Aside from the fashion and the allure of New York City, the true unsung hero of Sex and the City was (and always will be) Ms Samantha Jones.
As a SATC fan myself, I have a few mixed feelings about the news of a reboot. While I’d like to celebrating it’s Revisiting the show in 2021 is sure to feel starkly different to the iconic 90s-early 00’s era that it was originally born in.
The show itself made waves during it’s time, many controversial and others that seem miniscule in our current societal era. SATC was made popular for its fashion, raunchy content (raunchy for the 90s, that is), romance, love-affair with NYC, and the friendship between the four protagonists of the show.
We followed the lives of Carrie, Charlotte, Miranda and Samantha like they were our own best friends. So when Sarah Jessica Parker, who played Carrie, confirmed the long-rumoured news of the SATC reboot set to be released 17 years after the show first aired; it felt like meeting with an old friend.
HBO Max also confirmed 10 episodes, each 30 minutes long, have been ordered by the network. Yet, it doesn’t come as a shock that many film and TV show reboots typically tank despite their initial success. The key reason for this is simple: nostalgia.
Whether you try to duplicate the characteristics that enabled the universal love for the show, or you simply try to revisit it with a ‘fresh take’ or ‘fresh eyes’; chances are it’s not going to be met with the same adoration as the original content was.
And for the SATC reboot, they’ve got one major thing working against them. They don’t have Samantha Jones.
Is it really SATC Without Samantha Jones?
Kim Cattrall’s Samantha Jones was undoubtedly the unsung hero of the show. She embodied everything SATC was trying to advertise about the ‘modern woman’, something the shows central heroine Carrie, never could.
Jones was a self-made woman with a successful career, a banging wardrobe full of ensembles I still dream about, and a holistic acceptance of sex and sexuality that was free from fear of societal expectations.
Considering the show is called Sex and the City and its main character and narrator, Carrie, is a sex columnist, I find it absurd that Carrie, Charlotte and Miranda seemed to have a cookie-cutter, vanilla view on sex, queerness, sexuality and femininity.
The show aimed to do something revolutionary: show people that women can have sex ‘like men can’. It attempted to show that sex without commitment or expectations was not something to shy away from, nor was the desire to satisfy your needs and pleasure above all else.
Samantha was the only member of the famous foursome-brunch-crew that showcased this attitude and she deserves justice, dammit.
However, SATC does not intend to include Samantha’s character in the reboot, nor does Kim Cattrall ever intend to revive her.
The Feud To Spill Your Cosmo Over
The bad blood shared between the cast mates, particularly between Parker and Cattrall, is not unbeknown to the public. There’s been a few public disputes between the two over the years that typically had Parker claiming to be entirely innocent and open to friendship with Cattrall, and Cattrall sharing stories of distance and mistreatment from her cast mates.
A few years ago, Cattrall famously announced that she had no intention of ever joining the SATC cast in any capacity (reboot and reunion alike) following her and Parker’s most recent Instagram feud.
When asked by a fan on Instagram if the reason why Cattrall wasn’t being included in the revivial was due to their ‘dislike of eachother’, Parker responded: “No. I don’t dislike her. I’ve never said that. Never would. Samantha isn’t part of this story. But she will always be a part of us. No matter where we are or what we do.”
Later, writer Taffy Brodesser-Akner asked her Twitter followers to respond with their suggested plotline for SATC that explained Samantha’s absence. Parker responded simply with “Pen and paper at ready. X”
Although Cattrall hasn’t officially made a statement following the announcement of the reboot, she did like a tweet made by a fan on Twitter. See below:
It seems incomprehensible to imagine the TV classic without the witty, blunt, and judgement free energy of Samantha. With famous lines like:
“I will not be judged by you or society. I will wear whatever I want and blow whomever I want as long as I can breathe and kneel.”
It can also be argued that Samantha’s character was the only one that would’ve been most relevant to today’s society, considering she was the most tech/app-savvy, gender-fluid, and kink-adventurous of the whole cast.
Does The Reboot Have A Place In Today’s World?
However, the show also told the story of four white upper-middle-class women in a city that, given the economic climate of the time, they really couldn’t have been able to afford (particularly given their shopping addictions).
The producers of the show attempted to remedy this by announcing that in lieu of Samantha Jones’ character, they would be including two new women of colour. A “strong, powerful African-American woman, and another from an Asian background” are set to be included.
The two new characters are supposed to reflect society as we know it today and to appeal to a brand new generation of viewers.
While I applaud the producers for making an effort to be more inclusive this time around, I’m desperately hoping it’s done with class rather than a performative attempt at appearing ‘woke’.
Then there’s the question of relevancy in this current political, social and economic climate. The reason the show was so successful in its time was due to its blatant and (arguably) revolutionary depiction of women. While this did encourage a shift in our perceptions of women, sex and even fashion, I wonder what more the show could add to the conversation for women.
In a similar sense, if SATC was introduced today, the materialist and maximalist attitudes of the characters would undoubtedly be considered tone deaf.
Perusing through Instagram and TikTok for just a few minutes will tell you there are two significant attitudes on either end of the style spectrum: those who are obsessed with popular luxury brands, royalcore-aesthetics and opulence, and those who prefer minimalist, eco-friendly, sustainable lifestyles.
Meaning that the series reboot could either be welcomed as a luxurious distraction from current events, or resented for its celebration of Marie Antoinette-esque maximilism.
For example, Carrie’s inability to put a deposit down on her apartment in order to save herself from homelessness due to her obsessed with two-thousand dollar Manolo Blahnik shoes (and then her refusal to sell them) is both horrifying and relatable- yet only to some viewers. What is a little less relatable, is unemployed millionaire (by marriage) Charlotte’s ability to loan Carrie 20 thousand-dollars like it was as effortless as buying a Frozen-coke for a dollar at your local Maccas after payday.
While I certainly lusted over the luxurious lifestyle the girls lived one-too-many times, I definitely understand the desire to keep the show as it is: in the blissful bubble of nostalgia in our past.
Considering we don’t know much about the reboot, it may well be a piece of light-hearted TV, or perhaps more. But I suppose we’ll have to dust off our Cosmo-making skills while wait to find out.
For now, enjoy a gallery of Samantha Jones’ best looks in SATC as further proof of her greatness.
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