycheck. So they would blow what little money they had on like designer shoes. And I knew more than one who would store them in the oven and think it was cute that they were using their oven to store shoes rather than to cook meals that would save them a ton of money instead of going out and spending a ton of money eating at restaurants or buying cosmopolitans which were was the drink that that show popularized. And those things are like diabetes in a glass. Just saying.
Um, I know personally at least one woman, young young woman, maybe early 30s, who bankrupted herself, trying to keep up with these sophisticates that she was trying to run with. Okay, this show was in many ways a cancer and the malignant tumor that cannot and will not be excised is one Carrie Bradshaw. There are entire Reddit threads devoted to Carrie and her singular brand of awfulness. The lying, the unrepentant cheating, the malignant narcissism. I use malignant twice, but there you go. The shallowess, the superficiality, the squealing, the squealing. It's it's like it's like Sarah Jessica Parker must think this is an adorable trait in a middle-aged now senior woman. And all of it adds up to who I believe is the most insufferable character ever save a new one they brought in. And we're going to memorialize that character in a moment. But really in terms of you're talking tenure, you're talking length of time on screens in the culture. Carrie Bradshaw, the most insufferable character ever to be foul, premium cable, and now streaming.
My case. I'm gonna lay it out to you like I'm a prosecutor because I like to prosecute things. In my mind, I'm I'm I'm a prosecutor. Okay. So, I believe that Car's true horrific nature really comes to the surface in season 4. And this is after she begs and nags and herangs Aiden. You know, the furniture maker, the guy who makes things with his hands. He's a good, honest, simple guy. He just wants to get married, have some kids, and just, you know, order KFC. That's it. She cheated on Aiden relentlessly. Okay. And she lost his dog while doing so. Shades, by the way, of JFK Jr., who got Daryl Hannah's dog killed when he took that dog out for a walk and got distracted with his own It's in the book. Ask not. Anyway, so but Aiden does get back with her again because in Sex in the City World, a show which I believe Sarah Jessica Parker has been the executive producer on low these many years, no man, no man can resist Carrie/SJP. It so lose the dog, you know, cheat, lie, lie about smoking, lie about being back with your toxic ex, humiliate the guy all over town. He's going to take you back. He's going to take you back. And then when he finally does take her back and invites her to spend summer weekends at his cabin upstate, does Carrie have the money for a second residence rented or owned to summer? She does not. But she goes upstate to his cabin and all she does. All she does is and moan that it is not the four seasons. Okay. a raccoon winds up in the in the window and she squeals and shrieks and she's dropping things and she's slamming pots and pans and she can't take it. And then and then she invites Mr. Big, the guy, the the Titan, the hedge fun who she was cheating on Aiden with. She invites him up to the cabin without telling Aiden. So he's got to stand there and greet the guy who cuckled him all those many years. Okay. And then she then when they they finally have like a fist fight, like a rolling on the ground fist fight, because of course these two strapping, gorgeous, handsome men would be fighting it out over this loser, you know, this spoiled, shallow, insecure, just you know, but they're fighting over Carrie because they're really fighting over Sarah Jessica Parker. Just my opinion. Okay.
Now, for the other gaping hole in this, what passes for this show's logic, um, Mr. Big would have had at best a couple of one night stands with Carrie Bradshaw and then been done with her. He would have been dating a 22-year-old supermodel. Okay, now Sex in the City originally aired before Instagram, before there was such a thing as influencers. But that's we're in that world now. And that's exactly who a hedge fund titan like Mr. Big would be with. He would be on his fourth wife by now. He would probably be having his fifth kid just to plate the young wife. He would have a ton of other kids from affairs or marriages with various other women and and he would be outed on page six as like a complete lethario if not me too. Okay. I think Mr. Big would have been me too. That would have, if I were in that writer's room, I mean, I could come up with a million different scenarios that are far more fascinating than the extremely unlikely event that Mr. Beige marries an age appropriate woman, okay? Who just has cannot really keep up her end of the conversation. She can't She only ever talks about herself. Have you noticed this? It's excruciating. Okay, episode 12, season 4. Carrie accepts Aiden's marriage proposal even though she's not in love with him. Okay, she's still in love with Mr. Big, the guy who has made it known throughout the show's entire existence, if you look at it through a logical lens, that he's just not that into her. So, by episode 16 of this season, she has broken Aiden's heart yet again. Just humiliated and destroyed this guy who was building