Sex and the City was known for its iconic fashion, fearlessly sex-forward female characters, and normalizing being single in your thirties. But was the show really all that sex-positive? Between Mr. Big (Chris Noth) jerking Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) around and Charlotte’s (Kristin Davis) over-exaggerated prudishness, I would say maybe not. That said, Sex and the City was highly progressive for the time, shining a light on just how many single women there are in their thirties. And most of all, that this is not only common but completely okay.
But now, not only do we have single women over the age of 25 in the new series, And Just Like That, but everything that was maybe a little cringe or even downright misogynistic about Sex and the City has been done away with. There’s a whole host of new characters from all walks of life. Finally there’s queer representation in addition to BIPOC representation.
It may not be such a bad thing that Mr. Big was subtly killed off. As one character mentions at his funeral in season 1, he was honestly kind of a jerk to Carrie. So now, Aiden (John Corbett) gets another chance with Carrie after what appears in season three to be an amicable divorce with the mother of his three children. But will it work long distance while he lives in rural Virginia and deals with his troubled teenage son? Only the next few episodes of season three will tell.
Carrie isn’t the only one who revamps her love life in her fifties. Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) has discovered that she is queer and begins dating Che (Sara Ramirez). That goes south rather fast, but again, potentially for the best, as there’s plenty of fish in the sea for Miranda as it turns out, for instance, one of her new female colleagues.
While Samantha (Kim Cattrall) may not have made more than a cameo, we still have our beloved, dear Charlotte, who is going stronger than ever with her husband, Harry (Evan Handler). Although she may not be reliving her thirties looking for a soul mate, being a mom has posed challenges of its own. Charlotte's child, formerly known as Rose (Alexa Swinton), begins to go by Rock and uses they/them pronouns. Initially, Charlotte is none too pleased but eventually learns to accept her child for who they are.
Lisa Todd Wexley (Nicole Ari Parker) and Seema Patel (Sarita Choudhury), two new characters help create racial diversity in the show, eradicating some of the whitewashed feminism that previously existed for the Sex and the City canon. Lisa, a mom of three, is friends with Charlotte through the private school that their children all attend. And Just Like That allows for her character to open a dialogue about what it means to be part of a highly successful black family in modern times. Seema, a single woman also in her fifties, has in some ways taken the place of Samantha. However, Seema’s character does not tend to sleep around but dismisses men for being beneath her at all times. We see Seema navigate the male-dominated work space, creating herself as a powerhouse while potentially combating her own loneliness and societal pressure to find someone, whether or not the world deems her too old for love.
Regardless of whether Seema will finally pick someone or if Carrie and Aidan really are meant to be this time, And Just Like That shows us that it’s okay to start over at any age no matter what your socioeconomic background. No more is Sex and the City for rich white women who don’t care to vote (ahem, vintage Carrie Bradshaw), but for anyone and everyone who cares to speak out about whatever stage of life they are in.