ALMOST CARRIE ~ Rant

Apparently there are other Almost Carries out there, and they are idiots.

This past week the New York Post featured an article co-written by two women named Julia. I feel that I must paste it here in its entirety for you to really get the full gist:

Julia Allison

Martinis. Manolo Blahniks. Fabulous Park Avenue apartments and, of course, the word “fabulous” itself. HBO’s six-season run of “Sex and the City” had women moving to Manhattan with visions of finding their own Mr. Big, a brunch-happy power foursome of girlfriends, a career that lands them on the VIP list of every hot event and, of course, a closet full of designer accessories.

Now a new generation is ready for brainwashing, as the CW Network is filming a prequel called “The Carrie Diaries,” starring 18-year-old AnnaSophia Robb as female fantasy action hero Carrie Bradshaw.

But I wonder if fans know that rent-controlled apartments like Carrie’s are as hard to come by as a good-looking, well-adjusted single guy over the age of 35. That “Sex” can be read as much a tragedy as a comedy? Will they be OK using their Prada stilettos to kill the cockroaches that might scuttle across the kitchen in their fourth-floor walkup?

They might be . . . at first. Both of us moved to New York City at age 22 and trust me, we were “sooooo Carrie Bradshaw!” We had all the energy in the world to network, hustle, apartment search on Craigslist again and again and again, and of course there’s dating; the patience to go out with guys who brag about getting a table next to John Mayer at Pink Elephant and expensing their thousand-dollar liquor tab on their JP Morgan accounts (hey, it was 2006).

We would tolerate these guys because of the free group-dinner invites where we shared a meal with young wannabee Tory Burches, Noah Tepperburgs and, of course, five Ford models. Why? We were so eager to learn this world; anxious to suck it all in. It was NEW York and OMG we were like totally “Sex and the City”!

The parties were fabulous and walking up to [sic] entrance of the hottest club to find the velvet rope pulled back as soon as the bouncer’s facial recognition associated you as an important person, well, that was power! And feeling special in a city of 8 million people is pretty badass.

But this power high becomes like a drug. If you want to be in the scene, you’ve got to stay in the scene. We had to go out nearly every night just to maintain being considered for these invites. The drinks, the cabs, the clothes — pretty soon you’ve maxed out your credit cards.

Want four friends that get together every week for brunch? Dream on. Every woman comes to New York to be Carrie. No one wants to be Charlotte, Miranda or Samantha. You do the math: Clubs full of Carries, all hanging out with each other, all holding forth, no one really listening. Often the biggest fantasy of “Sex and the City” wasn’t the apartments or the lovers — it was the friendships.

Once the initial excitement of living in the Big Apple dies down, it suddenly becomes clear how hard it is to purely exist, let alone thrive.

There are the tangibles that are fairly obvious. Carrying groceries up four flights of stairs, dealing with hellish landlords, watching a neighbor throw a mousetrap (dead mouse included) right out the window.

Julia Price

Less talked about is the way the city eats at your soul. At 22, the world is your oyster. At 25, the 40-year-old investment banker is looking over your shoulder at the next 22-year-old. If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere, but how many really do? And even if you’ve “made it,” you’re met not with accolades but glares. A city with “new” thrives on impatience and jealousy; sometimes you feel like everyone’s an intern or a has-been.

And guess what — Mr. Big doesn’t leave his wife.

“Sex and the City” may have been responsible for our move to NYC at 22, but long before we hit 30, we were ready to get out. We made the move to Los Angeles this past October, and it’s been positive in every way.

So a warning to the next generation of Carrie acolytes. Treat “Sex and the City” like “Star Trek.” A strange new world you will never visit except on TV.

It’s safe to say that we’re settled comfortably in the less-fabulous city of Los Angeles. Well, for now anyway. If you know of any apartments . . .

There are so many things wrong with this article, I hardly know where to start. First of all, you cannot move to New York at 22 and be “like totally Sex and the City.” The whole point of the show was that these were women in their 30s, not girls right out of college. They had already lived through ten years of single life—that is the jumping off point for their urgency and desperation, and it’s those qualities that generate the humor and pathos that made the show work. The careful and deliberate notes of bitterness brought a complexity to the show that apparently Julia and Julia were too silly to recognize. And there were at least five different episodes devoted to the ladies’ feelings about their obnoxious 20-something counterparts.

And Julia and Julia, of course rent-controlled apartments are hard to come by, the show makes that abundantly clear. That’s why Carrie had been living in the same apartment for so many years and why she was always talking about how lucky she was to have it. When Carrie’s building went co-op, she got a glimpse of what else was out there—crappy places way out of her price range. Carrie moved to New York in the ’80s and back then, though it was still rare, you could find a rent-controlled apartment on the Upper East Side for a song (my brother-in-law has one). Did Julia and Julia expect it to be exactly the same twenty years later? Did they also think there’d be prostitutes lounging against phone booths in Times Square?

And what about that little quip regarding good-looking, well-adjusted single guys over the age of 35 being difficult to find?  When I got to that part of the article, I began to doubt if Julia 1 & 2 were even talking about the right show. Was Sex and the City not a six year-parade of problematic men? Men that were too young, too old, too large, too small, too needy, men that were taken, men that wanted to pee on you, men that had to shower immediately after sex because they were raised by nuns—I mean even the most feeble viewer should be able to figure out that the show revolves around the concept that decent men are hard to find. Julias, did you really think that at 22 you would come to New York and find your perfect mates when Carrie had already been at it for 15 years?

And as for the little hassles of daily life in New York, they are ubiquitous in the series—bug problems (just as Carrie’s trying to win Aiden back), broken toilets (just as Carrie and Aiden are saying goodbye), rodent infestations (dealt with by the Russian), and—oh!—how about getting splashed with muddy water as the MTA bus barrels down Fifth Avenue? It’s right there in the credits, Julias. New York is far from perfect, Carrie is far from perfect, and the flaws are what make it an intelligent, lasting show.

So Julias, I say good riddance. If you want everything to fall in your lap with sunshine and a smile, if you want to skim the surface of life and ignore all its subtext and depth, then I think you’ll be very happy in LA.

Oh and PS, I forgot to mention one other thing, Julias—Sex and the City is a fucking TV show.

Emily Sproch is a writer and a Sex and the City tour guide. Each Friday, she chronicles the fine line between reality and fiction in her column “Almost Carrie.”