It had been nine years since HBO aired the finale episode of Sex And The City when Emily Nussbaum wrote in The New Yorker about the failings of Carrie Bradshaw.
It was 2013, and retrospective analysis of the fictional nineties and noughties icon who was once considered transformative and fiercely feminist proved she was, often, the total opposite.
In the absence of Big’s love and approval Nussbaum observed Carrie “spun out, becoming anxious, obsessive, and, despite her charm, wildly self-centered—in her own words, ‘the frightening woman whose fear ate her sanity.’
“During six seasons, Carrie changed… She got more honest and more responsible; she became a saner girlfriend. But she also became scarred, prissier, strikingly gun-shy—and, finally, she panicked at the question of what it would mean to be an older single woman.”
This was, of course, written in the shadows of Sex And The City‘s second “mildly-to-completely terrible movie” (Vulture‘s words, not mine) set in Abu Dhabi. Memories of the nude tutu-wearing Carrie of season one had faded into oblivion. The new Carrie – the one who cheated on Aiden, who was totally inept at handling her finances because she kept buying Manolo Blahniks, and who was casually racist towards Middle Eastern women – was the only Carrie we could remember.
And that Carrie was, well, a total monster of privileged delusion; a woman who initiated conversations just to share her own stories, expected her friend Charlotte to loan her $30,000 and was angry when she refused, and showed up to Natasha's first post-marriage date demanding they be friends after she single-handedly destroyed the woman's marriage.
To relate to Carrie Bradshaw in the final SATC movie was akin to relating to a martian. The rough edges of the woman we fell in love with were now submerged beneath a dizzying pool of wealth and designer shoes. The enchanting grittiness had washed away, and we were left with a woman whose chief life dilemma was receiving a slick plasma TV for her anniversary instead of a black diamond ring.
In trying to spur forward the extremely lucrative story that made Sarah Jessica Parker a superstar, the character she portrayed became uglier, greedier, egomaniacal.
In 2007, it was the actress - not the character - who Maxim crowned 'Most Unsexy Woman Alive'.
It was perhaps the first time the line between fiction and reality became blurred in public consciousness, and the beginning of our inability to separate Sarah Jessica Parker from Carrie Bradshaw. The needy and irrational character we saw on screen was conflated with the actor who portrayed her. The more irksome we found Carrie, the more this bled into and tainted the reputation of Sarah Jessica.
This was something the actress likely didn't see coming; the ghost of Carrie benefitted Sarah Jessica in her everyday life, and she actively facilitated this. Shortly after the final TV season of SATC wrapped, the actress signed a US$38 million contract with GAP - a clothing brand struggling with a rather daggy reputation - to reinvigorate them as something cool and trendy. GAP wanted to be seen as ahead of the zeitgeist, and it was the attachment of fashion icon Carrie to their brand, more than it ever was the actress Sarah Jessica, that made the partnership work so well.
You could say the same thing with the mother-of-three's perfume and shoe lines. It's unlikely anyone really bought into the actress when picking up a $29.99 bottle of 'Lovely' at Priceline. The allure here has always been the character - the glitzy and glittery woman we saw on our screens for so many years. We wanted to smell like Carrie more than we did Sarah Jessica and the actress knew that; she made tens of millions of dollars from selling us Carrie long after SATC ended.
The problem is that our collective opinion of Carrie changed, slowly but resolutely. In 2004 Carrie Bradshaw was listed at number 11 on Bravo's 100 Greatest TV Characters list. By 2010, she had been listed on ABC's 10 worst characters in the last 20 years, where she was described as a "snippy, self-righteous Manhattan snob."
By the 52-year-old's own admission to Indie Wire, sometimes you "spend more time as that other person than being myself." For her, that other person was Carrie. For us, it was and is confusing; we are yet to detach the two women from each other, to see them as separate entities.
Perhaps it's the same reason so many fondly recall Jennifer Aniston from Friends more than they do Courteney Cox; despite being intelligent enough to know that one's character does not provide any insight into their personality, we clutch to the idea that Rachel and Jennifer are sweet and messy while Monica and Courteney are cold and controlling.
As the years passed, the actress increasingly tried to separate herself from the character she brought to life; in 2015 she told E! "there’s not a lot about Carrie that is actually similar to my life... there are certain kinds of pillars that are fundamentally different"; in 2016 she described the character as "childish".
LISTEN: Sex And The City is an enduring success with a cult following. But why? The Mamamia Out Loud team discuss.
