DOES YOUR VAGINA DIE ON YOUR 50th BIRTHDAY?
THIS AND OTHER PRESSING QUESTIONS POSED BY THE SEX AND THE CITY REBOOT…AND JUST LIKE THAT
Warning: Spoilers ahead!!
Hello, it’s me
I’ve thought about us for a long long time…
The lyrics to Mr. Big’s swan song seem apropos to my posts here. It has been a long, long time…the truth is that the beginning of 2022 has proved to be like wading through sticky mud, with the year starting, for me, with more of a whimper than a bang. I have struggled to be creative. If you accomplished exactly nothing this January, I see you.
On to the topic at hand. We are now all the way through HBO Max’s 10-episode reboot of the original show beloved by so many of us. In it, we are reacquainted with the ladies (minus Samantha but plus a cabal of new friends) in a post-pandemic NYC navigating their lives in their 50s.
Suffice it to say that there is a good amount of hate for the series in the zeitgeist, but I am saying here, with enthusiasm, that I liked it. It wasn’t perfect, but it spoke to me. It describes truths very specific to mid-life but in a compelling and “heightened” sort of way. Who goes on the school run in couture? These characters do. In fact, I laughed out loud when one of the show writers said on their excellent and thoughtful podcast (And Just Like That…The Writers Room) that sending the ladies on the school run in the requisite athleisure-wear would be like making a documentary. And who wants to watch a documentary about their real lives? No one!
My thoughts:
Geriatrics Unite!
That the characters have aged 15 years is the central thesis of the series. It’s like a pebble in your pocket—your thoughts may occasionally meander on to other themes, but the show will never let you forget that it is an exploration of how people adapt to time moving on.
The aging process is depicted clumsily. Steve is deaf and buttons the top button of his flannel shirt like our grandpas did. References to colonoscopies, enlarged prostates, heart, hip, and knee problems abound, so much so that a Peleton is a veritable murder weapon. To be provocative, the writers seem to have latched on to a later time period. It’s supposed to be mid-life, not end-of-life!
There is also this which really makes you go hmmmmm:
And yet there is the lovely and poignant as it relates to the passing of time—namely, the episode wherein a plastic surgeon demonstrates to Carrie via computer simulation that he can make 15 years vanish from her face. It’s a no for her and in the end voiceover, she wistfully concludes, “and just like that, I remembered how much I loved the last 15 years…” Solid.
Say Sorry
It is a head-scratcher that we are meant to believe that the main characters of the show have existed in a plastic bubble, never having meaningfully interacted with a person of color in all their years in New York City. And yet, that seems to be where our story begins.
To make amends for this conceit, Carrie, Charlotte, and Miranda have each been assigned one bestie of color (actually Miranda hits the mother lode with both a bestie and a lover of color) in what comes off as an elementary school square dance. The ladies are then placed in situations where they can put their obtuse ideas of wokeness on display (Miranda makes an awkward comment about her law professor’s braids, Charlotte combs her Rolodex desperate for a Black person to invite to dinner), presumably so that we can ridicule/stone the characters in our mind’s eye.
This dance of shame that the characters perform seems tantamount to apologizing for being white women living in a white world. I don’t think anyone thinks shaming is a viable way forward. In reality, if you are trying to live a more inclusive life, you listen, you learn, and you do better. Although I love the whimsy of the show, on this count, I felt myself longing for a depiction that was less absurd and more authentic—I know the show is not meant to be a documentary, but a more thoughtful narrative on what it actually looks like to be an inclusive person would have gone a long way for many viewers.
Have a Holly, Jolly…Diwali!
The Indian New Year, Diwali, is definitely getting its 15 minutes of fame. As an immigrant kid growing up in America, we celebrated Diwali, inconveniently wedged between Halloween and Thanksgiving, in a harried afterthought, lighting a dia and whispering a prayer somewhere between school, soccer practice, and homework. Like other Americans whose holidays are not mainstream, I died inside a little each year at the nothing burger-ness of the day.
Diwali, however, gets its very own episode in AJLT. Carrie, whose assigned bestie of color is the Indian character Seema (a sexy, slinky lynx, modeled after Bianca Jagger, played to perfection by Sarita Choudhary), accompanies her to a sari shop where she is looking for an outfit for her parents’ Diwali celebration. Carrie is giddy over the clothes and desperate to learn about the holiday. I evoke again the plastic bubble…would Carrie, a writer, which means that she presumably sees the world through the lens of curiosity, in New York City, where every fifth person is basically from India, NEVER EVER have heard of Diwali!?
