Most people have enough brains to know that the show was pure, superficial escapism. That only a vanishing percentage of New Yorkers have such undemanding jobs, so much money, and such great apartments.
Most New Yorkers are aware of different communities - we were supposed to believe Charlotte, who worked in a Manhattan art gallery, didn't know the first thing about Jews. Most people have actual relatives and colleagues who play a role in their daily lives.
This group of women clearly, though inexplicably, belonged to the 1% economically, and the 1% sexually. But hey, the one-liners were worth a few laughs.
(I think the reader who suspects this puff piece was published in the service of a certain campaign has a point.)
3
This show ruined NYC as far as I'm concerned. The beginning of the end!
4
The unreality of the show annoyed me. These women had all the time and money in the world. They all lived like trust fund babies when Charlotte was the only character who actually fit that description.
5
The old Odd Couple series, with Jack Klugman and Tony Randall influenced me to move to NYC. Theirs was the dangerous, crime ridden New York in the 70s, but their friendship was a better model than the materialistic, dating obsessed women of SATC.
3
Oh please. The 70s. Now THAT was sex in the city. Been there, done that!
2
I was 23, a year out of Columbia, working for Condé Nast in New York, when the show debuted. I couldn’t really afford HBO on my editorial-assistant salary, but subscribed anyway for the SATC “event.” I canceled after one episode — the characters reminded me of the vapid vipers who were my bosses, and I didn’t need to pay to see more of them on my off time. On a much more serious note, I see the ideal of no-strings, no-emotion, “play like the boys” female promiscuity that the show not only normalized, but glorified — relentlessly — as directly linked to the worst excesses being exposed now in various campus rape crises, hookup culture, and #metoo, to name just a few. I think SJP, Darren Star, and others have a whole lot to answer for. Cool? Inspiring? Try “degrading” instead. Just for a start.
9
Did ‘Sex and the City’ inspire my move to New York? Gosh, NYT, here’s my breathless answer!
No.
6
Although the franchise ruined its legacy with the awful movie sequels, the show itself was pretty groundbreaking. I only watched re-runs in high school in the mid 2000's and yearned to one day live in NYC. It wasn't this show alone though, as FRIENDS also played a big part. Real life in NYC wasn't quite the same as TV and certainly not as glamorous as SATC - no, it was probably even better. I met so much interesting people and had so many new experiences. I ended up moving away from NYC to a calmer, more affordable city, but it's one of the best places to discover yourself in your 20's.
8
As a country boy, I intuitively looked at this metropolitan culture as a current and female "American Psycho." Now that I'm older and over a decade in the city, I still agree.
4
Ugh!-the show that inspired millions of entertainment tourists to block a city street to photograph their friends in front of a townhouse, onto which the owners had to install a chain to keep them off their steps, and to block a sidewalk en masse to purchase $3 cupcakes, before overflowing the garbage cans in the park across the street on the way to re-boarding their obnoxious tour busses. I write this as I have to drop $40 to park my car in a lot for the day because two movie/tv shoots in the downtown Manhattan neighborhood in which I've lived for 30 years- a decade before S&TC contributed to destroying all that was weird and interesting about it- have taken all the parking on two separate blocks, plus all the meter spaces on a three block stretch of the adjacent avenue. Not to mention the twits with the radios "asking" you not to walk down your own block. The intrusion of the entertainment industrial complex, and all that it brings, makes living in these places nearly impossible, while offering the locals who are forced to accommodate them virtually nothing in return.
16
I'm a native New Yorker, but I've met many people my age (tail-end Gen Xers and millennials) who moved to NYC because of "Sex and the City" and "Friends", and I have to say that they killed the NYC that they wanted to join.
19
We moved to NYC in May of 2002 and my husband's musical ambition are what prompted it... However, because NYC being what it was/is - we were supported by Sex and the City... The city is filled with people who are artists looking for art - so my husband's first important gig was supported by Mario Cantone and his friends/family, among them other cast members of the show. I am sure that when the opening act at Joe's Pub brings in 60 tickets and reservations with people with famous names that - helped further the momentum of someone with talent that inspired! What a wonderful time for us!
