This week on Deep Thoughts About Stupid Shit, Emily shares her complicated love of the television show Sex and the City. When the HBO original comedy first aired in 1998, it was a breath of fresh feminism in pop culture. The show featured a quartet of fabulous single women in New York who had created a found family through their deep and abiding friendship with each other.
Although Sarah Jessica Parker’s Carrie Bradshaw and Kristin Davis’s Charlotte York both dreamed of romance, SatC wasn’t exactly a romcom—at least, not at first. It offered audiences a peek into the sexy, infuriating, and overwhelming world of New York dating, along with trenchant cultural commentary on the difficulty of meeting Mr. Right, even if there was no shortage of Mr. Right Nows.
But some pretty regressive politics lurked behind the progressive feminism. Kim Cattrall’s Samantha Jones was consistently slut-shamed by the show, even as she took control of her own sexuality. Early episodes included some very regrettable racial politics and bisexual erasure. And the fact that all four women end the series paired up with a man seems counter to the feminism the first season promised us.
Emily also shares why And Just Like That is dead to her (it has nothing to do with Mr. Big!), and the line that makes her tear up every single time.
I couldn’t help but wonder…why not start listening to this episode right this minute?
We are Tracie Guy-Decker and Emily Guy Birken, known to our extended family as the Guy Girls.
We both have super-serious personas in our "day jobs." No, really. Emily is a Finance writer who used to be a classroom teacher. Tracie writes and consults on social justice and mindfulness and works as a copywriter and project manager for non-profits. If you really need to see the bona fides, please visit our individual websites: tracieguydecker.com and emilyguybirken.com
For our work together, what you need to know is that Tracie is older (3 years), Emily is funnier (by at least 3 percent), and we're both hella smart, often over-literal, and completely unashamed of our overthinking prowess. We love movies and tv, science fiction and murder mysteries, good storytelling with liberal amounts of dramatic irony, and analyzing pop culture for gender dynamics, psychology, sociology, and whatever else we find there.
Learn more about Tracie and Emily (including our other projects), join the Guy Girls' family, secure exclusive access to bonus episodes, video version, and early access to Deep Thoughts by visiting us on Patreon.
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