their life together on his well-earned dime. But, you know, he'll come back again in in the reboot. He will come back because again, no man can resist Carrie SJP. Uh, and when they break up, she is shocked. Carrie shocked that Aiden has the gall to demand that she pay him back the money that he spent buying her apartment for the two of them. Okay, money she doesn't have because like one of her friends did the math for her and explained to her, "Oh, you spent $40,000 on shoes." Literally, that's why you don't have the down payment. Shoes like like cars. They're a depreciating asset. The minute you wear them, you can't return them. Okay, so what does Carrie do? And again, this goes to my argument that this show really was poison for generations of girls and women. So this idiot and I'm sorry you cannot you cannot make it in New York if you're this stupid. You can't you could live in an outer burrow like this version of Carrie. She could live in Queens, you know, but Manhattan. No, no, no, no. She goes to a bank. She's this stupid. She thinks it's cute. Does she think it's cute? The bank manager or whoever she's talking to, the associate says to her, "You know what? Here's what you've got in the bank. Less than $2,000 checking and savings combined. Do you have a 401k? No, I doubt she even knows what a 40 401k is. Does she have any kind of assets, any kind of real estate, stocks, bonds, anything at all? Carrie says, "No, but I was named New York's best columnist over Pete Hamill." And this is another thing she does that drives me crazy. It's a Carrie thing. It's an SJP thing. She talks in a baby voice. And when she gets real, she defaults to the baby voice because she thinks it makes her sound cute, I guess. And like people would want to feel protective of her. And actually, it just makes you want to jump into the screen and throttle her neck with your bare hands. Okay. So, then she's denied. She's And by the way, while she when she knows this denial is coming, she takes a look at the bank teller, the bank person's hand. It's a woman. And she notices she's not wearing a wedding ring. She goes, "You know, I'm sure you know, as a single woman, it's really hard to, you know, off. Okay, off." So then we cut back to Carrie in her apartment and even though she's been told she's probably going to be homeless, she can't get a bank loan, she's got nowhere to go with this misery of her own making. She's writing her stupid column, her shitty column which always had like the worst puns. And it was all it always began with I couldn't help but wonder. I seriously think in that writer room at HBO when they were talking about this reboot, I couldn't help but wonder was probably a potential working title. I couldn't help but wonder. When you're 35 years old, you should have moved on from such benalities. Okay, she begins this column. I'm I'm quoting from this column. This is the voice over here. I was a 35-year-old single woman with no financial security but many life experiences behind me. Did that mean nothing? Yeah, in terms of qualifying for a mortgage, that's a big yeah, you entitled Continuing on, Carrie writing her column. After all, heartbreak and breakups are the hardest kind of work. So, shouldn't there be some sort of credit for enduring them? No. No. That's just life. That's just life. That's what all of us go through. Okay.
So, in that same episode, Carrie then self-righteously marches herself over to her friend Charlotte's apartment. Charlotte, who is going through an excruciating divorce and who in that divorce has been fairly given, but I mean I mean in like it's it's it's justice for Charlotte. She got this great like classic Park Avenue classic six what they call them on Park Avenue. They're incredibly valuable and beautiful apartments. Uh, and she's she's infuriated that Charlotte, who is equally heartbroken, but Carrie can't see that Charlotte's got money and Carrie needs money and Charlotte's going to give Carrie $40,000 for her down payment. She's rich. What's the problem? Okay, watch this clip. This is when I completely was lost to the character of Carrie Bradshaw forever. Carrie, I love you. But it's not my job to fix your finances. You're a 35year-old woman. You need to learn to stand on your own. Charlotte, what is what is that on your finger? I just wear it when I'm alone in my house. And you're telling me to be more independent? It's my ring. I can wear it if I want to. And so what if it makes me feel better? And for the record, the only reason that I am volunteering is because no one will hire me. I just want to say that Charlotte owes Carrie zero explanation about anything, especially the solace she's taking in wearing her beautiful engagement ring. And that, you know, if this were the real world, if this were the real world, Charlotte, that would have been a friendship ending fight. That would have been a friendship ending fight. And in fact, it never made sense to me how the other three women who really had stuff going on and were interesting and smart and just, you know, knew how to get their money. They'd have nothing to do with this loser. Nothing. Okay. Anyway, of course, it's the show. It's it's the Sarah Jessica Parker show. And what does Charlotte do? She winds up giving Carrie the money. She gives her the ring. Okay.
