Tag: Sex and the City season four

On Carrie Bradshaw Developing the Idea for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

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Although it’s easy to shit on Sex and the City in the present, there are occasional moments in the show when one realizes how truly visionary it was for its time. You know, going to a tantric sex workshop and vaguely acknowledging white privilege while you’re getting a pedicure—things like that. But one thing Sex and the City rarely gets credit for is providing the kernel of the idea for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. This occurred in season four of the series; specifically, episode six: “Time and Punishment” (the same episode where Charlotte York [Kristin Davis] was shamed for having “free time” instead of working). Which aired three years before Eternal Sunshine… was released in 2004.

But back in July of 2001, when “Time and Punishment” first aired, Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) had the sudden “revelation” that cheating on Aidan Shaw (John Corbett) back in mid-season three was the worst mistake of her life—or at least her romantic life (which, in truth, embodies one hundred percent of Carrie’s existence). Therefore, narcissist that she is, Carrie obviously believes it’s within her power to get him back…just because she decides on a whim that’s what she wants. And apparently, she’s not wrong in her assumption, wearing Aidan down with her seduction methods (however stalker-y) until he concedes that, sure, he wants to get back together.

But before that glorious (for Carrie) moment, Bradshaw gives us one of her signature voiceover “insights” from the column de la semaine she’s writing, ruminating on a person’s inability to forgive if they can’t really forget. So it is that she tell us: “Later that day, I got to thinking about relationships and partial lobotomies. Two seemingly different ideas that might be perfect together, like chocolate and peanut butter. Think how much easier it would all be if there was some swift surgical procedure to whisk away all the ugly memories and mistakes and leave only the fun trips and special holidays.” Yes, Carrie is perfectly describing what Charlie Kaufman would call “Lacuna Inc.” in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Minus the part where even the fun trips and special holidays are remembered. For, in Carrie’s ideal version of relationship memory erasure, you still at least remember the person existed in your life prior to the “procedure.”

Kaufman and Michel Gondry did that concept one better by making it key for all traces of the person to be forgotten. Even though it only set up someone like Clementine Kruczynski (Kate Winslet) and Joel Barish (Jim Carrey) for the trap of gravitating right back toward the person they ended up finding toxic in the first place. Which is also something that Zoë Kravitz’s Blink Twice addresses in a more ominous way. But what Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind prefers to do is position the inevitable “re-attraction” between two people who were already unable to make it work before as something with a more hopeful tinge. Not just more hopeful than what Blink Twice does with the concept, but also with what ends up happening to Carrie and Aidan by the end of season four (hint: total emotional catastrophe/an even more painful breakup than the first time around).

However, before the reasons for their first breakup are proven yet again (and tenfold), to conclude her thoughts on the matter of “forgiving and forgetting,” Carrie adds, “But until that day arrives, what to do? Rely on the same old needlepoint philosophy of ‘forgive and forget’? And even if a couple can manage the forgiveness, has any[one] ever really conquered the forgetness? Can you ever really forgive, if you can’t forget?” In Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, there’s no need to forgive because all has been forgotten.

As for setting up the premise for “Time and Punishment,” the episode that precedes it, “Baby, Talk Is Cheap,” also refers to the “unforgettability” (therefore, unforgivability) of what Carrie did to Aidan. An egregious sin he feels obliged to remind her of when she has the gall to come to his door late at night and plead her case for getting back together. None of her “logic” trumps the fact that, as Aidan screams, “You broke my heart!” But Carrie sees that only as a “minor detail” when presenting him with the “argument,” “Look, I know that you’re probably scared and I would be too, but it’s different now. Things are different. I-I’m different.” She then tries to prove it by taking a pack of cigarettes out of her purse and declaring, “Cigarettes, gone.” Of course, if they were really “gone,” they wouldn’t have been in her purse in the first place.

Nonetheless, Carrie continues to insist that this “new” her was clearly not responsible for the actions of the old her and, thus, shouldn’t be punished by being denied another chance. She assures Aidan, “Seriously, all bad habits gone. This is a whole new thing because I miss you. And I’ve missed you.” As though her desire for him alone should be enough for him to want to forget about all the pain she caused him. And when Aidan screams the aforementioned line at her audacity, Carrie displays the kind of immaturity and embarrassing behavior she’s known for by simply running away instead of staying to face the firing squad, as it were.

Ultimately, though, she gets what she wants: for Aidan to submit to her. Granted, not without an initial bout of passive aggressive behavior in “Time and Punishment” that finally prompts Carrie to say of the co-worker he’s been openly flirting with, “Why don’t you just fuck her, then we can both be bad.” When he comes to her door at the end of the episode, Carrie tells him, “I know that you can’t forget what happened, but I hope that you can forgive me.” But she was onto something before in her column—the idea that no true forgiveness can be attained without forgetting. Ergo, her wish for a Lacuna Inc.-like enterprise that wouldn’t “exist” until three years later…perhaps after Kaufman caught sight of Carrie’s column. And while Carrie might not have been the first to wish for this form of a “relationship lobotomy,” she was the only one to say it out loud in such a crystallized way before Eternal Sunshine… came along to perfect the notion.

