So, it’s over. The girls are gone. In their wake, the Sex and the City foursome have left us with nothing but idle time on Sunday evenings. As I sit here and write this column, on the Saturday afternoon before Sunday’s finale, I have no idea what is going to happen to Carrie, but I do know this: what made Sex and the City so successful had nothing to do with sex per se and everything to do with the ties that bound four different, yet complementary, women together as they traversed life’s path, one Manolo at a time.
Undoubtedly, we will miss the eccentric Carrie’s philosophical outlook on life, Samantha’s raunchy escapades, darling Charlotte’s navet and Miranda’s biting cynicism. It’s practically a given that we will cherish the girls’ fashionable jaunts through the streets of Manhattan and, as of late, Brooklyn; not that I’m biased, but no other city in the world, not even gay old Paree, could have inspired the girls with as much panache as did New York; it was the fifth star of the show.
But what about those enduring friendships? Carrie said her friends were akin to family, being that they were the “people that you always come home to,” her chosen family. Samantha was at least 10 years older than the other three, and Greenwich-bred Charlotte was the epitome of a blue-blood. Yet, somehow it just worked. It worked so well that even Big, in a last ditch effort to rekindle his romance with Carrie, realized that Miranda, Samantha and Charlotte were “the loves of her (Carrie’s) life…” and that a guy was “…just lucky to come in fourth…” if at all. A supportive all-female friendship that didn’t revolve around men and envy, and instead on love, support and caring – true tenets of a real friendship – unheard of!
If one takes nothing away from Sex and the City’s spectacular six years, at least grasp that authentic friendships span the numerous tests of boyfriends, miscarriage, divorce, cancer, overdue bills, tried and not-so-true engagement rings, post-it notes and birthday dinners. Recognize that, yes, people flat out suck sometimes, but life is too short to skip cocktails and dwell on your misery, and it is way more than possible to have your cake and eat it too while juggling work, relationships and your new Fendi baguette. And finally, in the words of Carrie, just remember that it is more than appropriate to attend a baseball game just to “smoke and drink at two in the afternoon without judgment,” because, well, you can. Goodbye, girls!
Vanessa Cutler can be contacted at v.cutler@umiami.edu.