In the episode, Carrie invites herself to Seema’s parents’ party. I thought this was interesting because Indians are, without a doubt, a very hospitable people (Hindu scriptures actually include the phrase Atithi Devo Bhava, which translates to “The Guest is God”—in other words, we take this stuff seriously). That Carrie invites herself to a family Diwali party and that Seema obliges seems unremarkable in this regard. But would it have been in the reverse? If Seema invited herself to Christmas at Carrie’s, would not have Seema’s presumptuousness been considered a major social faux pas, unpacked over lunch by the ladies? Ethnic people are regularly depicted as expected to gleefully feed and entertain with no hope of reciprocation—why is the burden always on them to teach people about their ways? Just something that made me think.
The Old-Shoe Marriage
The definition of old-shoe is something familiar, free, comfortable, unpretentious. I always thought the use of the term to describe a marriage—usually one that is getting on in years—was charming.
The obvious old-shoe marriage in AJLT is that of Miranda and Steve, one of the markers of which is a nightly TV and ice cream ritual, replete with a myriad of toppings served in taupe, ceramic cups (suburban bliss!). Their main topic of conversational interest is their son. Their physical spark has long vanished.
For Steve, the steadiness of their marital state provides great comfort. He can rely on it. It is a haven. Miranda, on the other hand, chafes at the limits of married life, and she can’t imagine doing the TV-ice cream thing for the rest of her days. She wants more and then finally wants out. What do you think is out there? Steve asks angrily and desperately at the same time.
I polled a small group of women friends who have been married for a decade or two. Interestingly, almost everyone said that in varying degrees, they too were in old-shoe marriages, but that they were more so in the Steve camp—they took comfort in it. I do think, though, that Miranda’s very vehement stance that her Steady Eddie marriage wasn’t enough was triggering to many. How do you honor and preserve individual needs in a long-term marriage? How should such a marriage feel a decade or two in? These are some interesting questions that I will leave here.
Friendships: The Sublime and the Messy
For me, the hero theme of the show is the exploration of decades-long as well as budding adult friendships. It’s interesting that even as we try to guide our children through the act of making and keeping friends, we are still often honing these skills ourselves well into middle age.
Writer and podcaster Kelly Corrigan ruminates about adult friendship in her beautiful eulogy for a dear friend who passed away, “It is unusual for people to really know each other, to get past the presentations and facades that we put out there.” As adults, it requires what she calls our “full attention,” which is perhaps why it is so rare. Any friendship that can find a real heartbeat amid life’s other obligations is already winning. But the rewards of a true and meaningful friendship are so great that Corrigan postulates that “maybe it’s why we are here.”
On the topic of newer friendships, AJLT writer Rachna Fruchbom offers an interesting observation using the nascent Seema-Carrie relationship as an example—she says that “as you get older, friendships get deeper faster.” I had never heard it put this way, but I agree. I think it is because you know who are and what represents quality to you. It makes you want to, as Fruchbom says, hang on to people who “fit with where you are headed.”
And just as newer members of one’s tribe are welcome and exciting, with the passing of time, older ones may have to move out, as painful as that is. AJLT addresses head on the idea that not every relationship is meant to last a lifetime. I’m talking, of course, about the fact that the fourth musketeer of the girl gang, Samantha, and Carrie are portrayed as having had a falling out.
I personally related to this immensely. I once was in a literal decade-defining friendship. Over time, it became clear that she and I were not aligned in where we were headed. Sometimes, you can love someone through things, even if you see an ever-widening chasm in your values. And sometimes you just can’t, and moving on becomes a necessary act of self-care. There are very specific moments when I feel her absence deeply, but I don’t regret our parting of ways. I wish her well and often return to the words of the immortal Tupac Shakur: “I still wanna see you eat, just not at my table.”
Truth!
Throw all the tomatoes you want at these characters. Here is why I have loved the original as well as the reboot and forever will. Cue the final moments of the final episode of Sex and the City (also cue the epic song “You Got the Love” just as it crescendos). Carrie’s final lines of dialogue are:
“The most exciting, challenging and significant relationship of all is the one you have with yourself. And if you find someone to love the you you love, well, that’s just fabulous.”
I couldn’t have said it better myself. And I think the writers of AJLT faithfully and brilliantly carried this mantra through the reboot. And, let’s be honest, with that little nugget of truth in your pocket, who really cares when your vagina dies?
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In other news, it’s CURATED’s first anniversary. Thank you for your amazing support this past year. Onward and upward in 2022!
Xo –P
Instagram: @priyaadesai1
Twitter: @priyaadesai1
Every single one of your beautifully written pieces touches my heart like nothing can. The passionate - compassionate love of marriage, the friendships we gain and lose as adults... all very real and very relevant. Yet not talked about enough! Thank you for another heartwarming and thoughtful expression of your experience. You are so amazing. ❤
Wonderfully said! While there is a bit of the absurd in AHLT, it absolutely resonates. Also reminds of of why I fell love with NYC, my first love ❤️. The couture overload doesn’t hurt either!!