Rumors of a third “Sex and the City” movie are in the works, and I’ll be honest, I’m a little excited. I didn’t love the second movie (did anyone?), but I love the series. Like so many viewers, I feel like I know those characters and that they just get me — minus the show’s leading lady.
Carrie Bradshaw is a nightmare. She’s the worst example of a female role model I could ever think of, and an awful representation of single life in general. My fury at Carrie has gotten so bad that I find myself shouting at my screen when watching the show. I wish, more than anything, that I could shake her by the shoulders and ask how on earth she could be so clueless. Here are some things I wish I could scream at Carrie (besides “BE NICE TO AIDAN!” because that would fill hundreds of pages all on its own) — with accompanying GIFs of Carrie being annoying, naturally.
Source: The Frisky
1. Back up your work. I’ll never forget my shock the first time I saw the episode when Carrie’s computer crashes. She’s devastated because her whole career’s worth of writing is stored in that hard drive. Seriously?
Source: The Frisky
2. Save your fucking money. In the show’s fourth season, when she almost loses her apartment, it’s revealed that Carrie has almost no savings and is terrible with money. She charges almost everything she buys and, of course, refuses to take the subway. The strangest part of it is that she seems to have never even imagined that she might need real money one day, as if everything were made up of Monopoly play money. I understand that lots of us are not great with cash, and lots of us don’t have much to show for our hard work after we pay our bills at the end of the month. I also get that her friends are wealthier than she is, and that she’s in denial about the fact that she’s living beyond her means, but when a person spends all of their disposable income on Jimmy Choos, I have a tough time feeling any sympathy. When she then demands that Charlotte lend her the money to get herself out of her housing fix and gets angry at her for not immediately offering, I want to punch Carrie in the face. So. Selfish.
Source: The Frisky
3. Learn how to think long-term. I am all about living in the moment, but when a person literally lives without ever pondering the concept of tomorrow, we’ve got ourselves a problem. How is it that she made it to her mid-30s without even thinking about what could happen should she need emergency savings? How is it that she never has professional goals until opportunities are dropped in her lap? What astounds me the most is when she starts discussing parenthood with Aleksandr Petrovsky and acts as if it’s the first time she ever even thought about the existence of babies. She spends a whole episode hemming and hawing about how she might like a child “one day,” whenever that is. The point here is not about whether or not she should have kids — that’s her call. What weirds me out is how she’s never even considered the notion of anything in her future — besides potential boyfriends/husbands, of course.
Source: The Frisky
4. You are so shallow. She passes off men for the most miniscule reasons that she somehow labels as dealbreakers while happily pursuing Big, who has the biggest dealbreaker traits of all.
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5. Stop shrieking. Just stop with that.
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6. Not everything is about New York. I live in New York, I love New York, and there’s no other place like it. Plenty of things happen here that would be out of context anywhere else in the world. Carrie, however, seems to think any and all of life’s twists and turns come solely from the fact that she lives in Manhattan. “Adventure is always just in the corner” in Seattle and Boston too, Carrie. You can just about guarantee that every time Carrie begins a sentence with “that’s the thing about New York…” she’s about to make a generalized statement about modern life.
Source: The Frisky
7. You only want people when you can’t have them, get over that if you want a satisfying life. Carrie says it herself, when she admits that Big’s greatest appeal is that he’s elusive. When Aidan is available to her, she doesn’t give a damn about him. When he suddenly reappears in her life after their first breakup, she desperately wants his attention because they’re not together anymore, even though she hasn’t had so much as a stray thought about him since they separated. Sure, it’s human nature, but Carrie takes it to a shallow, surreal extreme.
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8. Take a cue from your friends. Miranda, Charlotte and Samantha are complex people who learn and grow tremendously throughout the series. They’re forced to face their own personal hang-ups in order to lead the lives they want, and they become evolved versions of themselves as the show progress. Carrie, if nothing else, becomes more petty and stunted as the series goes on. She has just as many life-changing experiences as her friends, but learns absolutely nothing from them.
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9. He’s just not that into you. Case in point: Mr. Big. If it takes a dude six years to get around to admitting he has “feelings” for you, run in the other direction.
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10. Get some hobbies. Carrie’s job, conversations with her friends, clothing choices, and general uses of her free time, all revolve around men. Girl needs a hobby that’s about her, and shopping doesn’t count. Maybe that would stop her from spending every moment she has alone overanalyzing past interactions she’s had with Mr. Big. As long as Carrie is putting all of her stock into defining herself by her boyfriend, she has absolutely nothing to bring to a relationship.
Source: The Frisky
11. Struggle is not romantic. Big’s semi-hatred of her and their perceived inability to be together is not tragically beautiful, it’s just damn stupid and belongs in some poem written by a teenager during homeroom, not real life.
Source: The Frisky
12. Graduate from junior high please. That episode where she spends days obsessing over a dirty look one of Aidan’s exes gives her…there are just no words.
Source: The Frisky
13. Try to have an entire conversation with Big that doesn’t consist of flirty puns.Like, do they ever speak real sentences to each other? What do they actually talk about? Are they going to make coy faces at each other well into their eighties and never actually discuss who will pay this week’s grocery bill?
[CNN]Original by Claire Hannum
