Whenever I go back and watch some of the original episodes from Sex and the City’s HBO run, I’m just struck by how superficial and selfish Carrie Bradshaw is. The more I read Candace Bushnell’s work and interviews, I’m struck by how much depth she has. It must be somewhat painful for Candace when people expect her to be like Carrie, because she’s really not. Candace has sh-t to say about aging and ageism, erasure, being a childfree woman, feminism and a lot more. Candace gave an interview to the NY Post to promote her one-woman show (based on her book) Is There Still Sex in the City? She chatted about feminism, money, sexual harassment and a lot more. Some highlights:
How she views the SATC series now: After years ago insisting she wasn’t going to answer any more questions about “the nonexistent-in-reality Carrie Bradshaw,” Bushnell has made peace with her legacy. “I don’t look at the TV show the way other people look at it. I don’t parse every little bit. It’s a great show, it’s really funny. But there are fans who . . . it’s like, that show really guides them.”
Don’t base your dream on landing Mr. Big: “The reality is, finding a guy is maybe not your best economic choice in the long term. Men can be very dangerous to women in a lot of different ways. We never talk about this, but that’s something that women need to think about: You can do a lot less . . . when you have to rely on a man. The TV show and the message were not very feminist at the end. But that’s TV. That’s entertainment. That’s why people should not base their lives on a TV show.”
She’s not surprised that HBO is bringing the series back: “HBO’s going to make money on it. They’re going to exploit it as much as they can. They rebooted ‘Gossip Girl.’ If they didn’t reboot ‘Sex in the City,’ it would be really strange.”
On ‘And Just Like That’: “I don’t know anything about what the new show’s going to be about. Of course I’m going to watch it . . . I hope it runs for six seasons. I get paid a little bit of money.”
Bushnell respects Kim Cattrall: “I absolutely love Kim. But it seems she wants to do other things, and she doesn’t feel like doing the show. Maybe she doesn’t want to be that character anymore. Maybe she doesn’t want to put the Spanx on! In real life, those women are not those characters — they are the opposite. Sarah Jessica Parker, she’s been married forever to the same guy. She’s got kids. I don’t know her very well, but she seems to be very family-oriented [in a way Carrie is not]. [Parker] is rich. She is not keeping her sweater in an oven [instead of a closet, like Carrie once did], OK? When she was in her 20s, she was very successful. I wasn’t, and I was scared.”
Moving to NYC as a teenager: She moved to NYC at 19 with just $20 in her pocket and felt fear on the streets “every minute . . . You couldn’t walk half a block without being harassed. I mean, really harassed. Harassed in a way that you just — you’d feel yourself shrinking down to nothing and just feeling so ashamed. You have to figure out, ‘How can I handle this?’ ” Bushnell recalled. Her tactic was to tell off her harassers: “F–k you, f–kers!’ Because you can’t make it go away.”
SATC was about more than sex: “It was the larger idea of what’s sexy: Doing business is sexy, being ambitious is sexy, staying up until 4 in the morning and partying is sexy. Power conversation is sexy. Getting to the number-one table in the restaurant — that’s sexy. New York was sexy. It was exciting, but at the same time, it was filled with landmines like Harvey Weinstein. These men are freaking scary. I would actually look at these guys and I would think, ‘How could the women even be around them?’ ”
[From The NY Post]
I like what she says about how women shouldn’t pin all their hopes and dreams to landing Mr. Big, that women need to take care of themselves and their finances. In that aspect, SATC was a throwback, because by focusing so much on their love lives, it made it seem like they were just waiting for a man to change their lives (I mean, except Sam). Also this: “Men can be very dangerous to women in a lot of different ways.” Yep.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
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