The moment(s) when Sex and the City made you want to throw your TV across the room

Cafe Society
21

I liked the show. It wasn’t intellectual television, to be sure, but it was fun and funny, not to mention kind of refreshing to see women talking about sex so frankly. I think the reason you never see them working is because it was a show about their personal lives, not their work lives. If they wanted to make a show about Miranda’s law career or Charlotte’s art gallery they would have done that. They wanted to talk about these women’s sex lives and work doesn’t really factor into that, so they showed just enough work so that you knew they had jobs and focused on the more intimate parts of their lives.

As far as this goes, before I met my boyfriend I went out on an average of 2 dates per week, sometimes with the same guys and sometimes with different guys. The difference between me and the S&TC girls is that I didn’t sleep with every guy who was nice enough to buy me dinner. Maybe this was just part of living in NYC, since I didn’t date like that when I lived in Texas, or maybe it was part of actively searching for love and commitment, but I did date quite a lot and put plenty of effort into meeting men.

22

I love SaTC and have seen every episode of the show at least five times.

Carrie is definitely the worst of the bunch, for reasons already mentioned. She was monstrously self-absorbed, expected the world from her friends while rarely giving them as much consideration in return, and had the all-around maturity of a twelve-year-old (the out of control spending, the relationship woes, etc.).

Probably the worst is, as Sr Siete mentioned, her utter ignorance of fairly common sexual situations. Actually, this applies to all of them. The circumcision thing was the absolute worst; I believe it was Samantha (supposed to be very sexually experienced) who was the only one of the four who had dealt with one, and the others all thought that it was simply disgusting, with Miranda in particular throwing a fit over the idea :rolleyes:

The porn thing that IlluminatiPrimus mentions was horrible, too. Miranda was shocked, shocked that a guy she went out with would have a porn video centered around what must be the single tamest fetish imaginable, and thought that since he had that video, that must be what he wanted their entire sexual life to center around.

There are times when you wonder whether or not any of these women had ever met a man or had any male friends at all. Sexually, they were certainly less experienced than most women I know in their early 20’s.

What really broke the camel’s back for me was the way she treated Berger. She basically just shrieked at him whenever he did anything that didn’t fit with her vision of him and then bitched him out to his friends after he broke up with her.

Samantha is by far the one who irritates me the least, since, as was mentioned, she’s at least honest about what she wants. I think the “cougar” description is unfair and inaccurate, as most of the time she was having sex with men her own age or older. The big exception was Smith Jared, which wasn’t so much of a stretch when you consider that he owed her his entire career (which isn’t to say he didn’t love her).

Charlotte was mostly unoffensive to me, even though she was a complete and utter moron. The killer for me was when she said something along the lines of, “Do you know what people think when they see you and me together?! Do you know how lucky you are to have me?!” to her then-boyfriend Harry. He did the sensible thing by standing up and immediately walking out on her, but a few episodes later her resurfaces and immediately proposes to her :smack::

I used to like Miranda quite a bit, but the movie killed any and all empathy I had for the character, and is easily the moment that most infuriated me in the entire series. The way Miranda treated Steve was completely reprehensible, and that none of her friends told her exactly what a selfish, heartless bitch she is only demonstrated how little any of them cared about her. There’s a reason that there were cheers in my theater when Steve announced to Miranda that he had cheated on her. In an ideal world, Steve would have divorced her sorry ass.

23

The way that Charlotte was so completely sanctimonious and judgemental but would put out for any rich guy with a charming smile. At other times, she would act so desperate and needy while nitpicking the hell out of any guy she came across (this can apply to all the girls).

Another thing: How much money can these girls make? Going to $14-a-drink clubs and insanely expensive restaurants every other night? What about all the clothes Carrie had? And she’s a writer for some shitty newspaper column?

As much as this show got on my nerves sometimes, it was funny and kind of sweet.

24

Part of it is explainable by Samantha owning a PR firm. They often went to places that she was doing the PR for and I would imagine got a lot of comps. They also tended to date the well off. (bankers, CEO’s, major league sports players, etc). Miranda was a full partner in law firm and Charlotte came from a family with money. Carrie probably had astronomical credit card balances which is how she got by. She also loved to shop at sample sales and the like so a number of her outfits were not purchased for full retail.

25

I remember thinking after watching the first couple seasons that they were totally ripping off the Seinfeld schtick of hooking up with someone new each episode and then finding the quirk about them that ends it.
“She has… man hands.”
“He wants me to… pee on him.”