1
Shallow. That's all of a word I can think of.
13
The young women reared on this show are exactly the type of shallow individuals I shun when I'm in the city! The show actually denigrates women because of the materialist obsession of the protagonists -- there's little nothing 'feminist' about it at all really. They seek material happiness in objects and men, and are not concerned with the reality of the human condition in the 21st century. Total American fluff. It's essentially the program, 'Entourage' for women -- a pornographic fantasy.
17
It might explain why NYC is so awful (safer but awful) with few working class and middle class people left, particularly in Manhattan and Brooklyn.
12
What about all the people who had to leave NYC because the gentrifiers and migrants inspired by SATC displaced the natives. I was born and raised in NYC but left for a more affordable life in DC. Now the gentrifiers and migrants are making that unaffordable too. Maybe they were inspired to move her by the West Wing?
15
My fave girlfriends and I went to see the SATC movie in theaters together at Kips Bay, after moving to the city and meeting each other 5 years prior. We laughed during the movie, seeing these women onscreen, and as we were walking out we were like "ugh isn't this great?!! we're living in new york CITY and we're women and-" and then a drunk guy twenty feet ahead of us screamed at us, pulled his pants down and started maniacally peeing all over the sidewalk.
10
Best story here.
1
My sister and I are huge fans of the show mainly because of the relatable situations, " something bad happened ". I don't think moving to New York because of the show was realistic, but it's fun to fantasize. The same way relationship situations on Seinfeld are relatable. We could watch the episodes over and over. On the other hand the movies were terrible.
10
I'd lived in NYC all my adult life - since 1983. Sex and the City inspired me to move out of the West Village after throngs of fans, dressed up as their favorite characters from the show, invaded the neighborhood looking for cupcakes and Cosmos. You have to hand it to Trekkies; at least they stay in their parents basement!
35
Oh, yes it did! As a young gay man suffocating in the small, rural New England college I ended up attending, "Sex and the City" was a breath of fresh air. I would gather with the girls and binge on the show many an evening.
Everyone was so sophisticated, so cosmopolitan. Most importantly, I could relate to the girls on-screen--they talked about men and sex the way I imagined I would talk about men and sex when I had my own gaggle of gays in Manhattan. I could clearly tell that a gay man was pivotal in the writing and creation of most "Sex and the City" episodes.
So far my time in NYC (all 8 non-consecutive years and counting) has been a lot like what was portrayed onscreen--the endless brunching, the drinking, the sexual escapades, the drinking, the incredibly embarrassing moments, the drinking, the heart-ache, the drinking.
Though as I get older (I'm in my mid-30s) my life starts to resemble less and less what transpired on the show. With this personal knowledge I've started to realize that these girls, who were supposed to be in their 30s and going into their 40s during the span of the show, suffered from a serious case of arrested development. They acted like they were in their early to mid-20s throughout--none seemed to grow that much emotionally. But, man, have I grown from my 20s to my 30s. Most of my friends have done so too, especially with regards to our formerly breezy treatment of alcohol. And the darker side of living in NYC is much darker in real life.
57
Many young boomers moved to NYC in the 1980s in order to maintain the materialistic, consumerist lifestyle to which they had grown accustomed being raised in suburbia.
6
20 years later I still binge watch episodes on HBO. Not even a 'guilty' pleasure. Simply Great entertainment and fun dialogue.
No need to over analyze
35
Is it a coincidence that all four of the women inspired to move to nyc are self-promoting, or is that what resonated from Sex and the City for each of them?
8
Reading this I "couldn't help but wonder" why this show is in the news so many years after it ended. Is it because one of its stars is running for governor? Or is it because, despite each of the 4 women sleeping with dozens (hundreds?) of men over the course of the show, none of them ever seemed to have had a #metoo moment?
19
For me, the grist of SATC was always a valid component of NYC's fun life. That said, the culture portrayed in SATC was slowly becoming a dominant colorless wash across NYC life as the 80's progressed and, in hindsight, this dilution was a prominent factor in my leaving New York City at that time. (Go Cynthia!)
