Everythings Wrong with Carrie Bradshaw

Apparently.

trigger warning: mentions of emotional abuse

Does anybody else get housewives on their For You page on Tiktok? Women who think it’s funny to tell millions of people that their husbands don’t respect them? Sometimes they won’t clean the house for a week to see what happens, sometimes they come back from a vacation to disaster, making jokes about their husband not knowing their child’s blood type or birthday, or the fact that he can’t go grocery shopping without a list with pictures on it, they put full on Crockpots in the fridge because they “don’t know” where the bowls are. 

And when there’s comments like “Girl…” or “Leave him!”, the wives usually make a response video telling us all that we don’t know him, that he’s actually an amazing husband, and so on and so forth. 

That’s when the comments start to turn on her. It goes from “You need to leave him! You deserve better!” to millions of people calling her a dumbass for defending her marriage and not taking the advice of 17 year old girls on a dancing app. 

I always feel bad for those women, they probably don’t know that emotional manipulation is reason enough to leave, or that crying your eyes out because you’re stressed out from doing everything for your family isn’t a rite of passage, that domestic labor is labor, and they didn’t get the luxury of learning about weaponized incompetence in quarantine, while laying in bed and eating cinnamon toast crunch out of the box like I did. 

Lately, I’ve been thinking about the state of our culture, and all the ways that we’ve progressed– and most importantly, all the ways we haven’t. 

We’re regarded by people older than us as the generation that is doing something different from everyone else. The term “We’re not our ancestors” is frequently used (most times in bad taste). We’re the “sensitive” generation. The “body positive” generation. The “sex positive” generation. 

Except when we aren’t. 

Something that I and many people my age have to realize is that the conversations being had on our timelines are carefully curated by an algorithm based on the information we choose to engage with. Your 40 mutuals all having meaningful conversations about misogyny, sex, body image, and mental health doesn’t reflect the rest of the world. 

Our generation can be just as misogynistic and racist and do just as much body and slut shaming and victim blaming as anyone else. And they do, on and off social media. There’s this mythical idea of “cancel culture” where people think we don’t “allow” people to speak their minds because they’ll be canceled, when in reality, it’ll be a conversation on the timeline for three days maximum before everyone forgives and forgets. 

We’ve also gotten to a point where we have desensitized ourselves to real topics in order to … I don’t know, actually. To cope? To be able to stay ignorant and enjoy things? There are hundreds of different reasons that this could be happening. 

One of the most prominent examples is the way that we’ve decided to view relationships. The word “toxic” has suddenly become a blanket statement for all things that can go wrong in relationships and our sudden obsession with individualism and honesty no matter how cruel has ripped us away from the concept of empathy. 

We’ve decided that in order to protect our hearts, we must always expect the worst out of people and not “allow” ourselves to be manipulated. Always be suspicious and look for red flags, and if you miss them it’s your own fault. 

When 21-year-old Billie Eilish and 31-year old Jesse Rutherford publicized their relationship, people all over the internet made Tiktoks, camped out in her comment section, and made hundreds of tweets on the situation. And when she didn’t immediately come out and say “You’re right guys, I am being groomed! Dumping him immediately, BRB!” Everyone turned on her, calling her stupid and “problematic” for not being able to see the truth about the man who knew her since she was 15 and entered a romantic relationship with her anyway. 

I don’t know when everyone went to get the ability to get manipulated surgically removed but I must’ve been sick that day. 

Even though we post our pretty pink and green infographics about manipulation, gaslighting, and the effects emotional abuse can have on a person, victim blaming is still alive and well in everyone’s hearts.  We’ve suddenly forgotten how much power a person can have over you when you love them. Maybe we don’t know what can make someone a victim as much as we think we do. 

The Sex and the City fandom seems to be split into two, the people who hate Carrie Bradshaw and feel like she’s the worst part of the show and the people who don’t feel that way. And then there’s me, who has her on the number one spot in my ranking of the girls. 

(Pictured above: my princess) 

Carrie Bradshaw gets called every name under the sun, she’s the villain, she’s a slut, she’s a bad friend, she’s annoying, she’ll See You Next Tuesday, and the worst of all – deserving of all the emotional manipulation that Mr. Big puts her through. 

Carrie has failed all the hot girls time and time again, for falling in love with someone who “clearly” never wanted her in the first place and then kept  going back to him after he treated her like an option. All of the self-proclaimed Samantha Jones’ have decided to vote Carrie off the island, for being the main character in a show that didn’t have her best interests at heart. 