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Genna Rivieccio

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August 26, 2024
The Boons and Banes of Memory Erasure in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Blink Twice

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Romy Schneider once said, “Memories are the best things in life, I think.” But are they, really, if some of them serve only as a brutal, triggering source of trauma? In both Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Blink Twice, that’s the main type of memory being dealt with, therefore suppressed. But while one is a “rom-com” (Charlie Kaufman-style), the other is a horrifying thriller with a #MeToo slant. Both, however, do center on “the necessity” of memory erasure as it pertains to the relationship between men and women.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, of course, is much “lighter” by comparison. Even though, in its time and its place, it was considered just as “bleak” as it was “quirky.” It’s also more hyper-focused on one relationship in particular, in contrast to Blink Twice speaking to the overall power dynamics between men and women as it relates to sex rather than “romance.” More to the point, the power dynamics between rich men and “regular” women. In Michel Gondry and Charlie Kaufman’s narrative, the main “sufferers” (or beneficiaries, depending on one’s own personal views) of select memory loss are Clementine Kruczynski (Kate Winslet) and Joel Barish (Jim Carrey). But it is the former who “brings it on both of them,” as she’s the one to initially enlist the memory-erasing services of Lacuna Inc., run by Dr. Howard Mierzwiak (Tom Wilkinson). Joel merely follows suit after comprehending what she’s done, deciding that she shouldn’t be the only person in the relationship permitted the luxury of forgetting about all that they shared together. Good and bad.

So it is that he, too, undergoes the procedure, briefed on the ins and out of it by Mary Svevo (Kirsten Dunst), the receptionist at Lacuna, and Dr. Mierzwiak before opting to excise Clementine from his brain as well (in a scene later to be repurposed by Ariana Grande for the “we can’t be friends [wait for your love]” video). Of course, this isn’t to say he’s not extremely hurt by her “whimsical” decision to “remove” him. Alas, by way of explanation, Dr. Mierzwiak can only offer, “She wanted to move on. We provide that possibility.” One can imagine that Slater King (Channing Tatum) tells himself something similar about his own nefarious operation on a private island that might as well be referred to as Little Saint James (a.k.a. the former “Epstein Island”).

Sex and the City, incidentally, provided something of a precursor to the Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind “idea kernel” (de facto, the Blink Twice one) in the form of the season four episode, “Time and Punishment.” This due to Carrie’s (Sarah Jessica Parker) theme for her column of the week being whether or not you can ever really forgive someone if you can’t forget what they did (to you). The answer, in both Eternal Sunshine… and Blink Twice, seems to be a resounding no. Though, in the former, there appears to be a greater chance for redemption even after the couple remembers everything that happened between them (and still decides to give it another shot). This courtesy of Mary, who not only unveils the truth to all of Lacuna’s clients (or “patients”), but also unearths her own bitter truth vis-à-vis memory erasure: Howard did it to her (per her request) after the two had an affair. And yet, just as it is for Frida (Naomi Ackie) in Blink Twice, it’s as though we are doomed to repeat the same behavior/gravitate toward the same toxic person regardless of whether the slate (a.k.a. the mind) is wiped clean or not.

In Blink Twice, Zoë Kravitz’s directorial debut (which she co-wrote with E.T. Feigenbaum), that gravitation proves to be much more harmful for Frida, who drags her best friend, Jess (Alia Shawkat), along for the ride after infiltrating Slater’s fancy benefit dinner for his requisite “foundation.” Although the two are initially working the party as cater waiters, Frida has them both switch into gowns (which scream “trying too hard” while still looking embarrassingly cheap). Naturally, Slater invites them to accompany him and his entourage back to the island where he’s been sequestered in order to “work on himself” as part of a grand performance of a public apology for “bad behavior” past (there’s no need to get specific about what that might have entailed, for there’s a whole range of bad behavior [typically, sexual abuse/harassment-related] that female viewers can easily imagine for themselves). Though, usually, if one is truly working on themselves, they do so by not buying a private island to retreat to. By actually trying to exist in and adapt to the world around them, rather than creating an entirely new one that fits their own “needs.” But that’s the thing: Slater and his ilk don’t want to adapt, don’t want to acknowledge that things have changed and so, too, must their old ways. Instead, they’ve set up a “paradise” for themselves that happens to be every woman’s hell.

The only requirement to keep them there? Scrubbing any memories they have of being sexually assaulted every night on the island. In lieu of Lacuna, Slater needs only a perfume called Desideria, conveniently crafted from a flower that’s only found on that particular island. It’s, in many ways, a slightly more implausible method for making someone forget a traumatic experience than all-out memory erasure through a “scientific procedure” like Lacuna’s. But, for Kravitz’s purposes, it works. Those purposes extend not only to holding up a mirror to the ongoing and new-fangled ways that men, even post-#MeToo, still manage to behave like barbarians, but also to the ways in which women “self-protect” by conveniently “removing” memories that are too painful to deal with, especially when it comes to men and their egregious comportment. This, in part, is why the Desideria is so effective. There’s a sense that the women of the island are only too ready to forget/ignore what horrors befell them the previous night.