5
Back in the late 1970's I bought tickets to see Al Pacino on Broadway. After being awed by the sight of Manhattan (and Al Pacino) I moved to Manhattan (from Wisconsin) and have lived here since 1980. I love NY!
7
As a boy of 11, I found a book with Margaret Bourke-White's black and white photographs of New York City. Then and there I told myself "I'm going to live there", and NYC has been my home for 30 years.
18
Yes, actually, it did. Sex and the City, Friends and Will & Grace.
12
Martin Scorsese's cinema made me move to New York from India. And that makes me double cool... as I am a woman who rejects the asinine identification of a female spectator with female characters.
3
Although I'm a New Jerseyan, I was born and raised in Manhattan. Even now, inundated with generic chain stores, filling with bland (semi-empty) glass luxury towers and having lost much of it's soul New York remains an incredible and unique city. For all our faults, we offer great architecture, food, art, fashion, culture and museums, a diverse population and interesting history and anecdotes. There are many reasons to move here (or not) but it's insulting that SATC should be the catalyst. No doubt it's been influential - inspiring scores of cupcake stores and luxury product sales. Women should feel empowered to be independent, strong and confident enough to pursue their aspirations - but please, not in the image of these annoying (albeit entertaining) characters.
12
It inspired me to continue to avoid returning to New York.
8
What's wrong with a little inspiration? No one moved to the city specifically due to the show, but so what if it prompted their desire? Kudos to anyone who picks up their things and starts fresh in a new place, city or no city. It is certainly a difficult and trying thing to do. Something tells me that many of these negative commenters are too afraid to leave their own 'cornfield town', clinging to their MAGA hats.
28
was retired by the time this show ran but oh, how i loved it.
If I'd seen this while in college I'd have gone. Always envisioned my self a big city girl. think that's why I love to travel so much. Kudos to anyone leaving to follow their dream.
Have a younger sister who followed her dream by moving to Vienna for Opera and has a very successful family of highly professional musicians who play Carnegie Hall every February .
9
I was extremely negative. New Yorker born and bred, although I have lived in other parts of the country and traveled abroad.
SATC did not, but Seinfeld did. I thought I'd be friends with an ex-girlfriend who lived here, would have a wacky neighbor. What SATC did do for me, and many men around that time was brought to the city hopelessly delirious young women straight out of college who thought they were going to be living the lives of the SATC girls on entry-level salaries. The female-male ratio was so skewed, it made dating PRE-TINDER laughably easy, even easier in a loose and liberal city like NY. Those were fun years.
10
I moved to NYC right out of college around that time, not because of SATC. And I have to agree with Eric, dating for straight women at that time, for me and my friends, was hard. I ended up importing my husband, as did many of my friends. We were in the import business. Nine years later my husband exported me to Westchester.
10
No, the show did not inspire me to move to New York City. There are Mr. Big's everywhere, if that's on your menu, and albeit I did not and do not wear a scrunchie, I do wear Crocs. I love NYC, and visit whenever I can, to get away from this type of drivel. Oh, I guess scrunchies are in now. LOL
4
For a putatively feminist show, I always thought Sex and the City took a certain pleasure in utterly humiliating women. The Charlotte character suffering uncontrollable diarrhea in front of her friends in the movie, for example...
5
I moved here before this show. SaTC never really did much for me since my background was true midwest working class and I did not recognize these characters in my life. My passion was performing arts and New York is the best in this country for theater. My NY film was Moonstruck. I have seen so many incredible performances and artists in the 25 years I have lived here and even worked at Lincoln Center for a short while. I married a New Yorker and raised by two boys here on arts and culture. One wants to be an actor and the other an opera singer, which I love.