The next season, we've had zero emotional growth. Okay. In fact, I would call it a regression. Now, as her friend Miranda is struggling mightily as a new single mother while juggling her ultra demanding job as a partner in a top Manhattan law firm, she's got a sleepless infant. She barely has time to shower. Carrie calls her early in the morning to and moan over her book review in the New York Times, which by the way, if you get a book review in the New York Times, whether it's good or bad, it's a win. Okay, so Miranda makes the mistake of taking this call and then she briefly falls asleep during the call because Carrie is just bitching and moaning about does does Miranda think that she's a bad writer or that she's a bad person and what does this all mean for Carrie Carrie Carrie Carrie and Miranda finally snaps and says you know what some of us have real problems and again that would have been a relationship ending fight but how does this resolve Miranda and basically apologizes for snapping at her and congratulates her on her review and goes off to work with her sad sad corporate suit and her greasy hair because she's too exhausted to even take a shower. Okay, now to Mr. Bake. Twice in this series, not once, twice, he is making a huge geographic move and he does not tell Carrie. Okay. Early in the season in the original show, Sex in the City, it was to Paris. Towards the end of the show, original Sex in the City, it was to California. Okay. To Napa Valley, which was the moment that one of the worst puns ever was committed on this show. I will not repeat it. Now, I believe that this was the writer room. The writers trying to tell Sarah Jessica Parker that Mr. Big was not that into her character. But again, my own theory of the case, SJP will not be denied. So this this is treated as though they're going to have this last great romantic weekend together before circumst it's like it's like Warren Batty and Diane Keaton and Reds before they're parted by forces beyond their control. This guy can't run fast enough away from her. But this show, I think in a very sick way, is determined to present this as a grand love story. And I think it's really sick. I think it's really sick. You know, Mr. Big was originally written as the ultimate toxic bachelor. And the show and and and the character, it would have been so much more interesting if they had stuck to that premise. And Carrie should have been well rid of him. I'm going to say by season 3 at at the latest. Okay.
Now, we're moving on to And Just Like That, which premieres. The first episode begins streaming tomorrow. Now, I am convinced that HBO renews this show because it gets eyeballs. It doesn't matter if it's a hate watch. I think most of us are hate watching it. Eyeballs are eyeballs, okay? Even like the the reviews are not good. They're they're never good. So, this is this show has become a bunch of old women and and and this is no slight against older women. We're all going to get there someday. But they are spiritually, philosophically, they are old. They are old and they're trying to make it in a woke world, in a woke New York City. And the show, you know, it did used to have some glamour and some levity and some, you know, it was sort of this aspirational watch in some ways. And it's it's lost all of it. All of it. And by the way, I have it on very good authority that SJP was furious that the third Sex in the City movie never materialized because the second was such a bomb. It was such a bomb. And her plan for the third one, her and Michael Patrick King, the showrunner, was they were going to kill off Mr. Big in the third movie. So, they got to do it in season one. They got to do it in season one of And Just Like That. And in comes aside from Carrie, which again I give her in terms of tenure, in terms of in terms of like a stubbornness in the culture, she she wins. She wins. But a a close second, like just a blink of an eye, close second is Jay Diaz. Okay, this was the self-identified non-binary, queer, weed smoking, obnoxious, swaggering, nonfunny podcast host and comedian who doesn't do standup. Instead, she does what they call comedy concerts. I have never in my life heard this phrase ever. I am a lifelong New Yorker. I have never heard this phrase. And all of her material, all of Chay's material is about how cool she is and how if you don't like her and think she's awesome, it's your problem. And then we always cut to the audience and Carrie and her friends and they're all laughing hysterically like they're all doubled over like they're watching the reincarnation of George Carlin and Richard Prior and Joan Rivers all in one. Okay, now the insufferable Cynthia Nixon who plays Miranda and who ran for governor of New York not too long ago. This shows you how delusional she is. Delulu. She reportedly made it a condition of coming back for the reboot that she could do to Miranda what she did in her own life, which was leave a clearly longsuffering husband for a woman. Okay, now we've got a bunch of new language. And in Just Like That, the new vocabulary, streaming series, pronouns, phone charger. I mean, every time like an actress says it, you're like, "Oh, wow." Like, they're like, "We're really in the in the 21st century. We're really in the year 2020. I asked for a phone charger. I'm young. I'm young. Uh and then a bunch of all gender bathrooms. They're always like in the in the back prominently displayed. We've also got a bunch of new black cast members, an Asian cast member. They have zero tether to the original characters. Don't call it tokenism. We're calling it woke.