In the abovementioned Sex and the City episode, there’s a scene at the end where Carrie repeats (seven times) to Aidan (John Corbett), “You have to forgive me” in different “Oscar-worthy” manners. Just as Slater repeats, “I’m sorry” in different dramatic ways until he then askes Frida if she forgives him yet. Seeing (and expecting) that she definitely doesn’t, it only serves to prove his point that, no, you cannot forgive without forgetting (though, to be fair/in this case, maybe just don’t act like women owe you unfettered access to their bodies/treat them like disposable objects designed solely for your amusement and there won’t be any need to forgive).

Thus, he considers himself in the right (or at least that he “had no choice”) for doing what he did in order to get what he wanted out of her and the other women he lures to the island with his charm (and, of course, the allure of his wealth). In Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, there is also a belief, on Clementine’s part, in being “in the right” for willingly expunging her own memories without any man needing to do it for her. In this sense, one might say that Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is all about the importance of agency in having certain aspects of your memories erased for the sake of self-preservation.

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Genna Rivieccio

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August 26, 2024
Kim Kardashian Makes No Apology For Using Climate Change As Part of Her Method for Selling More Shit That Will Contribute to Climate Change

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Even though October is certainly the time to exhibit frights and horrors, perhaps nobody could have anticipated what Kim Kardashian had in store for Halloween. No stranger to the crass methods it takes to become a billionaire, the “star” has reached arguably a new low this year (apart from American Horror Story: Delicate) by promoting a particular product ahead of its release on October 31st. And while being a corporate slut is one of the “titles” she most proudly adheres to being, her latest shenanigan for promoting Skims takes the (probably gluten-free) cake with regard to grotesque and needless prostitution.

The “ad” (or rather, filmed project designed to be posted on Instagram) in question begins at a computer in a beige office setting that throws it back to the days of corporate glory. Sitting in front of the desk is none other than a beigely dressed Kardashian, sporting, of course, her Skims nipple bra. But before our attention is drawn to that, Kim tonelessly lists off our current bleak reality: “The Earth’s temperature is getting hotter and hotter. The sea levels are rising. The ice sheets are shrinking [did she mean melting?].” She then looks right into the camera and says, “And I’m not a scientist.” Standing up from her chair, she then gets to the point of what this is really all about: selling a bra with built-in nipples. That’s right, Kim, like all unwavering capitalists, ultimately believes that the decimation of the environment and its resulting effects can still be commodifiable. And tragically, it can be—and is, as Kardashian shows us in real time with this absurd commercial. Its absurdity is part of her defense mechanism in still being able to “get away with doing it.” She can position it as “absurdist art.” Or “corporate surrealism.” That latter term being what Grimes used to describe it. You know, Grimes—that well-known supporter of billionaire and corporate overlords (mostly via having some spawns with Elon Musk). She was quick to repost Kardashian’s video with the caption, “This is god tier performance art. Corporate surrealism at its finest.”

The only thing is: it’s not surreal at all. It’s only too real. More accurately, it’s capitalist realism. This idea that corporations don’t want their customers (walking dollar signs, as far as they’re concerned) to bother with trying to make a change that could prevent the irrevocable damage to Mother Nature that will eventually signal the endangerment of humankind. They want people, instead, to “adapt” and “get used to” the situation. The best way to do that is to poke fun at it. Be “light-hearted” about it. Because what could possibly make one’s heart lighter than the thought of a raging wildfire or hurricane or tornado coming for them?

Mark Fisher highlighted this tactic for keeping big business booming years ago. Indeed, being “anti-capitalist” has been in fashion since the 90s, with the surge of Gen X angst reflected in the styles of grunge and alternative music. Which was swiftly co-opted by companies like the Gap and Starbucks for increased profit. So sure, anyone “with principles” can talk shit about capitalism and its damaging effects as a means to feel better about themselves. Like they’re not actually part of or contributing to the problem. Capitalist propaganda helps ensure that talking about is “enough.” For, as Fisher noted, “…anti-capitalism is widely disseminated in capitalism. Time after time, the villain in Hollywood films will turn out to be the ‘evil corporation.’ Far from undermining capitalist realism, this gestural anti-capitalism actually reinforces it.” Emphasis on gestural. Because no one is actually going to do something that would infer anything beyond the “symbolic.” That would mean losing profit. And the only thing a capitalist hates more than a socialist is losing profit.

Kardashian exemplifies this “self-awareness” method in her ad. As though to say, “I know the Earth is crumbling, but you should still buy my product because we’re all doomed anyway.” Walking away from the desk, Kim continues (clearly thinking she’s the cleverest and funniest girl in the world), “I do believe everyone can use their skillset to do their part.” She then approaches a projection screen with a presentation pointer to declare, “That’s why I’m introducing a brand-new bra with a built-in nipple.”

Naturally, a diagram-esque image of said bra is displayed on the screen. But Kim knows that nobody is really focusing on that, so much as the product itself that she’s already modeling. As though she’s just come up with the solution for climate change (which everyone already knows: stop using fucking fossil fuels), Kim then chirps, “So no matter how hot it is, you’ll always look cold.” She returns to the desk to lean back against it “sensually,” concluding, “Some days are hard, but…these nipples are harder. And unlike the icebergs, these aren’t going anywhere.”