15
I loved SaTC. I was in my 20s in Vancouver BC when it ran. There were aspects of the show I was enamoured with, like the way the characters made the most of living in New York at times, going out to art galleries or clubs, dancing until all hours. I also learned about male committment issues from the show, but that's a universal lesson, not one specific to NYC. When I found myself with opportunity to move to NYC, however, I found the city infinitely more interesting than SatC ever made it look, a cultural mosaic of the world, a kaleidoscope of a city that looks different through every person's eyes. The privileged, mainstream white woman perspective limited the appeal of New York City at the time; moving here in reality makes it multi-dimensional in ways I couldn't have imagined. Still, here I am, Miranda in Brooklyn, twenty years later, the married women with one son and a husband and a well paying white collar job, so there's something to the cliches after all.
Also, I do think we owe it to the show to recognise its groundbreaking status questioning what was then, at the time, a phenomenon that was only a generation old. SatC is about women living sophisticated lives focused on their vocational callings, forming strong relationships with other women. It does not portray marriage as a universal end goal for 3/4s of the characters. For its time, it broke enough ground that it's reliance on cliches and tropes for everyone other than white, straight people is understood.
12
Geez, people, chill out in the comments. I already lived here at that time, but it's interesting how any "female" show is ridiculed and made fun of. Like it or not, Sex and the City is going to be a show that's remembered decades after it finished. Was it perfect? No. There were almost no non-white people or poor people and the characters were sometimes annoying. But it was about four women who were friends and it became a hit because it was from women's POVs, which was wildly different (except for the underrated Girlfriends, which debuted after it).
24
I would love a Girlfriends reboot or movie.
1
My beef with the show is that it made the 'women's POV' all about men and clothes. To me this seeemed more like a gay man's idea of what women are like than a woman's. But I'll admit it had good writing and could be funny at times.
1
The only thing that "Sex in the City" inspired me to do was to try speed dating. Loved that episode where Miranda Hobbes (Cynthia Nixon) went from being a Harvard educated lawyer to being a flight attendant just be desired by the men she was meeting.
8
Never saw any appeal in Sarah Jessica Parker, personally...
24
I've always liked SJP, but Carrie was insufferable. I remember thinking, How are people enthralled by a show with such a shallow, vapid, boooooring character?
17
Sarah iw way more substantive than Carrie. It's teevee.
1
Can't agree with you more. She does profile a privileged white woman well, then again she's just acting herself.
1
I was born and raised in Manhattan, and have lived here my entire life. True natives will laugh at this question. If anyone moved here because they were inspired by this show, then odds are they never became a true New Yorker. We are too street smart to believe in fairy tales.
39
I had already moved out of NY by the time this show arrived. I was around the same age as the fictional characters (early 30's) but my life would never resemble Carrie Bradshaw's. I worked for a little above minimum wage in a non-glamorous job. I always wondered, though--how could Carrie afford a nice Manhattan apartment, no roommates, on a free-lance writer's salary? I did have my own apartment--a run-down place in Queens. No roommates, except for the insects and lots of interesting neighbors. I loved the Greek produce market in my neighborhood--the best thing around.
I remember watching "That Girl" in high school, but I was more enthralled with Mary Tyler Moore and her Minneapolis apartment.
If I had found a Mr. Big, I might have stayed in NY, but I never saw myself in Carrie's Manolos, so that was unlikely to happen.
14
It was established in Season 4 that Carrie lived in a rent-controlled apartment.
6
"A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" - that was my early inspiration
23
Francie Nolan absolutely.
4
"Did ‘Sex and the City’ Inspire Your Move to New York?" --
Actually - the real question is --
"Did the New York Times decide to run this article as a thinly-veiled attempt to promote Cynthia Nixon's candidacy for Governor of New York State?" --
Hmmm ---
Judging by the Times' recent editorial policy of pushing gender-based (or, should we say gender-biased) articles -- one could easily see the not-so-hidden agenda in this piece...
36
well--you can't deny that anyone running for such a high office is not a worthy news subject. And it would be wise to start to consider cultural aspects that surround that character.
6
That's not great a plug. Miranda was a Harvard-educated lawyer who didn't take her career very seriously.
3
Clever insight! Just an observation, not a conclusion.
