As the world says goodbye to the New York columnist, Simona recounts some of Carrie Bradshaw’s most memorable moments in Sex and The City.
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In August, the last episode of Sex and the City’s reboot And Just Like That… came to an end. And just like that, on a random August afternoon, my Instagram feed was suddenly full of farewells to the character we all love to hate, Carrie Bradshaw.
Despite the opinion you might have of her, the fashion and pop culture icon has become a familiar face to many. She is that one friend who allows you to go to your other friends and announce: “You have no idea what she just did!”, but still a friend nonetheless. She has taught me that women are complicated, they have fears and ambitions that can go beyond the traditional stereotype of being a mother and a wife. Carrie reminded me that there is no such thing as “too much” in love and friendship. As a tribute, I highlight here some of her most iconic moments, the ones that made me go “What is she doing?” and “That’s my girl!” at the same time.
1. “Voila le French hat! Voila le French fries!”
After Big returns from his first trip to Paris, Carrie goes to his apartment to let him know of her commitment to making the relationship work despite the distance. This catalyst moment in the series is now a meme and often referred to as a “humiliation ritual” by my ex-mutuals. However, here I don’t see Carrie making a fool of herself; rather, a woman trying to make a relationship work despite all odds. I also see a man not recognizing the efforts of the woman in front of him. Moreover, how could she be embarrassing herself? She is wearing a Celine beret!
2. “Oh my God! He’s online! Can he see me?”
Carrie’s first relationship with Aidan, her other love interest, was not the most successful. In an attempt to reconnect, Carrie is typing an email to Aidan when his status suddenly updates to “online”. Fearing that he might be able to see her, she hides away from her laptop. It has happened to everyone: you finally gather the courage to text that risky message you have been meaning to send for months. You open the chat and confidently start typing, comforted by the idea that the other person is offline, so they can’t see you aggressively typing on your screen. That’s usually when the other person comes online. So you lock your phone, throw it away and start running, hiding as far as you can from it. It definitely happened to me many times, and each time I wished the ground below me could open up and suck me in from the embarrassment. I couldn’t help but wonder, maybe the love-hate we feel for Carrie is dictated by the fact that she is real and human. We see ourselves in her, for better or for worse, and she brings on the big and safe screens of our TVs aspects of our character we would rather not face and bury away.
3. NY fashion show moment
Carrie’s modelling career is short, but traumatic. The fashion brand that invites her to model changes plans last minute. It initially offers her a beautiful, floral skin-tight chiffon Dolce&Gabbana dress. It ultimately gives her undergarments and a big, bright blue trench coat to wear on the runway. The event starts, and as we all thought the worst was over, she falls on the runway. Most of us would’ve run away at that point; I definitely would have. She doesn’t. Despite the humiliation and last-minute changes, she makes it a moment. She gets back up on her feet and finishes the runway. It’s her moment, and nobody is going to take that away from her.
4. And just like that, she got married… to herself!
She actually had no intention of getting married, not even to herself. Carrie decides to marry herself after her $485-worth Manolo Blahniks are stolen at a friend’s baby shower. During the episode, Carrie is puzzled about why she always has to celebrate and buy gifts for others, while nobody ever celebrates or buys gifts for her. She asks, is she worth less because she never married and never had children? For these reasons, and to get the money back from her stolen shoes, she announces she is getting married to herself! She then registers her wedding gift list at Manolo Blahnik’s luxury shoe store. The epitome of being an “it” girl, if you ask me! Carrie rejects conventional lifestyles, which often see a woman married with children, and instead shamelessly honors her truest love, luxury shoes.
5. Explicit: a break-up sticky note
Carrie wakes up to a break-up sticky note. Later on, in a club, Carrie meets her now ex-boyfriend’s friends. She goes to speak with them, and their conversation is a great example of the different ways women and men perceive relationships. For the male friends, breaking up with a sticky note is acceptable. They say that there is no easy way to break up with a woman after all. Carrie stood up for herself, and for many other women: there are ways to break up with someone which do not involve being insensitive to your partner’s feelings. While the world undergoes an extremely tragic male loneliness epidemic, it is nice to be reminded that not every woman’s reaction is an overreaction. We can be upset about a man’s poor communication skill, and any man who can’t give us the closure we deserve, for how painful it can be, he’s not worth sticking around for.