Um, now, for those of you who haven't yet seen and just like that, I have a real treat for you. This guy's a fellow troublemaker. I'm telling you right now. His name is Jimmy Fall and he also writes for SNL at least according to his Instagram which I I take for bib Bible and verse. Um, so during lockdown he made these amazing parodies of Carrie Bradshaw you know like just parachuting her into a global pandemic and her not getting it like her refusing to get it. Okay. And they went viral. They were hilarious. And he's back with a new reel for the new season of In Just Like That. And trust me when I tell you he has SJP's ticks and tricks down. Take a look at this. It was a new year and a new me. I was feeling on top of the world. I didn't need a thing. Not even a cameo from Kim Catra. I had accomplished everything I wanted. From being a successful columnist to being an awardwinning author. 20 years later, it all paid off. And just like that, I was a guest on someone else's podcast. What kills me is like the stuff he does with the hair and like I'm just a I'm just an overly madeup coette. Like I'm like 62. I'm just a coette and I'm like as hip as ever and um yeah, like my career is on fire. I'm a guest on someone else. Like I die. I die. I die for him. Okay.
Um, and next take a look at he parodies. This was uh season one episode one of And Just Like That. Carrie is a is a is a third party on a podcast. Like she's a try out. By the way, this podcast takes live calls from viewers. Like it's an oldtimey radio show. Like they still don't know what they're doing. Um, but but watch this. I don't know if I told you guys, but my husband recently passed. Yeah. He just dropped dead after taking a Pelaton class. I didn't know that could happen. It was wild. I even thought about suing Pelaton, but my lawyer said that they had a pretty good argument against me for not calling 911. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I mean, I know this was talked about again discuss discussed rather in Reddit threads and in viewer threads, but she had time to call 911. Like he's like dying and struggling to breathe and clearly having a heart attack and she's just like emoting all over the place. But that is Carrie and that is SJP in a nutshell. They are too consumed with how they're coming across in any given moment, even if it's her beloved husband's death, to call for help. Okay. And by the way, not long after that, Mr. Big in real life, Chris Nath was me too, as I think Mr. Big would have been. He was accused of rape by more than one woman. Quite the metaphor. Okay.
Um, among the show's other crimes, briefly, the character assassination of Kim Catrol, Samantha, who I believe, just my opinion, my theory, was the target of SJP's sthing jealousy because Kim took what could have easily been a oneote character. Like, she was written as like just an old school flooy. I mean, really, Samantha was a gay man in female form, you know? Uh, but Kim turned her into a very nuanced, smart, sensitive, successful, multi-layered character. She was the deepest of the bunch. And so what did SJP and the writers do? But they had Samantha get breast cancer. So she had to have like a shaved head for like a good portion of the show and sweat profusely. They marred her beauty. And then after she recovered, Samantha had the gall to gain like five pounds. Like the horror. And they make fun of it. They make fun of it on screen. So then they and then they explained away Kim's very wise and self-protective, I think, decision to steer clear of this show by accusing Samantha of using Carrie for money and clout. It was always the other way around. Always the other way around. Okay, again, Aiden is back. He was back last season for this reboot. He's coming back this season for more punishment. Here, eat your Okay, as discussed, he would never. Finally, SJP gets to kill off Mr. Big. And then as she's, you know, doing her ferial best, her funeral, I got tripped up. Herial best. Another character vocally calls her at the funeral, quote, "Our Jackie Kennedy." That is sacrilege. And I'm not around. That is sacrilege. Also, Willie Garson, I think I'm saying his name right. He was the actor who played Car's gay bff, Stanford, who really just doubled as her handbag. He was dying of cancer while filming season 1. And I watched this scene with my jaw open. I couldn't believe what they did to him. This team spearheaded by Michael Patrick King and Sarah Jessica Parker do a restaurant scene. And where do they put Willie Garson? But he's sitting in at the table in a chair and his back is to a swinging set of doors that lead into the kitchen. And what are those doors doing? But continuously slamming into Willie Garson's back. The guy is dying of cancer. They are vile people. Okay. Now, do I know if they knew he had cancer? I don't know. I'm going to think they did. Insurance reasons alone. But regardless, it was it was disgusting. Okay.
And then finally, we are all we are all being held hostage by Sarah Jessica Parker's refusal to let this character who she clearly sees as her fabulous alter ego go gently into that good night. I mean, she's got beer goggles on for days, okay? She clearly sees Carrie as beautiful, ageless, witty, glamorous, stylish, and all-around great friend and girlfriend who no man, again, no man can resist. I am here to say it is the opposite. It's all very baby Jane. It's like there is a definite subtext of just absolute creepiness in in the inability to see.