Being that Kim is no stranger to tone deafness (see: originally wanting to call Skims “Kimono,” North’s Friesian horses, her version of feeling “normal” during the pandemic, etc.), it wouldn’t be surprising if she genuinely had “no awareness” of the multi-layered effrontery provided by this little “PSA.” Not least of which is further normalizing the notion that people must simply learn to live with and “work around” the environment being fucked as a result of product shillers like her. And yeah, it’s very easy to be “blithe” about the whole thing in your advertising campaign when you know you have the privilege of money to insulate (no temperature pun intended) you from the inevitable fallout of climate change. But sooner or later, even the rich might find that money can’t buy them out of their environmental comeuppance.

Oh and, by the way, Samantha Jones (Kim Cattrall) from Sex and the City was already pushing the “built-in” nipple trend in 2001, telling her trio of friends in “Baby, Talk Is Cheap,” “Nipples are huge right now. Open any magazine—it’s not that cold. They’re either tweaking or they’re wearing these.” She then holds up two small rubber nipples that she says someone sent her as a “promotional thing.” Clearly, not Kim Kardashian, who was still relegated to obscurity at the time, having just finished a stint working at an Encino clothing store called Body. But maybe she caught that SATC episode in 2001, and was “subliminally” inspired. One thing about the SATC nipples though: they take a lot less materials and packaging to manufacture and sell. But, obviously, Kardashian assuages any such concern for that/insists you can pat yourself on the back for being a consumer by including in her caption, “Skims is proud to donate ten percent of sales from our Skims Ultimate Nipple Bra, as a one-time donation [ha! one time] to @1percentftp—a global network with thousands of businesses and environmental organizations working together to support people and the planet.” To use a Valley girl phrase from someone who might shop at an Encino clothing store, “I’m so sure.”

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Genna Rivieccio

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October 29, 2023
When Carrie Bradshaw Shamed Women With “Free Time,” Or: In Defense of Charlotte York’s “Retro” Decision to Not Work

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Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker), who has hardly ever been what one might call a “women’s advocate” (see: defending sexually predatory behavior), once famously shamed Charlotte York (Kristin Davis) for willingly becoming one of those women. You know, the ones who have the kind of free time for self-enrichment that allows them to take pottery classes in the middle of the day. Well, not a class, per se, so much as a jaunt into Color Me Mine, a real place that probably reached its pinnacle around the same time the episode in question, “Time and Punishment,” first aired in 2001. Because this was also the height of the Petroglyph era in California. Commercializing and mass-marketing pottery and ceramics classes perhaps in an avant-garde bid to teach something like mindfulness in an evermore mercilessly capitalistic world…long before the pandemic forced (some) people to slow down and reflect. The irony being, of course, that you still have to pay to be “mindful.”

In fact, that’s precisely what Charlotte wants to do with her newfound freedom when she quits the gallery in season four: glaze a motherfuckin’ pot at Color Me Mine. But, to Carrie, that’s deemed somehow frivolous, purposeless and, for some reason, not “artistic” enough. It seems, however, that part of the reason Carrie exhibits such judgment about it (granted, as she does about many things) is because it probably hits too close to home. This idea that if you’re not working a “real job” that comes complete with an office space or “stationing” within some kind of edifice beyond your own abode, then you’re not actually working (which means, technically, going to Color Me Mine should count as a job). For Carrie, deep down, must have felt some level of “pinch me” guilt for being able to translate her sexual exploits/party girl ways into something like a regular paycheck (though, as it has been pointed out many times, certainly not the kind of regular paycheck that could afford Carrie her haute couture-drenched manner of living).

Because yes, many a “single gal” before and after her has tried to do the same (and do it better), only to be met with no such financially tantalizing offers for detailing their “rock n’ roll lifestyle.” Thus, perhaps mocking Charlotte for wanting to become a woman who glazes and lazes is a reflection of the underlying belief that “being a layabout” posing as an artist is, in actuality, what Carrie is doing too. That is, in her role as a “writer” a.k.a. sex columnist. Because even the most “legitimate” (whatever that really means) of writers struggle frequently with severe bouts of impostor syndrome. Especially ones who are entirely dependent on the lives of others for their “inspiration” (read: material). Which Carrie very much is, what with her vanilla predilections in the boudoir. Shit, even Charlotte comes across as more adventurous in the long run, almost becoming a rug muncher before Samantha in season two’s “The Cheating Curve” and kissing the hot gardener as a married woman in season three’s “What Goes Around Comes Around.” Carrie would never (mainly because she’s more classist than she lets on). And, obviously, Samantha is the primary source of fodder for Carrie’s column drawing so many eyes (or rather, so many eyes for a local rag).