Coupled with this is the rather unfair judgement that Sarah Jessica is a woman who is not transparent with her fans - something that is seen as unforgivable in this share everything, withhold nothing era.
When probed by Vogue in 2010 about how many people work for her and maintain her home - her children have been photographed with their "nanny" before - the New Yorker didn't exactly respond with an answer, telling the publication: “We painted our patio furniture ourselves... I make my children's food myself. We put together their high chairs ourselves; we do a lot ourselves! We do our own grocery shopping, we go to the market ourselves, you know? I do my laundry.”
This was followed by a 2014 interview in Huffington Post where Sarah Jessica said she caught the subway "every single day to and from work, every single day."
Just this month the actress described herself as a "big old-fashioned secretary" on the Girlboss podcast to host Sophia Amoruso. "All I do is organise people’s lives and get them here and there."
But because how Sarah Jessica says she lives in the confines of her home and how Carrie Bradshaw lived in her Manhattan apartment are such polar opposites, we struggle to marry the two. Comments of incredulation are left on articles where the actress redefines herself as the every-woman, the normal mum. And so, despite her best intentions to seem relatable, Sarah Jessica is instead considered dishonest and untrustworthy.
Now that she is embroiled in a rather bitter "feud" with her grieving former co-star Kim Cattrall, the public is wary of all facets of Sarah Jessica Parker through, really, very little fault of her own.
The concept of a "mean girls culture" with Sarah Jessica at the helm has only ever been spouted by one person.
“[I] don’t like it that people are characterising this as a catfight. There’s only one person fighting here,” comedian and television personality Andy Cohen said on his radio show Radio Andy overnight.
“Sarah’s only said the nicest things about her... I don’t get it: It’s a catfight of one from where I see it.”
While we may never know the machinations of the show that changed what it means to be a sexual woman, to the outsiders, the only crimes the actress is guilty of is sending her old work colleague condolences for the loss of her brother, and being disappointed a third movie will never see the light of day.
The prospect of a "gotcha" moment - the idea that this woman really isn't who she says she is after all - is so titillating it has blown up into one of the biggest celebrity stories of the year.
But here's the thing: Sarah Jessica Parker never promised to be Kim Cattrall's best friend. She doesn't owe Kim Cattrall a trip to the movies, or a cosmopolitan, because she's not Carrie Bradshaw, and Kim isn't Samantha.
They are just two women, who worked together once upon a time and don't anymore.
Really, that's all there is to it.
Top Comments
People need to stay out of this. This is between Sarah Jessica Parker and Kim Cattrall. I am sorry but Sarah's friends need to stay out of things that don't concern them. This is a form of bullying in and of itself. We will never know what happened between the two women and having people weighing in and making snide comments about a woman who is grieving is pathetic and obnoxious. Sarah needs to stop getting people to fight her battles for her. She is being passive aggressive. If Kim did not want to make the third SATC movie (and the first two sucked, so why should she?) she shouldn't be bullied into making it. She said no. Sarah and the producers had other ideas and decided to plant stories in the media about Kim demanding more money and projects and being a diva. After all, where did these stories come from? Kim had every right to defend herself. This happened with the first two movies as well, where stories were being planted in the media about Kim being difficult and she eventually relented and did them. Not this time, though. Good for her!
If the cast and crew were lied to and told a movie was definitely happening when it obviously wasn't, they should take it up with Sarah and the producers, not Kim. And why would Kim want to go back to that toxic workplace with bitchy mean girls and guys? Who needs that crap? Kim called Sarah out for being fake and that is her perception. Her opinion of Sarah is nobody else's business. I'm sure the tragic death of her brother has reinforced the notion that life is too short; certainly too short to spend it with jerks who treat you like crap. If there is one thing that Sarah seems to NOT have in common with Carrie, it's this: at least Carrie was a real friend.
Uh, no. An actress has been caught and called out for acting unpleasantly. Please don't make this into a patronising case of "you silly people can't tell the difference between a real person and a fictional character".
I agree. I have the box set of SATC and I have found that with every rewatch of it I was irked more and more by the fact that the other three characters had to endure embarrassing scenes suchoi as Charlotte pooing her pants, Miranda eating chocolate cake out of her bin and many of Samantha's sex scenes etc but Carrie never had any of that. Her character constantly puts down her friends yet her friends think the world of her. I always assumed it was becauseCarrie was based on Bushnell but earlier today I read that SJP was given the right to dictate the script in later seasons and then it all made sense.