I might have watched one episode. The nun and the breast cancer isssue drew me in. I am not sure the show had a universal theme or character to all New Yorkers. Rather, much thoughts should be given to those without a sex life in NY. Do a survey to find out how many NYKers who believe that HIV women are entitled to have sex or intimate loving moments? People will be lying, the survey might not have much value !
1
This is the kind of feature that either makes me sarcastically grin or just want to shake somebody at the Times out of their disconnect with reality. I mean really, who ok'd this piece? If you would just crawl out from under your fascination with the stereotype of white, privileged lives (also evident in the Times' non-stop fascination with gentrified Brooklyn) you could ask some questions about real life in our city. I love the NYT but it also has me scratching my head sometimes.
50
Um....the show is celebrating its 20 year anniversary this year. Maybe *that's* why they're publishing the piece? People really do just go to knee-jerk everything-is-about-race actions, don't they?
14
Agree with shaking someone up at the Times. Bad move Times....and I love what you do as a paper. This was NOT one of your finest pieces.
4
And the whole real estate section is basically about upper class white people and their ‘problems’ finding, renovating, furnishing, selling their $1,000,000 homes.
14
This is a silly reason to move to a new location.
10
Gotta love Katelyn's story ... she literally took an episode of the show -- ("The Chicken Dance," as we all well know) ... and turned it into a successful NY career.
Good for her!
6
Sex and the City made me mortified to be a woman and embarrassed for and by my gender.
Also, I would never move to NYC. Who wants that kind of abuse in their life?
22
Some of us found the abuse we encountered outside of NYC to be far worse.
24
Everything that is wrong with modern society, all rolled into one superficial show! What's not to love?
21
Forget S&TC. That Girl, The Odd Couple and Taxi to name a few, when New York was real.
30
It's real. I am writing this from NYC.
1
Or even I Love Lucy and the Honeymooners were more realistic.
2
Yikes. I moved here in 1975, when it was a grittier and far more interesting city. What has happened to my beloved NYC since then saddens me deeply.
I think I made it through one episode of that show and it left me with an overwhelming desire to repeatedly slap every one of those vain, shallow, hideously self-indulgent women.
40
Glad i didn't because the show portrayed a fantasy which every real New Yorker knows doesn't exist.
31
Look, Hollywood, TV, and a good part of our American Music Industry, ( created mostly by former New Yorkers, many from Brooklyn ) have been glamorizing and showcasing, specifically Manhattan, as The It place for years! Sex and The City, aimed at essentially females, was just a continuation of that mindset, particularly for a generation that might not have been watching the many Manhattan focused movies on TCM, or other media! After all,
If I Can Make It There, I Can Make It Anywhere!!!
5
most of the NYC one sees depicted in tv / film is fictitious and unrealistic, or only applies to 2% of its residents. nyc can hold its own though, without the help of tv / film. watched the show a bit, was not a loyal follower, unlike a lot of my friends at the time (half of it was entertaining, half of it made me wanna barf). i suppose i came to the city for some of the same reasons as its characters, albeit a few years before the show aired. the harsh reality being NYC isnt for everyone, nor does everyone succeed here. but you get out what you put in, most of the time. it's definitely unlike any other.
4
Nope. I left in the mid 1970's. I found that there's an entire world out there free of pretense,free of trust-funders,less involuted and much less expense. (Except for San Francisco, which merits a full page rant unto itself.)
16
Sounds like you ran with a pretty rough crowd.
1
Thanks in advance for furnishing a list of truly silly women. Who decides to move to a major metropolis based on a ridiculous TV show that presented a regressive image of women living in apartments and wearing clothes they couldn't possibly afford?
The only time I've even remotely been tempted to move to a new city based on a book was when I read Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City series. But his characters were less relentlessly materialist and superficial and engaged in true self-discovery. I also knew it was a fantasy. My eventual trip to San Francisco was great fun, however.
11
Oscar and Felix and Joey Ramone inspired my move to New York. Sorry, ladies.
20
Former New Yorker lives in a more manageable town now, turns out sex is available outside of NYC. There is life after NY and I return occasionally to see family and go to my favorite places. Don't miss the high cost of living, or the crowds.