Yet even Samantha, for all her “progressiveness,” gives Charlotte flak for her announcement, assuming, “Did you get a better offer from another gallery?” and, later in the conversation, “Well, be damn sure before you get off the Ferris wheel because the women waiting to get on are twenty-two, perky and ruthless.” As for Carrie, her thinly-veiled harsh words come in the form of, “Sweetie, if I was walking by [Color Me Mine] and I saw you in there, I’d just keep on walking.” The implication being that, unlike Charlotte, she sees no “nobility” or “value” in art for art’s sake. Or doing anything, really, that doesn’t have some specific “purpose” (even fucking has a purpose for Carrie: her column). This being such a New York outlook on life that it practically makes one want to vomit over how many people living in that city share such a view. In contrast, Charlotte previously tells her friends of spotting a so-called deadbeat/kept/unemployed woman, “Sometimes I’ll walk by one of those Color Me Mine pottery places and I’ll see a woman having just a lovely afternoon glazing a bowl.”

When Charlotte is met with nothing but crickets and blank stares, she feels the need to further justify “not working” (this phrase always designed to diminish the things one does and actually enjoys doing for no money). To do so, she also assures them, “And I wanted to volunteer at Trey’s hospital. And help raise money for the new pediatric AIDS wing.” Upon hearing that, Carrie “indulges” her friend’s “whim” by encouraging, “The cooking and the AIDS stuff is great…” only to gut-punch Charlotte with the aforementioned insult about “just keeping on walking” if she saw Charlotte glazing a bowl at midday.

Of course, that’s just called jealousy. For all working people are fundamentally derisive and judgmental toward those who “don’t work” (a.k.a. are just doing things that make them happy without placing a monetary value on it). Wishing they, too, could live such an unburdened, unbrainwashed life. But even Charlotte can’t deprogram from the idea that she has to be “useful” in some alternate fashion, like child-birthing. Continuing a new generation of Worker Soldiers who will also believe in the religion of Capitalism. Whether they’re forced to (by circumstance of birth) or not (also by circumstance of birth).

Oddly, though, Charlotte chooses to take out Carrie’s judgment on Miranda by calling her the next morning and saying, “You were so judgmental at the coffee shop yesterday. You think I’m one of those women.” Genuinely confused, Miranda asks, “One of what women?” Charlotte snaps back, “One of those women we hate, who just works until she gets married.” The guilt over being “indulgent” enough to quit her job and take a risk on pursuing something less “directed” than working as an art curator/dealer has clearly gotten to her. And it’s not because she herself is questioning the “choice she chooses,” but because the lack of support from her friends, to her, signifies the lack of societal support for any woman who would dare to quit working. This, in effect, shows how far capitalism—not feminism—has come in indoctrinating people of all genders to believe that their primary value is in the amount of money they can bring home. So while Sex and the City disguises this as a mark of how the tables have turned on homemakers being the “freaks” instead of the working girls, it’s actually more telling of how women have been as subsumed by capitalism as men. Entirely taken with its seductive tenets, the top of the list being “independence.” By becoming a slave to whoever employs and underpays you.

At the end of “Time and Punishment,” Charlotte remains slightly ambivalent about her decision, snapping at the girl she’s hired to take over for her by barbing, “You’re twenty-two, what do you know about life?” Realizing her temper got away from her, she apologizes and explains, “I’ve been working my whole life, this is a big transition.” The twenty-two-year-old replacing her finally justifies her action by remarking, “If it’s any consolation, my mother worked all the time. It would have been nice to have her home.” Nonetheless, when Charlotte first told her replacement she was quitting to focus on motherhood, the girl looked at her with just as much horrified incredulity as Carrie (who, again, was way more judgmental than Miranda, despite the episode quickly centering the yin and yang “rivalry” between single women who work and married women who don’t on Miranda and Charlotte). So it is that Charlotte adds, yet again, her claim of being very focused on pediatric AIDS research. Because a social cause is better than no cause at all…if you have to confess to “not working.” A phrase that, to reiterate, not only belittles artists, but also domestic labor that is billed as somehow “lesser than” the non-“pink collar” jobs of this money-grubbing world.

And yet, what Charlotte ultimately proves by walking out of the job anyway, despite all the glares lobbied against her, is that nothing “tastes” as good as “not working” feels. Plus, it makes capitalists so very uncomfortable, something they ought to experience far more often than they’re made to. The dichotomy being that Charlotte has the luxury of being the most anti-capitalist of her friend group perhaps precisely because she’s benefited the most from capitalism via her inherited wealth.

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Genna Rivieccio

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October 1, 2023
Selena Gomez’s “Single Girl Anthem” Naturally Pays Homage to Sex and the City

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Considering Selena Gomez teased her latest single with a video of her lip syncing the dialogue of Samantha Jones (Kim Cattrall) from a season one episode of Sex and the City called “Three’s A Crowd,” it’s only natural that she should continue the homage to the perennial “single girl” show in her music video for “Single Soon.” And that arrives almost instantaneously by way of her “S” necklace and the leaving of a Post-It that directly quotes Jack Berger’s (Ron Livingston) infamous breakup note to Carrie: “I’m sorry. I can’t. Don’t hate me.”

