Sex and the City and Us, page 20
The tabloids, and even the mainstream press, could not resist this story: A star from TV’s most-discussed show, which was somehow simultaneously the straightest and gayest show in history, had an offscreen subplot worthy of the series itself.
• • •
The writers took the show’s impending conclusion as an invitation to stage an all-out assault on the heroines’ lives and relationships. Samantha dealt with her breast cancer and the terror of falling into a trusting, supportive, monogamous relationship with a hunky actor/waiter named Smith Jerrod; Charlotte faced infertility during the most unexpectedly satisfying relationship of her life; Miranda struggled with single motherhood; Carrie fell into a no-win relationship with novelist Jack Berger, and then into an authoritarian relationship with an older artist played by Mikhail Baryshnikov. The stakes had never been higher for Sex and the City’s heroines. The writers, too, faced their riskiest maneuver yet. They had to stick the landing.
As the series wound down, Carrie faced a problem that resonated heavily with the show’s theme of how women’s professional ambition affects their romantic lives: Berger, the fellow author for whom she’d fallen, couldn’t handle her success, which outpaced his. This gave him a vulnerability, a multidimensionality, that her other great loves never quite had. King calls Berger “the most thoroughly written man that we’ve ever created.”
Alas, he was not long for this world. As King likes to say, “We brought in Berger to kill him. He was a marked man.” While they didn’t literally kill the character, they did kill the romance. It was the Sex and the City equivalent of a Sopranos hit job.
Berger had another purpose, too, though no one had realized the magnitude of it at the beginning.
This destiny was discovered over a lunch break during the Sex and the City writers’ seasonal brainstorm in Los Angeles. As straight male script consultant Greg Behrendt remembers it, he was snacking on a cookie in the hallway when writer Jenny Bicks asked him to come to her office to talk over a dating problem. She’d asked a guy she was seeing to come upstairs to her place after a date. He’d declined. “Do you think that’s bad?” she asked.
Behrendt wanted to simply stare at her, mouth agape. What do you say to that? Do you say, “Oh, he probably had a lot on his mind”? Instead, he stated what he saw as the obvious truth: “He just doesn’t like you. Sexual attraction is a big part of the deal. I don’t care if you have to fly the fucking space shuttle the next day, you come up if you’re into it.”
He’d learned this himself while courting the woman he would marry. He understood what he’d do to win a woman he loved. A man makes the extra effort if he’s falling for someone.
Fellow writer Liz Tuccillo joined the conversation and was thrown by Behrendt’s brutal honesty when he reiterated: “He’s just not that into you.”
When they returned to the writers’ room after lunch, Tuccillo brought the conversation up to the group. She couldn’t get over those words: “He’s just not that into you.” For the rest of the day, even if they had managed to move on to another topic, the questions would come back to variations on “he’s just not that into you” from the writers’ dating lives: “So if he says he doesn’t like me, then he doesn’t like me?” “If he doesn’t call, then he doesn’t like me?” Behrendt saw in this discussion a larger truth about the ways men and women had been taught to view their romantic relationships. The women who didn’t see this—who didn’t see that he just wasn’t that into them—wanted hope more than they wanted truth.
Julie Rottenberg and Elisa Zuritsky wrote the episode in which this discussion appeared, called “Pick-a-Little, Talk-a-Little.” Berger gives Behrendt’s advice to Miranda when she wonders what to do about an ambivalent guy: “He’s just not that into you,” he offers.
Miranda feels liberated. Why not just move on from someone who isn’t trying?
As the script progressed, Tuccillo visited Rottenberg and Zuritsky in what they called their “dentist’s office” at Silvercup Studios. She said, “Guys, I think this ‘He’s just not that into you’ thing could be a book. This is huge. This is Oprah. This is the Today show. Would you like to write it with me?”
Rottenberg’s reaction was something like, “Mmmph.” Zuritsky offered a dismissive “Good luck!”
They looked at each other quizzically after Tuccillo left. How on earth could that be an entire book? A Sex and the City episode, sure. An episode they hadn’t even named “He’s Just Not That into You.”
Public reaction to the episode, however, indicated that Tuccillo was onto something. The day after it aired, “He’s just not that into you” became an instant catchphrase. Berger had made his mark.
But soon afterward, his number was up as a marked man. He was transformed from Miranda’s savior to a national enemy with one cowardly gesture when he broke up with Carrie via a Post-it note: “I’m sorry. I can’t. Don’t hate me.” (Samantha comments, “The motherfucker’s concise.”)
Tuccillo later explained that, with this infamous breakup, Berger was the perfect embodiment of the typical man who thinks he’s being the good guy and ends up much worse for it: “By trying so hard not to be the bad guy, by not breaking up when they should, by not being brave, they end up being like the worst guy in the world. I think the ‘Don’t hate me’ is a very common thing with men—never wanting to seem like the bad guy.”