But somehow, Mr. Big’s crimes have been wiped clean, because he was so “honest” with her about where he stood. He never led her on or made her think their relationship was more than what it was. She was the one who kept trying to change him. She was just stupid. Carrie actually canonically held him at gunpoint and made him be with her, I don’t know if you guys caught that. 

It’s interesting to me because I truly do feel like a lot of the hate that Carrie gets stems from projection, there’s not a person on this earth that hasn’t gotten out of character for a relationship that they really wanted. And that doesn’t mean that you made your partner’s wife chip her tooth on concrete stairs while chasing you out of their shared apartment, but even just accepting less than what you know you deserve is getting out of your character. Staying in a relationship where you’re being treated unfairly or less than is not some new thing that Carrie invented, and when you’re lying in bed alone thinking back on your life, you’re probably cursing yourself out for things that you “allowed”. 

But somehow, when consuming television, we expect for characters to have all the logic in the world, and it upsets us for a character to be too relatable. Every character that a mass amount of people dislike, has relatable attributes that can relate to a majority of people. When you ask someone why they don’t like Jane from Jane the Virgin or Jess from New Girl, it’s because they meddle too much. But you’ll later find that same person, involving themselves in their friend’s relationship. Obviously in the television show it’s being played up for laughs, quirkiness, or dramatic effect but no one likes to be reminded of the not-so-perfect parts of themselves.

When Carrie “allows” for Mr. Big to call her up and exasperatingly tell her he loves her – after not acknowledging that she said it three days ago– people cringe and throw their pillows over their faces, hide behind their blankets, and yell out that she’s dumb.  Because how could she not see that he’s manipulating her? How can she not see the red flags?  She has to be purposefully ignoring them. They’re so obvious. It’s not like manipulation is hard to recognize when you’re the manipulate-ee! 

When a classmate flunks a test, for example, you probably attribute their behavior to a variety of internal characteristics. You might believe that the other student didn’t study hard enough, isn’t smart enough, or is just plain lazy.

If you were to fail a test, however, what would you blame your poor performance on? In many cases, people blame their failings on external sources. You might protest that the room was too hot and you couldn’t concentrate, or that the teacher didn’t grade the test fairly or included too many trick questions. — “Why Do People Blame the Victim?” – Verywell.com 

Big and Carrie’s relationship was no question a tumultuous one, but commonly misinterpreted by the people who watch this show. Carrie was supposed to realize right off of the bat that he didn’t love her, and leave. But the issue is that– he did in fact, love her. The question is… did he do it well? 

Big isn’t a heartless man, it isn’t as if he threw insults at her whenever he saw fit. There was a love present between the two of them, it’s just about how quiet he kept his side. I believe that you can love someone and treat them poorly, you can love someone and completely take their presence for granted, take advantage of them, take up all their space and breathing room, and you can continue doing so until they have to scream for you to look at them.

Sometimes you and I do it too, without meaning to. We do it to our friends, our parents, our siblings and so on.

Big knew that regardless of whom or what, Carrie would be there, so he continued to do what he wanted to do and counted on her being in his bed at the end of the day. He didn’t consider her or respect her, and that’s why mistreating and misusing her never made him flinch. 

He doesn’t care about her inner turmoil, as long as she keeps it to herself. He wants all the perks and all the reward of having her around, and in his bed, so that he can loosely refer to her as his girlfriend (when it benefits him) and have none of the challenges of maintaining their relationship. And she’s so afraid of losing him (which he knows) that she’ll keep it to herself until she physically can’t. That’s why every time she reacts to his behavior, she feels instantaneous regret. She’s always in fear that her feelings, her emotions and her valid concerns are going to ruin everything, when she’s not even in control. He’s carefully puppeteering everything in their relationship, the only thing he doesn’t expect is the times she decides that she won’t take it anymore. 

“He was what he was. One of the things I tell people is that he never tried to pretend he was anything other than what he was. It was (Carrie) who tried to pretend he was something he wasn’t. He was always honest about himself; he never cheated on her. The relationship just didn’t work, and he went on to get married and she went on to… how many boyfriends did she have? [...] There’s a misconception that Carrie was a victim of him, and that’s not the case. She was a strong, smart woman.” —Christopher Noth (Mr. Big from Sex and the City) 

“He was what he was.” Huh? I think everyone, and miraculously even the person who played this character, forgot how Mr. Big chased Carrie around Manhattan whenever she was trying her hardest to be unavailable to him. When she was at a hotel with no intention of cheating on Aidan, and he forced himself on her. The push and pull of their “love story” can’t exist without the pull. Every time Carrie was going to do the things that her friends and us wanted so badly for her to do – leave him– here comes Mr. Big with all the promises and love confessions that he knew she needed in order to stay. The ‘I miss you’s, the ‘let’s see where this goes’, the showing up at her apartment and just shrugging off her concerns while planting kisses on her was the right amount of affection to give her in order to make her forget what she didn’t like about their relationship for that short amount of time. And that short amount of time was all he needed her for. 

