Sex & the City: What characters can you relate with or like the most?

Cafe Society
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First of all, let me preface this post by saying that I absolutely hate this moronic show, and that prior to August of this year, I had never even seen one episode of this this idiotic television show.

Then, I started dating this chick who was completely bonkers about this show (it’s really popular among chicks here in Korea), and within a four month period, I ended up – at her behest – watching Seasons 1-3 (she has all the DVDs).

Now, after having become a rather quick study on this show with almost 50 episodes under my belt, I can still say that I absolutely hate this dumb show – although I will concede that it is somewhat addictive.

That being said, what character(s) did you like the most, or what characters could you relate and why?

I personally hated everybody on this show, although I found myself relating to Steve Brady (Miranda’s bartending boyfriend in seasons 2&3) and Aidan (Carrie’s furniture making boyfriend in seasons 3&4).

I feel these guys (Steve and Aidan) are the epitome of “nice” guys who are constantly being dicked around by flaky. manipulative and insecure women, such as Carrie and Miranda, who in my opinion do not deserve them.

Also, on another note, do any of you have any compalints about this show?

My major problem with this asinine show is that I just wonder how these women can have all this time to fuck around, live in Manhattan, buy all these dumb shoes and eat in all these fancy restaurants on the paltry salaries that their careers would invariably generate. (I mean really, how much does a free-lance columnist make? Or for that matter, a gallary manager or self-employed PR person?).

I mean, come on, I think it would be more realistic if these women had real jobs with real problems, and weren’t such spendthrifts. Has any on this show ever heard of “living on a budget”? Apparently, these chicks are the exception.

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For answers to these Reality TV questions, and more, switch over to Cafe Society.

The above link will soon become redundant.

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Moved to CS.

-xash
General Questions Moderator

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I became a religious watcher of this show in the last couple of years, since I got HBO. Now I’m watching the first season, which I’d never seen, as it’s being rerun, and I have to say it’s improved enormously over the years. The characters were caricatures in the first season: Miranda the man-hating bitch, Samantha the slut, Charlotte the priss, and Carrie the neurotic EveryNewYorker. They have really grown a lot since then.

I guess I’d say I’m a mix of all four by turns but most identify with Carrie (except she was a total idiot for letting Aidan get away-- hated her for that and it didn’t make sense either). I’m a writer, I love shoes, and I always pine away for emotionally unavailable men. I figured she’d wind up with Big and am glad she isn’t.

Mostly, I watch the show because it makes me laugh and always has some grain of truth in it amongst the shallowness. I’ll be sad to see it go next year.

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My wife is a fan of the show (she caught it from her sister), and I detest it. The thing that gets me is that I find the four main characters so incredibly unappealing in the personality department that I could never imagine wanting to date them. They’re whiny, they’re self-centered, they’re materialistic, they’re sluts. To me, they sorta embody all the bad qualities of women, multiplied by a mighty big number.

So my question, along the lines of the OP is: what is the appeal of this thing? I’ve actually spent some time asking my wife about it, and I honestly don’t get it. All I can figure is that it represents the dark side of femininity and it’s a chance for ladies to probe that nether world.

My wife says she gets exposed to unusual sexual practices (tea-bagging comes to mind) that she finds amusing and titillating. I argue that I (like any other person who’s been a teenage male in their life) have an encyclopedia of that stuff in my mind if she really wants to know.

Hmmmm. Maybe I don’t like the show 'cause my wife is finding her tittilation elsewhere. I’ll have to think on this one.

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This is embarrassing to admit but I kinda liked the show when I was watching it with my GF of the time.

After we broke up and I watched it by myself a few times my jaw was on the floor. What idiotic tripe. Vain shallow idiots that try to be ‘deep’ by making metaphors about shoes.

For who I relate too…I’m a lot less awkward then that bartender guy (but I can see some of myself in him) I have about the same temperament as Aidan without the manly man aspects. Though I never would have talked to that bitch again after she cheated on me. Esp with such a total prick.

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I like the show, but, then, I like watching women have sex and talk about it.

I was in the same situation as the OP. I don’t have cable, so all I knew of the show was what I read in the magazines. Then my wife and I finally got a DVD player and started renting the shows. We’ve seen part of season four and got through season one, so there are huge gaps in the storyline we don’t know about yet.

That said, here’s my take:

  • I agree that the show is fundamentally unreal, but that comes with the title. There’s Sex, and there’s the City. That’s what the show is about. Therefore, there’s got to be sex, and there’s got to be New York – at least the southern part of Manhatten. Any television show is going to have unreal elements in them. That’s the nature of the beast. There’s a word for shows that reflect real life as we experience it – the long dull times between the interesting bits, followed by death – and it’s called cancelled.

You might as well complain that “Star Trek” is unreal because it’s impossible to build a FTL spaceship.

  • There are parts – only parts, mind – of the show that reflect a woman’s fantasy life. No, not the sex, but of having girlfriends you can trust. Girlfriends you can talk shit to and who’ll back you up when you need it. Who will be there even when you don’t want them to. (I suspect that married women, especially, might like to live a life where they can go to restaurant openings, drink fine drinks, meet exciting handsome men and not have to worry about what the kids are up to at home).

  • Some of the sex is funny. Samantha finding the perfect man who has the dick of a lima bean. Miranda’s Catholic playwright boyfriend who showered after every fuck. Charlotte who won’t go down on a guy (his response “well, can you lick my balls instead” had me laughing and cringing at the same time). It’s not the type of funny you want to experience yourself, but that’s the beauty of the show.

The show does have its problems. The girls have way too many partners so they do come off as slutty. The shows can be wearing if seen too close together. After going through the 12 shows in the first season, we’re not in a hurry to get season 2 any time soon. And we were really disappointed over the way Carrie broke up with Big at the end of the season. It seemed like the writers expected the show not to last too long and found they HAD to break them up to keep the show going. They wrote themselves into a corner.

But on the whole, I like the show. The characters muddle through life and, sometimes, they fuck up. Sometimes big time. Can’t really fault them for that. Perfect characters are perfect bores.