Turning the notion of being the abandoned woman on its ear by becoming the abandoner, this note is placed on the table as Gomez chirpily sings, “Maybe I’ll just disappear/I don’t wanna see a tear.” Because who wants to deal with such icky emotions? Not Gomez. And, though we never see her walk out the door of the place where she left the Post-It, in a seemingly different apartment (though probably not one inside the Arconia because that would be too meta) “across town” (as Carrie B., would say in a voiceover), Gomez is “pickin’ out this dress” and “tryin’ on these shoes” ‘cause she’ll be “single soon.” Already is, in fact…whether her erstwhile boyfriend knows it yet or not. And yes, this image of her in her apartment trying on outfits and shoes echoes the level of peak vacuity (call it “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” syndrome) that Carrie also possesses despite being a writer. Indeed, it speaks to a false perception to assume that just because one writes, it means they’re immune to the anti-intellectual trappings of materialism. An especial trap for women, who are conditioned to believe they need “all the things” in order to attract men (and, more often than not, they do). For that’s what being a (straight) woman is all about, right? No matter how many advertising campaigns try to repurpose that indoctrination to attempt reflecting the presently more “kosher” belief that a woman wanting to look good is “just for herself.” Yeah right.

Self-love being a key part of Gomez’s brand, particularly as it pertains to mental health, she proceeds to “sit-dance” on the floor, looking endlessly comfortable with both her breakup decision and being alone. Relishing “me time,” as it were. Which gives a girl the chance to engage in what Carrie would deem all the “SSB” (secret single behavior) she wants, without fear of judgment from the gross boy she was once forced to share a space with. As Carrie phrases it in “The Good Fight,” “I miss walking into my apartment with no one there and it’s all quiet and I can do that stuff you do when you’re totally alone. Things you would never want your boyfriend to see you do.” Apparently, that’s what Gomez missed about being single too, as she stares at herself in the mirror and applies lipstick, tries on more “looQues” (including a very “Lavender Haze”-inspired jacket) and then heads out to meet her friends at a restaurant.

At first, the meeting feels like a nod to that season four episode, “The Agony and the ‘Ex’-tacy,” where Carrie is cajoled into having a thirty-fifth birthday party at Il Cantinori, despite not wanting to celebrate at all. Although Gomez is initially forced to wait at a giant empty table like the “ultimate” single girl she’s paying tribute to, she doesn’t appear as bummed as Carrie was while glancing around the restaurant to clock other couples/generally happy people as the lyrics, “I’ma date who I wanna/Stay out late if I wanna/I’ma do what I wanna do” play in the background. Plus, it’s easy to be blithe when considering that Gomez isn’t stood up (unlike Carrie) by the three friends who arrive soon after (because, obviously, a quartet of friends is necessary to really drive the SATC point home) to join her for drinks.

Cheersing to the freedom of singledom, director Philip Andelman then cuts to Gomez and co. in the back of a pimped-out ride (in an image that briefly reminds one of Madonna being in the back of a limo with her own friend group in “Music”). It’s here that Gomez shrugs, “I know I’m a little high/Maintenance, but I’m worth a try/Might not give a reason why (oh well)/We both had a lot of fun/Time to find another one/Blame it all on feelin’ young.” It’s with that last line that Gomez not only negates how she recently said she was “too old” for social media (a sentiment that doesn’t quite jibe with “feelin’ young”), but also what Miley Cyrus ruminates on in “Used to Be Young.” Currently thirty to Gomez’s thirty-one, Cyrus clearly feels more wizened at this point in time to have come out with a track (on the same day, no less) so divergent in theme from Gomez’s, who encourages the notion of being single more than ever despite the fact that women are still told that being in their thirties is the “danger zone” era. Not just for “finding someone,” but for the proverbial biological clock.

It’s a clock Gomez, like Lana Del Rey, seems more content to ignore as she goes out to karaoke in the next scene (something Tove Lo also made the central focus of one of her most recent videos, “I Like U”). From there, it’s more scenes in the back of the car, interspersed between sweaty dancing in the club moments and running through alleyways like bats out of hell. At a certain moment, Gomez announces, “I know he’ll be a mess/When I break the news,” but it would be no shock if the guy she dumped cared as little as she did about the end of the “relationship.” Or, in this modern age, situationship. Something Carrie never had to deal with during her so-called more proper epoch of dating.

What’s more, Gomez overtly relishes her single girl status far more than Carrie ever did. This being part of why she probably chose Samantha to emulate in her teaser for the song (though some conspiracy theorists will say it was to shade Hailey and Justin Bieber because the dialogue is pulled from the scene of a married man telling Samantha he’s going to leave his wife for her). And as she jumps into an empty pool in the dead of night with her friends, then ends up having them over for a “sleepover” afterward, it’s clear she wants to emphasize Charlotte York’s (Kristin Davis) aphorism, “Maybe we could be each other’s soulmates. And then we could just let men be these great, nice guys to have fun with.”

With this in mind, “Single Soon” is a logical evolution from “Lose You To Love Me,” and perhaps even more empowered than that because it treats the notion of “love” with far more sociopathy. What Carrie would call “having sex like a man.” Gomez wants to take advantage of that concept and so much more with her single (soon) status. And, although the tone and visuals of the track are decidedly more suited to the Girls narrative that was meant to mirror (emphasis on meant to) Gomez’s millennial generation far more closely than Sex and the City ever did, it’s a testament to the iconography and influence of the latter. No matter how retroactively problematic it keeps becoming as the years go on.

