The Dubious Legacy of Carrie Bradshaw

It’s been ten years since the final episode of “Sex and the City” aired. The dramatic finale left audiences swooning and hungry for more. Hungry people make bad decisions, and their cries were answered by the bad Sex and the City movie, the worse Sex and the City 2, and the pointless Carrie Diaries. But even without these gaudy misfires, the show has retained a place in the public imagination. In female ensembles real and fictional, fans continue to designate the Carries, the Samanthas, the Mirandas, and the Charlottes.

                The show has also been praised as a feminist triumph. And at the risk of sounding like a total Miranda, I feel a little cynical about that. I do think that SATC gives us three credible examples of modern womanhood. Lady lothario Samantha who owns her own PR firm, sardonic lawyer Miranda, and even the Pollyanna gallerist Charlotte, who racks up an impressive number of conquests on her quest for traditional marital bliss.

But SATC does not belong to any of those three. It belongs to Carrie Bradshaw. And Carrie is a whole other story. Samantha, Miranda, and Charlotte exist in a gilded sliver of Manhattan accessible only to the super-privileged, but at least they live in Manhattan. Carrie exists in a rent controlled fantasy land. That’s fortunate, because in the real world she’d have a lot to answer for. 

                Carrie Bradshaw is a bad person. She just is. It’s not a criticism of the show’s entertainment value. Nor is it a criticism of the actress Sarah Jessica Parker, who portrays her. If anything, Parker should be commended for somehow making a manipulative, irresponsible narcissist one of the most beloved TV characters of all time.

                Carrie, like the cast of Friends, is a beneficiary of television’s wild misconceptions about who can and cannot afford a spacious apartment in Manhattan. But even with the plot point that her building is rent controlled, there is no accounting for her insanely expensive tastes. She is a writer of a weekly sex column that runs in the back pages of a second rate local newspaper. This column funds a dazzling whirlwind of shopping sprees at Prada and Chanel, trendy restaurants, club nights, and spa days. But Carrie has plenty of time to indulge in all these opulent activities, because the column is her only project. (That is, until she takes a gig at Vogue, in an episode where an editor played by Candice Bergen is vilified for daring to give Carrie - gasp! - edits.) Every purchase of a new pair of Manolo Blahniks comes with an offhanded chirp about how she can’t really afford them. In the real world, such outrageous spending habits are a sign of mental illness. In Carrie’s world, they’re a quirk.

                I know, I know. It’s escapist. It’s fun. It’s not supposed to be realistic. But the problem is that Carrie’s material entitlement spills over into her personal life. She is that friend who always finds a way to steer the conversation back to her own issues. She demands that her friends be available to her at all times, but does not necessarily return the favor. She cheats on the most saintly man of all time (I mean, he’s a carpenter for Christ’s sake) with a married ex. When men eventually balk at her needy, manipulative ways, she concludes that it’s because she is too “wild” or too “complicated” or some other romantic excuse for bad behavior.

Take, for example, the episode in Season 4, “Ring a Ding Ding”.  St. Aidan finally reads the writing on the wall and leaves her. Trouble is, he recently bought her apartment for the two of them to live in together. Now she either has to cough up the cash to buy it back, or she’s out on her ass (which, like the rest of her, is miniscule even though she never works out and spends half her life at brunch). Her prince (Mr. Big) and her ladies in waiting (Samantha and Miranda) offer to give her the money outright. Charlotte wisely resists. Carrie later confronts Charlotte for not offering, and essentially bullies her into handing over her old engagement ring for Carrie to hawk for the down payment.

Both the problem and the solution may seem reprehensible, but if no one had bailed her out, it would violate the fundamental rule of SATC: don’t let anything seriously bad happen to Carrie. The other characters deal with divorce, single motherhood, STD scares, and a miscarriage. They also seem legitimately stressed out by their jobs from time to time. Carrie chain smokes her way through the first four seasons, but in the end it is Samantha who is diagnosed with cancer.

Fast forward to the final episode, in which Carrie drops her entire life to live with her new boyfriend in Paris. The Paris thing doesn’t work out, because it’s raining and the boyfriend isn’t paying enough attention to her. Fortunately, Mr. Big steps in and rescues her. The story of Carrie’s fairy tale life ends in classic fairy tale fashion. I feel about as empowered by the end of SATC as I do by the end of Sleeping Beauty (or perhaps Cinderella, given the shoe fixation).

                The negative influence of Carrie Bradshaw is bolstered by her likeability, as well as the lack of comeuppance. SATC gave us a heroine who treats people poorly, who makes consistently bad choices and relies on men to solve her problems. That would be fine, except that it doesn’t give us any reason to not want to emulate her. Why not be just like Carrie? Carrie is darling, and it all works out in the end.

                So here we are, ten years later. SATC’s teen fans are now young professional women (and young professional gay men). What has become of the adolescent idolaters who entered adulthood convinced they could learn something from this woman? Something like, it is OK to max out your credit cards because looking fabulous is more important than the independence that comes with long-term financial stability. It is OK to sleep with a married man because the love between you and him is more sacred than the love between him and his wife. And countless other misguided tidbits that all add up to the conclusion: if you live like Carrie Bradshaw, you’re doing modern woman wrong.

Modern womanhood is about choice, and that comes at a price. Having the freedom to control your own life means grappling with a whole new set of burdens, dilemmas, and possible regrets. Is it worth it? Absolutely. But what is gained when we pretend that the price doesn’t exist? Carrie doesn’t have to answer to the burden of choice any more than she has to answer to all those calories, cigarettes, Manolos, and lies. A woman who works hard, who makes mistakes, who fights back  and takes responsibility for her actions, and is stronger for it – that is a real modern woman well worth looking up to.