'Sex and the City': Six Ways of Looking at Carrie

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Image credit: ILLUSTRATION BY JILLIAN TAMAKI

THE NEW YORKER
The Naked City
by Michael Musto

New York was going through tremendous changes when Sex and the City premiered in 1998. In the '90s, under Mayor Giuliani, a lot of the edge started being swept away in favor of expensive real estate and theme-park-type restaurants and a glossed-over Times Square. SATC showed the changes while also celebrating what was good about New York. It didn't show just a Disney-ized New York. It showed the edgy stuff you could still find. It picked up on the diversity, the energy, and the beauty of the city — everything from Central Park to the West Village, boutiques and sex shops. All the tourist attractions as well as the places that only the real, inside New Yorkers would know about. And somehow, the line at Magnolia Bakery got even longer. I was always mystified that there were lines around the block for a stupid muffin. How good could it be? But people live by that muffin.

Once I interviewed Rupert Everett, the actor, on a panel, and he said he was furious that people were not only doing things from the show, like drinking cosmos, they were also trying to sound like Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte, and Samantha. And I kind of agree with him on this. The show itself was reflecting behavior, so it became bizarre when the public, in turn, started reflecting the show and acting like the characters. But it's part of the phenomenon of that show, and it was all positive because they pushed sexual buttons and took a lot of the shame out of sex. Sex and the City showed gay, S&M, drag — all the worlds that I write about on a regular basis. And I used to be the only one covering them. But they helped popularize all of that by putting it in a mainstream show. All of a sudden it was okay to go to a sex shop like Samantha did and shop for dildos. It moved everybody forward. (As told to Kate Ward)

Michael Musto is a gossip columnist for The Village Voice.

More dish on the Sex and the City movie:
Sex and the City: Secrets from the movie set
Sex and the City: Four portraits of the leading ladies
Sex and the City: EW's Season 1 Episode Guide

Originally posted May 14, 2008 Published in issue #992-993 May 23, 2008 Order article reprints

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