That doesn’t stop enduring fangirls like Britney Spears from still loving it. And, speaking of Spears, one doesn’t imagine this song playing so well with her own fresh status as a “singleton.” One who has tried her best to shrug off another short-lived marriage with talk of buying a horse. Because that’s the freedom of being single, innit? And yet, if Gomez (incidentally, a guest at the wedding for Spears’ ultimately failed nuptials) were to release this song at Spears’ age, one doesn’t imagine it would come across as “jubilantly.” Reading instead more like the sight of Lexi Featherston trolling for fun at a party filled with “fuckin’ geriatrics.” Herself not admitting that she, too, is now considered one. For, no matter how much time goes by, society has yet to embrace women who are past a “certain age” staying single, yet acting like they’re still in the sowing oats days of their twenties. Even “single girl patron saint” Carrie Bradshaw, with her heinously priggish attitude, was the first to tell Samantha, “It’s time for ladies my age to start covering it up. We can’t get away with the same stuff we used to.” It remains to be seen if Gomez will tend to agree…should she be single ten years from now.

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Genna Rivieccio

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August 26, 2023
Why Aidan’s Visceral Reaction to Not Wanting to Go Into Carrie’s Apartment Ever Again Is Emblematic of New York-Specific PTSD

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With the latest episode of And Just Like That…, the one everyone is raving about/saying it’s marked a shift for the better in the series, director Ry Russo-Young opens on a scene of Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) in bed wearing a shirt that says, “The Most New York You Can Get.” It’s a fitting way to kick off “February 14th,” as the most New York you can actually get is being incapable of walking down certain streets or going into certain places. Not because it’s too expensive, but because, in another iteration of your life, you were emotionally wounded there. Irrevocably.

They say you can be traumatized anywhere, but, in truth, there’s no more affecting place for experiencing trauma than one, New York City. The “greatest” city in the world isn’t so great when every street corner, every establishment and, yes, every apartment is a potential landmine for unwanted memories bubbling to the surface and causing the long-buried pain to feel oh so fresh. The usual staunch defenders of the city might say that there’s nowhere else on Earth that can give you such “profound” experiences (most of which include, at some point, vomiting on the subway). That nowhere else will “give you the chance” to feel so much…until you ultimately feel nothing at all. Numbness as a defense mechanism. Repackaged as New Yorkers being “experts at minding their own business.” When, the fact is, they’ve been trained to turn off any reaction whatsoever in the name of self-protection. And perhaps being smug about what Carrie once phrased as: “The fact is [New Yorkers have] pretty much done and seen it all. It takes quite a bit to shock us.”

The same goes for Sex and the City-turned-And Just Like That… viewers, who have seen it all when it comes to Carrie’s relationship pattern. Which goes: Big, Aidan, Big, Aidan, Big…and now Aidan again. What with his character being the last man standing after “John” died (and, to an extent, Chris Noth…when his career died). The stale story maneuver to pivot in this direction yet again presumes that Aidan doesn’t have the self-respect to cut Carrie loose for good—the way Carrie didn’t in order to do the same to Big.

Such lack of self-respect is something that’s actually not that far-fetched when considering how long people choose to stay in New York after “making a life” there—the ultimate euphemism for, “Well, I found a job and enough people to get drunk with so why rock the boat and leave?” Except that Aidan actually did, only to be pulled back in by the woman who once asked the question that proves why New Yorkers are the most annoying breed on the planet: “I’m always surprised when anyone leaves New York. I mean where do they go?” Probably to a place with fewer triggers.

And yet, Carrie is only too down to be the triggerer when she invokes the spirit that is Aidan by reaching out to him via email. Which is ironic for the person who once insisted (in yet another episode when her romance with him was about to be rekindled), “I don’t believe in email. I’m an old-fashioned gal. I prefer calling and hanging up.” In 2023, Carrie is slightly less puerile, but not by much…she still abruptly closes her computer like a scared little girl when she sees that there’s a new message from him in her inbox. This, of course, harkening back to the “Baby, Talk Is Cheap” episode where she does cave in to signing up for an email address (already late to the game in 2001) and AIM account (again, 2001). Her one “Buddy” on that messaging apparatus being “AidanNYC” (this lack of originality certainly suits Carrie’s writing style). And when his screen name appears online, she has a pre-OK Boomer moment when she freaks out and asks, “Oh my God, he’s online! Can he see me?” Miranda, not bothering to explain to her the finer points of how the internet works, assures her that, no, he cannot see her. At least not literally.

Galvanized, she gets up and heads over to his apartment, having initially told Miranda in an unsent email, “Aidan says he’s not interested, but he seems interested.” This being Rapist Logic 101. Which is further emphasized by her phone conversation with Miranda during which she says, “His words said no, but his kiss said yes” and “I know he still feels it.” Apparently, they both still do decades later. Even if Carrie should be off-put by how Aidan is dressed like Elvis trying to make Army attire fashionable.

