Is anyone surviving right now? Anybody doing okay? I feel a bit like I’m somehow both drowning and completely outside of my body.
I thought about writing about politics, the state of things, or even what’s left of my playwriting career but there’s not much to say there so instead I want to talk about Sex and the City.
Yes, the TV show.
Something I’ve been thinking about a lot is the way women are allowed to be portrayed on television these days and how it reflects the rise of fascism. It’s been a while since I saw a woman unexpectedly get pregnant and then decide to have an abortion. And it’s not a moral crisis. It’s not some massive debate. It doesn’t even take the whole episode. It’s barely a major plot line. Lately, it seems like, at least on all the shows I watch, women get pregnant, have a whole episode dilemna over it, and then ultimately decide they wanted to be a mother all along.
I’m 36. I’m not 100% sure but I think when Sex and the City first started, everyone except for Samantha was 32. When I was in my 20s, it was my go-to comfort show, other than The L Word which is another blog for another time. (I also really loved Frasier but streaming wasn’t big then and it was hard to find. I wasn’t really able to re-connect with Frasier until about 2021.)
Anyway, I was curious how I, in my late 30s, would feel watching Sex and the City now. And yes, there are hella, hella, hella problems in regards to race and sexuality that And Just LIke That failed to really address but that’s not what I want to focus on right now.
I cannot think of any other show out right now (correct me if I’m wrong) where women in their mid-30s have a lot of sex, go to a lot of parties, and are still considered “hot/sexy.” For the early seasons, none of them have kids. Marriage isn’t really something they’re all chasing, at least not openly….they cared about their careers and rent and shoes. The men barely matter. Except for a few, they’re interchangeable (especially in the beginning seasons). It’s a show about shitty female friendship. Because let’s face it, Carrie is a shitty friend.
And Just Like That was a bad show. This really isn’t up for debate, which is a bummer because I love so many of the writers who worked on the show. But one of the things I felt really betrayed by is the show went from this revolutionary show about sex and feminism to basically being about rich ladies who lunch. Even as Carrie is single, I was hoping we’d see dating at 50, attempting to navigate the changing landscape after being off the market for years.
And we really didn’t get that. As the world is changing, I wonder if we’ll get anything like that again. Or at least for a while. Is everything just going to be about motherhood and complaining about husbands/partners? Will we never see messy women again?
Okay, so why am I writing about this? I know I said I wasn’t going to talk about my playwriting, but this is a blog about my writing adventures. Of course, I’m going to talk about playwriting.
For years, the first sentence of my artist statement has been: I write plays about complicated, messy queer women of color who don’t always make the right choice but always the best choice.
If we’re done talking about messy women, does that mean my writing career is also over? Do I pivot? I haven’t written a male protagonist in years, possibly ever. All of my characters are trans, enby, or cis queer women. As I see more and more stories about the complexity of masculinity and less and less stories about the joys of being a messy woman, I feel like there’s an obvious path I should be taking if I want to be produced.
But I really don’t want to write about cis men. So now what?
It seems silly to be so upset that And Just Like That is ending (definitely think it was canceled). But for me, it’s more about the erasure of messy femininity in pop culture and storytelling. I’m not even a woman (I’ll get into my gender another time) but I want to see more complicated perspectives on femininity.
And that feels very not allowed right now.