Hey there. Who has ever supported the claims SJP was a "mean girl" or acted unpleasantly, other than Kim Cattrall? By all accounts from other actors and producers on set she was lovely. She is yet to say a bad word publicly about Kim; in my opinion if she was the mean girl her detractors purport her to be, there'd be something more than 'she didn't invite me to her beach house' to explain her nastiness. Women who work together are not entitled to be friends with each other - a working relationship is a working relationship... it's bizarre that we view it in such a different way to men when they work alongside each other.
Hi Michelle,
I actually agree entirely with the premise that women that work together should not be presumed to be besties, and ironically, this is exactly what KC appears to be being criticised for saying.
Personally I don't really care what went on between them (the truth is probably somewhere in between the two stories), but what I find interesting is how this whistle blowing has been interpreted in the press. You say that nobody else had a bad thing to say about SJP, but what you also forget is that she wasn't an equal in this situation, but KC's boss, and the boss of many others (who, interestingly - and perhaps not coincidentally - are the ones waving their "Team SJP" flags the most conspicuously). So am I surprised nobody has raised a peep? Nope. To contrast, the industry had lots of great things to say about people like Harvey Weinstein until recently, too. Conversely, as we have seen, people also tend to keep their mouths shut when it comes to saying negative things about people who can make or break careers.
I would ask you, how would you cover this story: A male actor/producer, who insinuates in the press that he has a friendship with a female actress who worked for him in the past, who was "difficult" and "a diva". Producer essentially implicates actress as the sole reason a film (from which producer stands to make a lot of money) is not going ahead. Said actress then goes public to say no, she's not a diva, and no, they were never friends, and no, she doesn't want to work with him again. Male actor/producer then goes on several TV spots to suggest actress is just being unreasonable, they were great friends and his feelings are really hurt over what she said. Actress then tragically loses a family member, and male actor/producer chooses to conspicuously posts a virtue-signalling condolence message on social media (in spite of very clear message being sent by actress that THEY ARE NOT FRIENDS). Actress, in her grief, calls out male producer/actor.
My suspicion is that you would:
a) Suggest that holding out for a better pay deal is actually every feminist's right, and doesn't make her a "diva"
b) Point out that male producer/actor appears to be using his position of power and influence to bully and gaslight the actress
c) Discuss how women should not be criticised for calling a spade and spade: it's not essential that we be friends with everyone, and it's OK to say so.
What third parties have to say about either SJP or KC can be taken out of the equation: just focus on the behaviour of the two women, and what has been said. KC has been vilified for being "difficult", when in fact there seems to be very little evidence of that (unless you define not wanting to work on a crap movie as being a "diva"?). Meanwhile, she's actually done something very unusual, which is to be blunt about an acrimonious working relationship - this sort of thing is expected in trashy Kardashian circles, but not between two working professionals, and *especially* not when there is a big power imbalance (with SJP holding the ace card in that respect). KC may well be a huge pain in the rear end (I wouldn't know), but it seems counter-intuitive to think she would gain anything out of attacking a much bigger force that is SJP, apart from wanting the truth to be out there. It's disappointing that a lot of commentary is still geared around vilifying the perception of a "difficult" woman, though, whilst retaining some sympathy for the "nice girl" who just wanted to be friends.
Of course, I will stand entirely corrected if KC signs to do a third SATC - then we'll know it was all a huge media stunt from which the two will profit immeasurably.
Footnote: FWIW, I really liked the SATC TV series ("A Woman's Right to Shoes" is still magnificent), but not so much the films, especially the second one. My only beef with SJP until this point was her appalling table manners - so my opinion has probably only been *slightly* coloured by her distracting habit of eating with her mouth full, and holding and waving her cutlery around like a child. I do know the difference between fictional characters and real people. ;)
Michelle, maybe you haven't followed it but SJP has long been known as a nasty bitch and mean girl who froze Kim out of everything and never spoke to her. Almost everyone is on Kim's side because SJP is an in your face mean girl and master manipulator. I have yet to come across one single person who supports SJP. Maybe you haven't paid any attention to it? Not.....one. Except you. You should know that SJP has had a history of dropping passive-aggressive comments about Kim in the media, so much so that the media has called SJP out on her blatant bullying and manipulative predatory behaviour and slandering of Kim. I usually love reading your posts but you are so ill-informed on this you are way way off base, and clearly out of the loop. Try reading Celebitchy blog on SJP/Cattrall for deeper information on the situation.