After making their rendezvous for “February 14th,” as though pretending each has no idea what that means, another callback to previous episodes of SATC occurs when Carrie starts to think she’s being stood up. Maybe Aidan is just a scorpion who lured her into his stinging trap of retribution for all the emotional torment she caused him (which is really what he should have done). Channeling “The Agony and the ‘Ex’-tasy” episode where she waits interminably at Il Cantinori for people to show up to the birthday dinner she didn’t want to have, Carrie starts to feel exposed when she sees Aidan is already ten minutes late (this also echoing the season two episode where Samantha gets stood up at a restaurant by a guy who “we’d” his way all the way home). But no, turns out there was a mixup (Il Cantinori/El Cantinoro-style) and he’s simply at the restaurant next door. To be sure, the symbolism of these two still not being in the same place bears noting. Even if there’s the emphasis that they’re now both “on the same page.”

Though they never were before, least of all in season four, when Carrie, again, practically begged him to ignore his better judgment and be with her. “You broke my heart!” he finally screams after she makes the selfish case for them getting back together in “Baby, Talk Is Cheap.” Perhaps aware of the power she holds over him when, minutes later, he gives in and runs to her apartment (after she childishly runs away from his because he rightly berated her) to bone, Carrie can make the connection that she is the Big in his life. The one great love he can’t say no to…no matter how poorly she treats him. And there’s something to be said for the parallel to how NYC residents also view New York. No matter how toxic, unhealthy or straight-up miserable it is, its status as a “great love” means it can do no wrong, regardless of the repeated joy it seems to get from burning those who “love” it so much. If by “love” what is meant is delighting in masochism and calling it “making a sacrifice for something wonderful.”

After their sexual reunion in “Baby, Talk Is Cheap,” Aidan asks Carrie, “You wanna do this to make up for the past? Relieve your conscience?” She insists that no, the reason she wants to get back together is, “I still love you.” He pretends he needs to think about it, but the next morning, he’s outside her window, calling out, “Okay let’s give it a shot.” “You wanna come up?” she replies. Even then, he avoided it, insisting he has to take Pete for a walk. Perhaps knowing, in some way, that Carrie’s “single girl” apartment was going to be his bane. And that’s what it still ultimately is. For Carrie will always see herself that way: someone who can just flit about like the twenty-something NY “it girl” she can’t shake from her self-perception.

Maybe that’s why she doesn’t pre-fathom how jarring it will be for Aidan to see the apartment again, taking him there after dinner. Not realizing where they are until he gets out of the cab, his face falls as he remarks, “When you said go back to your place, I just thought you had a different place… At the restaurant, I just thought, ‘How great. This feels really great. We’re back where we started.’ But this is where we ended. With the fuckin’ wall I couldn’t break through and those floors, remember, that I redid? It’s all bad. And it’s just, it’s all in there.”

Carrie soothes, “Okay yes, it’s the same place, but we’re not in the same place.” Constantly assuring him that she’s different (therefore, “it’s” different) and better every time they’re about to start things up anew, Aidan can’t quite grasp the veracity of that declaration when she’s continued to live in the same apartment. So unaffected by all the shit that went down there. He finally says, “I can’t go in there again with all that.” Aidan’s trauma response is the culmination of the number New York (and those who flock there) can do to a person. So much that said person can’t even seem to grasp the way they feed on the psychological deterioration it causes after a while. Which is why Aidan then whips around and announces, “Hey, fuck it. This is New York. They have hotels, right?” Aidan’s sudden desire to bang in hotels in lieu of ever going back into that trauma epicenter called Carrie’s apartment also provides an interesting full-circle moment in that Carrie had her affair with Big in hotels throughout Manhattan during season three (side note: another callback to the original series is when Carrie uses the cheesy “Great Sexpectations” pun that served as the title of SATC’s second episode of season six).

Alas, like those who move back to New York after leaving it, Aidan ignores all the reasons he left (both the city and the relationship) so that he can learn the hard way, yet again, that Carrie, the so-called embodiment of the city (see: “The Most New York You Can Get”), will only cause more pain. For what could possibly go wrong if he refuses to set foot in the apartment she would never abandon? This made peak evident in season four’s “Ring A Ding Ding,” when Carrie is faced with the very real possibility of losing her underpriced abode as she, funnily enough, is forced to buy it back from Aidan after their relationship ends, again.

Yet what Carrie is most upset about isn’t Aidan, but the apartment. Pacing the “living room,” she gives the voiceover, “As I thought about leaving the apartment I had lived in for the past decade, I realized how much I would miss it. Through everything, it had always been there for me.” So yes, Carrie 1) loves her apartment too much to ever leave and 2) has the type of Stockholm Syndrome that would never allow her to see that the apartment is the source of the trauma she refers to with “through everything.” There’s a reason Aidan is smart enough to believe that no amount of sage could get rid of the energy in that place, and that Carrie’s apartment is nothing but “bad juju.” Of course, so is New York itself, with all the places one is initially so fond of while they’re at an emotional crest falling prey to the invariable emotional dip once such places become tied to pain.

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Genna Rivieccio

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July 29, 2023