Every Sunday night you’ll find me sitting on my big purple couch, the one you’ll never hear me call the Barney of sofas. [Side Note: My first few months out of school I worked for a state rep during my wanna be politico I-don’t-care-about-money phase, and she had this big giant purple Buick, or some rich R car, (with a personalized plate no less). Every time she drove down from her district I would have to take a poor page down to the representatives’ garage and we’d unload whatever it was that needed unloading. (Usually her ego.) Anyway, every single time she’d ask me to do it, she’d describe the car and say, "My grandson says it’s a Barney car!" Drove me nuts. Like, I KNOW. You told me.]
Where was I? Oh yes. Sunday night. Couch. HBO.
I used to count the days till I could watch Sex and The City. It was by far the highlight of my t.v. week. It was such a ritual in my house that even when Pony and I weren’t getting along, we still always watched SaTC together. For the season premieres we’d make a big deal. Pizza, beer (or wine coolers in [my] Miranda’s case), the whole nine.
I own both seasons one and two on video and DVD respectively. No one can say I’m not a fan.
But now? Now the show makes me want to claw myself. Now, it’s just the show I watch before Six Feet Under. And if the crapattern continues, it might not even be that anymore.
And if you’re an MBTV-phile, you know I’m not alone in my sentiments. Every poster wants to know: when did Carrie become such a bratty bitchy brat? When did Samantha go from a sex-driven throw-your-hands-up-at-me independent woman to a pathetic caricature? Why does Miranda get all the horribly mean story lines? When did Charlotte go from a WASPy perky love optimist to a weak-willed I’ll-be-married-to-an-unsexy-Oedpius-just-to-stay-married wifey?
(Y’all realize that I’m Charlotte, right? I have a little bit of a Rules girl buried in me, even if usually I keep her duct-taped in the closet. I love the idea of a family, and ideally I want to work from home and raise my children and all that bother. I am the one who’d be helping open presents and trading names at the baby shower. Not the one who’d bring liquor; not the one who’d sit outside and complain and completely not the one who’d spend the entire event thinking about ME and how this life could affect ME and what was going on with ME.)
Carrie always had a touch of selfishness, just as the other characters all had a touch of their now overblown stereotypical personality "quirk." But now it’s just insane. The previews for next week show Carrie bringing Big to Aidan’s cabin. What? On what planet would this ever, EVER be okay? It doesn’t matter if he’s hurting, or if you’re just friends now. This is the man you cheated on your current boyfriend with. The one you admittedly have no self-control around.
But she’s self-centered and blind and a 12-year-old. I cannot stand her. And it has nothing to do with her ridiculous "fashion forward" outfits, or the unrealisticness of her profession versus her lifestyle et cetera. It’s her attitude. It’s how she’s suddenly become the lynch pin in a group of women she keeps around to fawn over and take care of her.
Two seasons ago the girls told Carrie to either shut-up about Big or go to therapy. They told her they couldn’t be her complaining board anymore.
Now, they comfort HER when Miranda’s mother dies.
It makes me want to spoon my eye out.
It just makes me mad. Here was a show that spoke honestly about women’s relationships with each other and with men. That showed that while yes, we’re looking for love, often in the wrong places, sometimes we’re just looking for a good time.
And now it’s a joke. A buffoon. Who would want to be friends with any of them? And wasn’t that the point? To draw us into their Gotham world, fashioned with designer labels, name brand men and trendy Flirtinis?
Forget that. Give me A&F pajama bottoms and a Midwestern man. My girlfriends? They drink wine coolers.
The notify thinks Cynthia Nixon should run far, far away.