we're bingeing sex and the city and it needs some help.

And it's already pretty good. Honestly. Carrie, Miranda, Samantha, and Charlotte, archetypes of their own, have been important contributors to the identity of New Yorker, fact or fictional. They gave for the single life and its whoa’s and woes. They gave for the hopeless romantics. They gave pretty serious looks that definitely put couture in many American households. And they gave, factually, one of the most successful television series centered on the lives of women.

All successes aside, greatness is not exempt from criticism. Certain story lines could have been better fleshed out. Different characters needed to be more present or weren’t present at all. Underneath it all, if any of it was believable - was it at all realistic? Sex and the City could have used an upgrade, one more politically correct and inclusive. Below are some ideas on how that could have been done, in a tasteful fashion of course. 

take the damn subway.

Very crucially, the series needs a more honest representation of life within the Big Apple. Maybe I’m too young, but I recall more filthier streets, more hastiness, and more ethnic people altogether. Some melting pot! To stray even farther from reality, the fab four venture to the borough of Staten Island way before setting any foot in Brooklyn. Wasn’t brunch still a thing back then? 

In all of its 6 seasons, narrator Carrie Bradshaw is only seen taking the subway in the final one. New Yorkers of all strata take the tin tube for different reasons. To critique the self-proclaimed “city girl,” who even is this “real New Yorker” Carrie always croons about?

let’s hear samantha’s side.

As much as we love her, how exhausting was it to hear Carrie never actually speak about sex? A good 95% percent of the innuendo was produced by the real queen of game, Samantha. While a consistent source of comic relief, it would have been an amazing perspective to narrate the show. A point of view that would counter Carrie’s romantic one. Just imagine, just one bar scene told from Samantha’s perspective on how to get a man for just one night. Now that might be a column worth reading! 

just make miranda gay.

Like duh. Sex and the City has lots of LGBT representation, especially as supporting characters, tired gay best friends, and piss target for hate speech. The script doesn’t shy away from the word “lesbian,” and so doesn’t their main cast. The gays (I can say this) know Cynthia Nixon too damn well, and none of us can believe it for that long. The red power-butch pixie cut, the sharp-wit and cynicism— it would’ve costed the show nothing to summon Miranda Hobbes to her true calling as Midtown business-lesbian, and make her very succesful relationship same-sex.

still needs some color.

Would it be any deficit to have an actor of color cast as a regular? Today that answer would be yes. “Inclusivity” has relatively penetrated the industry vocabulary because today the talent is there and is more conspicuous than ever. Back in just the early 2000’s, white-only writers’ rooms and directors let n-word’s fly, hired only the Latin help, and over-mystified anything regarding the East. 

Again, would it be any deficit to have an actor of color cast as regular? Back in that day, the answer would have still been yes -- but the writing potential wasn’t there. That character would have been stereotyped to sympathy.Those white-only writers' rooms simply do not have the breadth to maintain a different race woman’s perspective, intimately and appropriately, throughout six seasons. 

go big, and please go home.

Ever heard of the Bechdel test? Wikipedia says it’s a “measure of representation of women in fiction,” measuring if two or more women are able to talk about anything else other than a man. By this measure Sex and the City very obviously fails, creating a boring binary of female protagonist: Carrie, and male antogonist: John, more commonly known as, Big. 

While this statement warns for upcoming spoilers, this one claims that Big is a tremendous asshole. A too mighty character who “jerks” Carrie around through six seasons and numerous time zones. In the show’s era, his behavior might have been called “romantic” or “grand,” but today he is absolutely an emotional abuser great at giving inconsistent gifts and access. Big is the sole reason for the “Not Today, Satan!” adage.

Manolo Blahniks and Cosmopolitans did not have to be this series’ only legacies. As a writer, when you take on the Empire State as a setting, there is an expectation of diversity beyond just hair color and profession. Today’s prime-time viewer screens more thoroughly for appropriate representations and language. But I couldn’t help but wonder, was the fact that Sex and the City was so unrealistic making it so great?