I Couldn't Help But Wonder
What Carrie Bradshaw taught me about community...
I can still remember the first time I watched Sex and the City.
It was an episode from season six and involved Sarah Jessica Parker’s character trying to overcome her fear of the trapeze. In quintessential Bradshaw fashion, the trapeze was used a metaphor throughout the episode as a stand-in for friendships and romantic love.
I don’t think she ever did overcome her fear of the trapeze, but I guess that was the whole point. At the end when she fell into the safety net, Miranda, Charlotte, and Samantha were all there waiting. She had a community ready to support her.
As a closeted kid in the Church, there wasn’t a net in real life, so I had to go in search of one someplace else. I found mine in sanitized reruns of Sex and the City on TBS.
Watching it on my parents’ 13” TV (with a built-in VCR!) was a sort of cultural lighthouse. I didn’t know if I’d ever live in New York, but at least I knew there was this fabulous place on the other side of the country where women wore something called “Manolo Blahniks” and gay men could dance in a club without their shirts on.
It was aspirational, but it was also a comfort.
One thing the Church doesn’t tell you is that most of the art it labels as “immoral” is actually very, very well written! SATC (the original, not that horrific reboot without Samantha) is one such example.
The first few seasons are uneven and lack the timelessness of later seasons, but by season three the show has found its niche - I chalk this up to Darren Star releasing the creative reins to Michael Patrick King. I highly suggest listening to this season of the Origins podcast if you want to learn all about the show’s history.
I mean, who could ever say no to an interview with SJP? She’s so succinct! She’s so polite! She possesses the most wonderful cadence! Go listen and finish this essay later!
After season three, the show’s just flat-out phenomenal. You really believe these four women are friends, you really believe they’re grabbing lunch weekly at a bright-lit cafe, and you really believe that the world they inhabit exists. Yes, it’s often an aspirational one, but many facades of it are attainable.
We can’t all own red-bottom sandals, but we can all find friends.
Watching the show at nineteen, I longed for my own group of girls. I suppose they were symbolic, though, and what I really longed for was a community of my own. I wanted to feel like I belonged somewhere and since I didn’t feel like I belonged in my world, I had to find someplace I belonged in theirs.
I don’t think the show gets enough credit for it's writing, which is why audiences return to it again and again! It’s why it’s such a comfort.
None of us will forget that scene were Carrie jumps up to physically fortify Miranda as she walks up her mother’s funeral procession line. That’s a well-written scene….and that’s the sort of friendship we all hope for in this life!
I have yet to find my own Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte, or Samantha.
There isn’t a fabulous community of gay men surrounding me who enjoy discussing the latest offerings from the Row or whether or not Fire Island is overrated.
Sometimes I think I’m too far behind and that there’s no use even trying. I worry other gay men will look down on me for being closeted at thirty-three. Honestly, I think even Charlotte - the most empathetic of the four - would be sort of disgusted by it.
Then I turn on that episode about Carrie trying to leap from the trapeze and I think there must be others out there who understand my fear of flying. They have to know that I want to let go and leap, but I’m just not sure if there’s anyone there to catch me.
I couldn’t help but wonder: will I ever make that leap?