26

I would love to comment on this but i watched one episode and i had to stop for fear it would make me gay.

27

I can’t believe I’m defending her, but to me Berger was the only relationship where Carrie *didn’t *act like a tool. Berger was whiny and insecure about the fact that Carrie was more successful and made more money than he did. She made one tiny good-natured criticism about his book (after praising it wholeheartedly), and he acted like she had killed his entire family. Guy could not take criticism at all. And breaking up with someone on a Post-It note is indeed weak and spineless, and Carrie had every right to feel bitter about it.

28

Good call. I was completely hetero until that series came out. :wink:

29

Ah, that does explain things more, thanks.

30

The first five minutes.

I don’t have HBO, watched this once at my dad’s house once. The plot line seemed to center on how some girl didn’t like the taste of her boyfriend’s semen. “Funky spunk.” Really fascinating stuff :rolleyes:

31

Charlotte? Attractive? The woman had the mannerisms of a startled parrot.

32

Nitpick: I believe it was the redoubtable Christopher Griffin who made that observation.

33

I agree that Berger was no prize himself, but I still thought the way Carrie went about the whole thing just further piled on to how immature and shrill she was.

I will say that I don’t really regard the show as that divorced from reality concerning the women living outside their means. As was mentioned, three of the four were quite well off, and frequent mention is made of how Carrie is in perpetual financial ruin.

And while it may seem like they’re constantly out living it up, it’s really just that that’s all we see. In at least a few episodes, they make a note of how long it had been since they last saw each other.

34

  1. Any time Carrie starts reading from her column. That has to be the lamest, worst written newspaper column of any kind.

  2. The point in the very first episode when Carrie complained about why “these four great women” couldn’t get what they wanted. Great? They were all shallow, annoying nightmares. Their personalities were unbearable.

Charlotte was hot, though.

35

I loved the show - I’ve seen almost every episode and I cried a couple of times during the finale.

You haters can criticize all you want. I dig 'em!

36

See that’s funny because I’d never get tired of punching Charlotte in the face, even past the point where my hand was broken.

I liked Samantha a lot for the same reasons as everyone else gave - she was honest with others (and more importantly, herself) what she wanted and she went out and got it. She’s the only one out of the four that I could spend any length of time with.

37

YES! I was so disappointed with that episode because I think they could have had a decent storyline of Carrie actually taking responsibility for herself. She could have sold shoes, clothes, etc on Ebay and bailed HERSELF out.

I don’t really think it was the shock of people kissing other genders, it was the way they all traded each other back and forth like a good book. This one was the ex of that one who’d been engaged to the first guy who lived with and had sex with all three of them.

38

As I recall, Carrie wasn’t angry that Charlotte didn’t give her the wedding ring. She was angry that Charlotte didn’t offer Carrie the money for her down payment after Miranda and Samantha had so.

Charlotte later sells the wedding ring because she wants to be rid of it, and gives Carrie the money (as an interest-free loan), but I don’t believe that the ring was part of it until then; Charlotte thought that up herself.

Of course it was still monstrously, inhumanly inappropriate for Carrie to get angry at one of her friends for not offering her a huge chunk of money to effectively subsidize her irresponsible and frivolous lifestyle.

And a slight nitpick on Aiden’s proposal… I think Carrie was actually right to turn that down. He wasn’t proposing to her because he wanted to marry her; he was proposing to her because he was afraid she would cheat on him again. Not really a healthy basis for a marriage.

That said, Aiden was infinitely too good for Carrie, so it ultimately benefitted him the most.

39

I hate Sex and the City; I can’t watch a minute and a half of it without wanting to throw my TV across the room. It is to feminism what Song of the South is to racial equality. Gleefully misogynist claptrap that just makes me see red.

40

I have to clarify something. I actually found the show mildly entertaining at times, but it was always at the expense of the characters. I would cheer any time Carrie or Miranda, especially, got shat on, because they deserved it so much.

What I found really offensive was the idea that these characters could actually be admired by real people, that they might serve as heroes or role models for actual women. Why would anyone with a brain have any sympathy for these horrible, horrible people? I certainly would not want to have any interaction with someone like them in real life.

The Charlotte issue is interesting, because it seems that I, like a lot of people, find her the least offensive. Believe me, that’s not saying much. She’s good looking and she isn’t nearly as hateful as the others, but I still wouldn’t want to know her in real life.