Nothing about that is honest or clear cut. If someone doesn’t want you, you would assume that they’d leave you alone, right? If someone didn’t love you, why would they say that they did? Why would they call you their girlfriend, take you on dates, and invite you to their apartment so they can cook you dinner? If someone tells you they want you but they just need to take it slow and do things on their own time, is it wrong to take them at their word? He’s just a commitment-phobe. He’s just emotionally unavailable. I can help him. I can love him enough for the both of us. 

That’s not manipulation? Is that not a level of abusive behavior? 

When I was 16, I was in a relationship that was emotionally abusive and I had been dealing with that relationship until just recently when I made the very hard decision to go no contact.. In the course of the relationship, only one thing happened to me that can count as physical abuse. Other than that, everything that left me paralyzed, panicked and unable to move was as simple as his words. He could say one little thing to me and completely bring down my self confidence and my mood. He could lie to me and manipulate me with all the confidence in the world, and I’d believe it. There’s still some things that I’m just now realizing are lies. After all of the cruel things that he’s done and said to me, I still find myself trusting him. After dealing with this relationship for 5 years, I just found the courage to block him on everything (again) 2 months ago. 

I find myself often wondering, if I played people the things he said to me on a tape recorder, would they feel like those things were malicious? Would they see how evil he was being? The difficult thing about emotional abuse is the calculated and quiet way it takes you down. The way your abuser can make you question yourself is not the way they would do it to someone else. 

Obviously, I’m younger than Carrie was, but manipulation doesn’t have an age limit, it doesn’t disappear if you’re smart, it doesn’t make you a weak person. It’s someone going out of their way to play with your mind and what you think is true to keep you under their thumb. There’s no way to predict it, and when you’re in it, there’s no way to see it for what it is. 

When discussing Carrie, everyone uses disgusting and victim blaming language that they (hopefully) would never use when talking about themselves or the women in their lives.

“She got what she deserved.” “She kept going back for more.” “Why didn’t she leave?”

Or the one that is the most disgusting to me. “Carrie isn’t innocent, she has done x,y, and z so she and Big deserved each other.” 

The Carrie Bradshaw hate train is something that I was never on, I never understood why people carried so much hatred for her– even before I tuned in and the knowledge I had of the show only extended to the occasional “Carrie is the worst!” tik tok on my FYP. When I finally watched, I realized I ended the show and both movies, completely unaffected by the mistakes that she made. 

I don’t think Carrie is a woman without flaws, believe me. But all the different things that people pull out as a “gotcha!” when people express their like or even their pity for her, make me question if you all actually watched the show or have been watching through the lenses of people’s opinions this whole time. 

When Miranda falls and hurts herself, Carrie sends Aidan to help her and embarrasses her. After the fact, she brings bagels and comes over to talk about herself, not even checking on Miranda. Miranda calls her out on it, right then and there. When Charlotte doesn’t offer to help Carrie pay for her apartment, Carrie lashes out on her, Charlotte calls her out on it and Carrie apologizes. Carrie cheats on Aidan, and she loses her relationship for months, and when she tries to get back together with him – Aidan calls her out on it. Are we noticing a pattern? 

When Carrie judges Samantha for blowing the World Wide Express guy, Samantha calls her out on it, and Carrie apologizes. When Carrie bombards Natasha on her lunch break, and gives a completely self centered and half done apology, Natasha calls her out in the most elegant and jaw dropping of reads. 

Carrie has her selfish, inconsiderate, and annoying moments. But we all do. Trust me that I have made mistakes that have made me wonder if the relationship that I was in was my karma. But that’s not fair. Nothing I have ever done in my entire life has required a random man to be my judge, jury and prosecutor. An abuser doesn’t care about you or your past, he’s not punishing you for your sins, he’s just looking for someone to control to make his pathetic life feel like it’s worth something.

