How Does Sex and the City Hold Up 20 Years After Its Debut?
Two-decades after Sex and the City’s June 6, 1998 premiere, the girl-squad show continues to be a heavily quoted fan favourite. The fashion-forward HBO series wasn’t just cosmos and first dates: SATC changed the way that women talk about sex, and it tackled STDs, menopause, abortion and breast cancer in a candid, realistic way that was rarely seen in pop culture at the time.
But, if you’re re-watching the hit HBO series in 2018, there should be a least a few moments that make you cringe. As we strive towards political correctness, we come to realize how truly un-cool Carrie and her crew are; their style stands the test of time, but with word choices like “tranny” and “Gay Town,” their discourse is dated. A lot of what these wealthy, white, cis-gender women say and do would be inexcusable in today’s social climate—at least, it would be for an HBO series, or for any IRL group of left-leaning women living in Manhattan.
Lauren Garroni and Chelsea Fairless get it. The content creating duo runs @everyoutfitonsatc, an Instagram account that’s on a quest to document every outfit from show. With biting, LOL-worthy captions, Garroni and Fairless praise, mock and memorialize the bold fashion choices of Carrie, Miranda, Samantha and Charlotte to over 500,000 followers. Now, their using their platform to call out Sex and the City for it’s problematic past—and they’re using #WokeCharlotte to do so.
#WokeCharlotte is here to check your privilege. Garroni and Fairless’s are turning SATC’s cringiest scenes into re-written modern memes, and with them they’re bring the beloved series into 2018. When debating which character they should recast as a spicy Social Justice Warrior, Garroni and Fairless told The Daily Dot, “it would be so much more impactful if Charlotte was the one calling people out.”
Charlotte York is, of course, known to SATC fans as the blue-blooded, prudish, conservative character of the four. Charlotte is the perfect woke meme, because the real Charlotte really wasn’t that woke. Charlotte was always fighting her friends on their liberal beliefs–telling them women need to be “rescued” by men, that they need to change for their partners “because we are more adaptable,” and that they shouldn’t buy property because, “if you own and he still rents, then the power structure is all off.” Charlotte is always promoting her views, making her the natural SJW recast.
By using a critical lens to look at this outdated piece of pop culture, they’re reclaiming it for today’s audiences. Which means: yes, of course you’re still able to watch Sex and the City. If anything, the #WokeCharlotte meme makes watching Sex and the City even more enjoyable for the single, sexually-liberated women of 2018.
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