8
You write all this as a resident of Boston?!? Talk about expensive!
9
Who wouldn't like to live like one of the characters in the show? They were all beautiful with money living in NYC. Carrie were the only one who sometimes struggle with money but the idea of them just living life with no financial worries it is a dream for us. It was really a dream. NYC it is not like that, and many friends have realized that. They loved the idea of living in NY because of the show and finding their Mr. Big, with money of course like him.But aside from relationships, the show was very unrealistic, at least for the common women. Anyway, loved the show, loved their wardrobes. Wished I could do what they did. But spending many $$$ on Cosmos in the city is not for everyone.
9
No, but it did make me covet Carrie's amazing wardrobe... and the life of a writer living in a gorgeous brownstone, taking glamorous trips and dating gorgeous men all while barely writing...
13
Whenever she would pull out her laptop I would groan. What would be the heavy-handed lesson for the episode?
I watched about 10 episodes because a friend of mine was crazy about it. In addition to being a victim of arrested development, she has no taste. Guess who's sending me non-stop emails about the Royal Wedding (at least that's real)?
4
I always thought many more were drawn by Friends and Seinfeld than Sex and the City.
8
'Wish it were so. I have bemoaned the "Sexy" peeps influxing, but never complained (before now). This has been cathartic.
This show inspired my mother to start drinking Cosmos in her mid-70’s. She was raised in New York City so she had that covered already.
14
Actually it made me want to move away.
It confirmed my sense in real life that the people who used to be disdained as "bridge and tunnel" just live in the city now and have taken over.
29
No. Never watched the show. Moved here to attend grad school at NYU in 2001. Decided that I liked it here and stayed after graduation. Overall, it's been a good place for me to live.
6
I was out of the city for four years when the first episode aired. I left when Giuliani came in. And I was not the only one. We could see what was coming. The sanitation on New York City at the cost of its soul.
12
No. Sex in the City made me angry about the portrayal of single women in New York. I was a single woman in NYC from 1991 to 1996, and my life was nothing like the life of these four women. The designer clothes, the apartments on Upper East Side, the Manolo Blahniks, all of it was fiction to any woman in my situation. I was an investment analyst in a global NYC bank in the 1990's, and I could not have afforded any of this on my salary unless I was willing to die on the cross of credit card debt. Perhaps I was underpaid and I didn't know it. And as for all the sex these women managed, well that is absolutely the stuff of Manhattan legend. Most of us came to our apartments, exhausted after a long day's work, ate whatever we found in the fridge or cupboard, and then zombied out in front of the TV with the remote until bedtime. And don't forget a glass of wine or two.
81
Couldn't agree more. Lived in the city from '92-'96, and then again from '99-2013. While there were moments that mimicked SATC, for the most part I was just busy working (alot!) and raising a family. SATC just never seemed real to me.
21
Lifelong New Yorker here, but I agree completely. Another thing I found completely strange about the show is the complete lack of family among the four women. It's rare for young people to come to this big city without any kind of support (financial or otherwise) from parents, or a connection to siblings, aunts and uncles or cousins. But with a few exceptions (Miranda's mom dying), it was always as if all four of them were orphans.
16
I think the absence of family was intentional and kind of the point, to emphasize friendships between the women, and independent ones at that. Not every female speaks to mom daily.
3
This made me laugh. I can't imagine deciding to move somewhere based on a (fictional) tv show. Then again, I already lived here so who knows, maybe I would have.
18
I had already loved and left New York City by the time of the first episode so that romance was over, but SATC did turn me onto a lot of other new loves: Manolo Blahniks and other cool shoes, cosmopolitans and other cocktails, sex in different permutations, the Hamptons. I felt more agency over my romantic and sex lives, and I wasn't waiting around for the "one" to magically appear but I started to own my singleness as a mixed blessing that was within my control to respect, admire, maintain, or change.
13
No. I would never move to NYC. The sports teams are horrible...
7
Does that include Yankees? Though I am a Red Sox fan the Yankees are not horrible.
3