I Couldn't Help But Wonder

If you don’t follow my Twitter, then you probably don’t know that I’ve been doing something I never thought I would do. I’ve been watching Sex and the City. I don’t know why, either, something possessed me, and I have not been able to stop. I think somebody tweeted about it and made me curious, and as I wasn’t going anywhere for a while and the new Perry Mason was making me sad, I started watching.

I remember being a teenager and thinking that my mind would be blown if I watched this show. That I wouldn’t remain the innocent that I was, that I’d get cynical about sex, or grossed out by something I saw on it (I remember some right-wing pundits in the 2000s saying there was an episode about someone’s boyfriend having sex with a dog?! Maybe I skipped that episode.) But it turns out there is absolutely nothing on this show that I couldn’t have heard anywhere else. By seventeen, I’d already read Erica Jong and (ugh) Chuck Palahniuk, and had logged way too much time on the weirder corners of the internet. I was already pretty jaded.

Besides, the SATC characters themselves are strangely backward and sex-negative: Carrie is a sex columnist who doesn’t even talk dirty and is afraid of bisexuals. Miranda goes on this weird tangent about Catholic men and how they think sex is gross, while at the same time, she famously won’t kiss a guy after he goes down on her and doesn’t even know how to talk to him about it. Samantha has sex with everyone but is freaked out by the tiniest amount of kink, refuses to get an AIDS test until forced, and CALLS THE COPS on a group of trans sex workers. What the hell?

Still, I keep watching it. I don’t know why. There are definitely some entertaining parts, and it’s mostly well-acted. Sometimes actors I really like appear on it. There are times when it does feel groundbreaking. But the fashion is baffling, most of the men are unattractive, I don’t identify with any of the main characters: Carrie is horrifically self-absorbed, dramatic, and a terrible writer, Samantha is more a caricature than a character, and Charlotte is a WASP who lives on the Upper East Side. I figured I’d like Miranda the most, because back in high school and college girls always used to tell me, “You’re such a Miranda.” Usually they meant that I “seemed smart,” so I took it as a compliment, the same as when people would mistakenly assume I’m an introvert. (I’m not. I like having some time to myself, but I’m annoying social.) Miranda has her funny and insightful moments, and Cynthia Nixon is a fantastic actor (and would have been a great governor of New York, in my opinion), but she is not my favorite.

The thing is, Miranda is mean. Really mean! She’s mean to Steve and every other guy she dates, mean to her neighbors, mean to her coworkers, mean to random people around New York, even mean to her friends. I mean, yes, she calls out Carrie when Carrie is being the worst, which is often. But I don’t care much for snarky, sarcastic characters; I knew myself at ages 11 through 21, I’ve had enough snark and sarcasm to last a lifetime.

No, my favorite of the four is definitely Charlotte. Yes, the Park Avenue Pollyanna.

I don’t LOVE Charlotte. Pretty much everything she says is tinged (at the very least) with classism, and she’s way too ignorant to have gone to Smith — most Smith alumni I know are the type to make piercing eye contact and crush your hand with their handshakes. I have nothing in common with Charlotte (other than being good with babies and finding Kyle McLachlan sexy). But I like Charlotte the most out of the four, because she’s consistent yet still able to change, she’s good to her friends and mostly good to her partners, she actually seems to respect the Jewish religion and culture, and most importantly, because she’s funny. She doesn’t make stupid puns like Carrie and Samantha, or snarky comments like Miranda, but there’s nothing funnier than anyone who takes themself very seriously, especially when they’re also incredibly naive. Charlotte doesn’t think she’s funny, and that’s what makes her the funniest.

It’s part of a pattern, one I should have seen coming. My favorite comedy characters are always the earnest ones. Always. I don’t know what it is about them. At the risk of sounding like one of Carrie’s columns, I can’t help but wonder what is it about earnest characters that I love so much. Why do I relate to Dorothy Zbornak but love Rose Nylund? Why do I love Alexis Rose so much more than Stevie, who is basically me if I lived in a small Canadian city? Why do I laugh hysterically just thinking about Dr. Zoidberg? Maybe it’s because I’ve been jaded since middle school, and I have to fight off cynicism in myself, so being able to see the world in an open, unpretentious way seems novel to me. But I don’t think that explains all of it. I’m starting to think this calls for a longer series on here, one I will probably have to call “The Importance of Being Earnest.”

I’m opening up the comments here, so feel free to mention which earnest characters you like, and what, exactly, it is you love about them. We’ll figure this out. We can be each other’s soulmates.

Stuff I Did This Week: I did two interviews about Showbiz Kids! The first one was for Today Australia (I’ll be posting video on my social media), and the other was for Ireland AM, which you can watch here! Morning shows are always so fun, even if doing them for other countries can mean recording in the middle of the night!

Fake BBC Show of the Week: Sex and the City Centre (it was supposed to be “Sex and the Town” but it turns out the kids who studied abroad there lied to me and no one actually calls London “The Town” like they said)