Post-Sex and the City: why and how do every hype trend turns to cringe?
Also, saying "cringe" is apparetlly also cringe now.
Abu-dhabi-doo, everyone!
We all passionately cringed so severely at the Abu Dhabi débacle, but wasn’t a perfect end to the story of these - now grandmothers? A generation of people so much westernized, for whom the world's epicentre - even the culinary one - was New York City. I mean, even (the) Anna Delvey (née Sorokin) decided to make NYC her home because —-if you make it here, you will make it anywhere?
So, so last century!
The City will forever be anointed as the set for Sex and The City, a cringeworthy series that explored feminine sexuality and friendship and that, many years later, had just one positive and modern character (Samantha).
When Stef Ferrari writes about the show that “food was a connector and meals a device, and cocktails weren’t so much social lubricant as they were emotional adhesive”, we now see the impact of the gastronomic choices of this show, with its idolization of the concept of brunch, and plain “white-north-american people” food.
It is so ancient to think of raw food in a restaurant as not only a trendy place to go but also a place one wants to go. Not even for the waiter-turned-boyfriend of one of them.
And what about the Cosmopolitan, the pink drink served in a large Martini glass?
Iconography matters: while the manly man, the most masculine of them all, James Bond sips on ice-cold Martinis (sometimes shaken, sometimes stirred, with the occasional Vesper), the iconography that shapes the “new woman” in Sex and the City, with its four variations, inevitably sips on a pink drink, slightly sweet and sour, but acceptable and reasonable.
Because it’s pinkish.
Cupcakes, of course.
Before the glamourization of French macarons, these indigestible pieces of sugar and frosting were all the rage. It is equally pervasive and thus annoying and equally non-food to me.
Like macarons, they might have lived a life past in a gastronomy that made sense to them. But with the foodification of tastes and their presence everywhere, they are airport food: the same food everywhere “capitalistic civilization” arrives.
All the same, and all the same irrelevant.
Sushi, of course.
But in particular, sushi rolls. They are such playful and easy items to comprehend, consume, and, in some measure, make (one of them covered herself in sushi rolls for the partner, a shallow moment for cinematography and feminism simultaneously).
Do you have some other trope in mind? Leave a comment, I am listening!
Further Reading
We all agree that Carrie Bradshaw is the worst, and now we can read through Reeva Lucia’s hilarious, pungent and amusing words on the Carrie Bradshaw Is The Worst blog—every season of SATC and the new release, plus movies.
Every Outfit On SATC is exactly like this—a collection of every outfit, but also a lot of reflections.
“Her most significant relationships in Season 6 are with Big and the Russian, who are canonically much older than her. In the later seasons, Carrie's relationship with Big was increasingly uncomfortable to watch. The pet name he uses for her throughout the show is 'kid' or 'kiddo'; this is particularly evident in the final season. She also plays into her 'kiddo' nickname, often infantilizing herself through her physicality in his presence.”
Nina also beautifully puts into words what I have always thought of Samantha - that is the character my friends have always, jokingly, attached to me:
“Samantha was a groundbreaking character—one of the first women on TV allowed to truly enjoy sex (without also being evil). However, the show never depicts Samantha's lifestyle and character as desirable or aspirational. A contemporary viewer may find it so, but that was not the show's intention. The other characters frequently ridicule her, and most of her plot lines are played for laughs—the joke being that an ‘older’ woman is pursuing sex successfully. Hilarious. Presenting sexually liberated older women as the butt of the joke is not a good representation.”
Another perfect account tickles the Miranda in every one of us, especially on Mondays. Miranda Mondays is a hilarious and political collection worth following. There are no reels, which is a plus.
Also, about Miranda,
beautifully highlights how Nixon taking a selfie is, in the US, something much worse than actually being Epstein—and that’s all you need to read to understand the US and their showbiz, I am afraid.
Dan Clay of Carrie Dragshaw reinterprets all of Carrie's outfits but makes them from scratch with everyday supplies—a real gem.
Ohh that Carrie article is good! Thanks for sharing. Miranda rules. Always.