The More You Know

Sex and the City aired in 1998 when I was 12 years old and knew very little about the city and far less about sex. For better or for worse, by the time I was 14 its 40 minute installments became a facet of my education in both topics. My girlfriends and I were obsessed with the show, devouring it despite parental objections.  We were adolescent devotees of a show designed for women much older than the set who truly adored it.    After calling to check for availability, we’d trek to the video store to pick up the next DVD installment of the latest season. We had neither HBO nor driver’s licenses to aid in our quest.  Enraptured by all we did not understand, we’d re-watch episode after episode in whatever basement offered the least likely chance of a dad popping in during a particularly rousing climax.      

I don’t remember if we found Sex and the City funny. I can’t imagine we got many of the jokes—so dependent on concepts just grazing our consciousness. Only in our delusional minds could we empathize with or relate to the escapades of wealthy single women in Manhattan. And yet we were fascinated with the fairy tale stories because of their glimmer of attainability.  A glimpse into the lives of women who bore little resemblance to us or anyone we knew but also seemed like not entirely inconceivable iterations of our adolescent selves.  Perhaps if life took certain turns, we too could be Carrie, Charlotte, Miranda and Samantha, sipping cocktails, romping around in dozens of Manhattan bedrooms, then talking about it over brunch. Because my hair was curly, I would be Carrie rather than the red-headed cynic whose character more closely resembled who I would become ten years later.  

In hindsight—and as a middle school teacher—I understand my parents’ objections. We were probably too young to be watching a show that was full of nudity and thematic questionability, but every girl whose mother would let her was watching on similar subterranean screens across the country.  I wonder about the effect of Sex and The City on our early understanding of dating, gender politics and sex itself.  Was watching dozens of raunchy episodes innocuous or influential to our development?  I think of Sex and the City as something of my generation, but in reality, weren’t we a little young to be watching?    

Recently, two girlfriends and I downloaded a season of Sex and the City on iTunes—the modern day DVD for the HBO-less among us.  These are the same two girlfriends—the rotating Samantha and Charlotte to my Carrie—who I watched these same episodes with years ago.  Only now we are twentysomethings living in New York rather than brace-faced teenagers living in Portland. On the surface, the resemblance doesn’t amount to much other than gender and location. We are teachers and students, not media reps and sex columnists. We live in Brooklyn and buy cheap wine. The experience was nostalgic, but also unsettling.  In the most oxymoronic way, Sex and the City seemed more real fantasy or fake reality than ever. 

My roommate remarked as the episode entitled “are all men freaks?” came to its voiceover conclusion: “this doesn’t seem so funny anymore.”  And she’s right.   With more knowledge of both sex and the city, the plotlines are more relatable, but lilt toward depressing.  We laughed at the nineties clothing, but couldn’t find much comedy in the plotlines.  Despite questionable content, maybe Sex and the City is better for girls than women. Girls who wonder if this reality could someday be their own rather than women who worry that maybe it really is.