I have a lot of issues with the decisions made on the Sex and the City writing, but one thing those writers did was hold Carrie accountable. Out of all the girls, she’s held the most accountable. The thing I love most about her is that she’s so human, she makes a lot of mistakes and bad decisions, and she hardly ever thinks things through (no matter how much she can’t help but wonder). And even with her bad decisions, nothing she did was deserving of the abominable treatment that she got at the hands of Mr. Big. 

The Mr. Big who in Sex and the City 2 (that I unfortunately have to acknowledge as canon as much as I don’t want to) asked Carrie to live in a separate apartment just so he wouldn’t have to share her interests or spend time with her doing things that she liked to do. The Mr. Big who heard her saying no, and protested for him to leave her alone over and over again, and forced himself on her anyway. The Mr. Big who didn’t tell her he was moving to Paris, even though they had spent two years together, because he didn’t even consider her opinion or feelings. No one deserves to be disregarded and disposed of in a relationship like that.

Wait, what’d you say? You want to know what problems I have with the Sex and the City writing? I’m so glad you asked! 

Even though I’ll defend Carrie to the end, I have to acknowledge the lack of growth on her part by the end of the series. If you don’t know, I’m so sorry to have to break the news to you, but Carrie does end up with Mr. Big. I know, it’s devastating for me too. 

After spending years without him (romantically) and then at some point even platonically, he shows up at her apartment when she’s about to move to Paris with her new boyfriend. He’s ironically on the other side of the “why didn’t you tell me you’re leaving?” argument, a position he’s had her in twice before, and Carrie finally snaps. 

“You do this every time. Every time! What do you have some kind of radar? ‘Carrie might be happy, it’s time to sweep in and shit all over it? [...] You and I– NOTHING! You cannot do this to me again, you cannot jerk me around! [...] Oh it’s never different, it’s SIX YEARS of never being different! But this is it, I am done. Don’t call me ever again, forget you know my number in fact– forget you know my name.”  – Carrie Bradshaw (Sex and the City, Season 6) 

After this you think, “Wow, Carrie’s finally learned her lesson!” She’s finally done with him, thank GOD! But that’s not true. Carrie’s unhappy in Paris, her boyfriend Aleksandr hits her (which I can’t help but speculate is an attempt to make Big look like the lesser of two evils) and the girls who have hated him for six years, beg Big to go win her back. 

In Harper’s Bazaar, Darren Star– the Sex and the City creator, reveals that he didn’t like the way things turned out for Carrie and Big either. 

“But I think the show ultimately betrayed what it was about, which was that women don’t ultimately find happiness from marriage. Not that they can’t. But the show initially going off script from the romantic comedies that had come before it. That’s what made women so attached.” — Darren Star (“Why Carrie and Mr. Big Were Never Supposed to End Up Together”) 

I agree with this, I also believe that the reason that so many people love the show is because of the friendship between the four women. The scene where Carrie cries about not having a soulmate, and Charlotte suggests that they could be each other’s soulmates makes me cry every time. And even though all the other women end up with men and families at the end as well, they also go through personal growth that I think is what I care about the most. Miranda learns vulnerability, Samantha learns to allow herself to be loved, Charlotte learns to subvert her high expectations and accept love as it comes. What does Carrie learn? 6 years of emotional abuse and abandonment and maybe he’ll come around? That sucks! 

If Carrie was unhappy in Paris and lonely and she wanted to come home and the girls came to rescue her, I’d even take that over what happened instead. 

We watched this woman sabotage her relationships and become extremely emotionally unavailable because of this relationship, we watched her gain anxieties and trust issues because of this relationship, we watched her question herself and her confidence because of this relationship. In what world would it be gratifying for us to watch him have to be forced to finally tell her she’s the one after she’s unavailable to him for (supposedly) the very last time? 

Carrie is widely hated by a lot of people but nobody hates her more than the writers. 

Sex and the City is one of my favorite shows, despite it’s moments. You just can’t find a charming and funny show like it anywhere. It shows such a beautiful side to female friendships that's often not explored, even though they rarely (if ever) pass the Bechdel test, it’s not about the men for a lot of the viewers. 

But the question remains, after watching a relationship that tears down the main character time and time again,  never holding the man in that relationship accountable for his deplorable behavior but always holding the woman accountable for being “stupid” enough to be with him... Was it about the men for you? 

“Women, they have minds, and they have souls, as well as just hearts. And they've got ambition, and they've got talent, as well as just beauty. I'm so sick of people saying that love is just all a woman is fit for.” — Jo March (Little Women 2019) 

Anyway, that’s why his bitch ass is dead!