The incident causes a crisis of faith unlike anything Carrie has experienced, even with Big. While the writers had brought Berger in to take him out, he also came with an important purpose: to give Carrie what appeared to be a real shot at a relationship. She had bounced between two classically masculine extremes: businessman Mr. Big and earthy furniture-maker Aidan Shaw, both of whom towered over her physically and emotionally. In Berger, Carrie seems to have found her equal. They both write for a living. They banter like a couple straight out of a Howard Hawks film. This makes his kiss-off all the more powerful.
The writers wanted Berger to leave Carrie in the most craven way possible, to contrast with how much work she’d done to keep the relationship going. The Post-it idea had presented itself from the beginning, though the writers hadn’t realized it at the time. During Carrie and Berger’s first phone call, he lies in bed and fidgets with a pad of Post-its. As King watched it back for break-up ideas, he thought, That’s the gun. He’s going to shoot her in seven episodes. Chekhov’s doctrine delivers again.
• • •
With Berger out of the picture, Carrie’s final Sex and the City suitor would be a great artist so far along in his career that she could never eclipse him: Aleksandr Petrovsky, played by Russian ballet legend Mikhail Baryshnikov.
Baryshnikov came with a reputation and presence beyond anything Sex and the City had experienced. Sure, Candice Bergen and Valerie Harper, among other American TV greats, had guest-starred. But Baryshnikov, like Petrovsky, brought the weight of the rest of the world with him. Known as one of the greatest dancers in ballet history, he was born in what is now Latvia, then in the Soviet Union. He defected in 1974 while on tour in Canada, seeking asylum in Toronto. Soon afterward, he became a principal dancer with the American Ballet Theatre and the New York City Ballet.
Americans first got to know him as the lead in a televised version of American Ballet Theatre’s production of Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker, shown on PBS. He performed in two TV specials, dancing to Broadway music in one and Hollywood movie music in another. He was nominated for an Oscar for his first film role, one written for him—that of a womanizing ballet dancer in 1977’s The Turning Point. He reached ubiquitous fame when he costarred with tap dancer Gregory Hines in 1985’s White Nights. He’d also appeared onstage in avant-garde productions, including works by Beckett and Chekhov.
It made sense that some of the Sex and the City actors were intimidated when he strode into that converted bread factory, Silvercup Studios, to woo Carrie Bradshaw. David Eigenberg, for one, couldn’t stop calling him “Mr. Baryshnikov,” a level of deference he had not felt moved to offer another fellow actor. Though barely five foot eight, Eigenberg had about an inch on Baryshnikov, and yet he cowered before the Russian.
“David, please call me Misha,” Baryshnikov said. Eigenberg was in awe.
Parker effortlessly called him Misha, but she was surprised by the outpouring of strong feeling he evoked in people: “The diversity of people who respond positively to Baryshnikov—from a camera operator to a grip, from a housewife to a journalist, from a plumber to a wardrobe person—is astounding,” she says.
The casting came as a surprise to critics. “When exec producer Michael Patrick King told TV Guide Online he snagged a ‘big name’ for the plum part, we were thinking Tom Cruise, George Clooney, Sean Penn . . . you know, movie stars,” wrote columnist Michael Ausiello. In his interview with Parker about the casting, she explained it this way: “When I understood the general description of the part, it was very hard to find anybody that could bring that sort of myth and legend. And while there are enormous movie stars who are extraordinary and obviously thrilling to watch on screen, people don’t necessarily just fit the bill because of their name recognition. He is extraordinary, and this character is not like anyone we’ve ever had on the show before. And this person has to bring with him culture and style and complication and depth and a brand-new point of view about the city. And it is thrilling to think that there is this whole other city that Carrie doesn’t know.”
Carrie meets Petrovsky at a gallery in New York, and suddenly she’s in a relationship we never imagined for her. Petrovsky comes off as bigger than Big and the absolute opposite of Aidan and Berger—commanding, worldly, confident, and terrifying in his hugeness.
SINGLE IN THE CITY
In between Berger and Petrovsky, Carrie still had some time left to make a few more major statements about single womanhood of a certain age. The memorable episode “A Woman’s Right to Shoes” features Carrie attending a baby shower where the hostess, Kyra, makes everyone remove his or her shoes at the door. Carrie reluctantly parts with her Manolos, only to find they’ve disappeared by the time she’s ready to leave.
When Carrie requests reimbursement for her lost footwear, Kyra can’t believe the price: $485. Looking down from the moral height of motherhood, she lectures Carrie about self-indulgence and frivolity. Carrie grows even angrier as she remembers all the wedding and baby gifts she’s given friends over the years, getting nothing in return because she hasn’t chosen to marry or mother. She registers at Manolo Blahnik for just one item—the $485 shoes—and informs Kyra that this would make the perfect gift for her wedding to herself.
The symbolism is so heavy it can’t even be called symbolism. And women loved it. Like so many Sex and the City accoutrements before, women rushed out to get this one: But this time, they didn’t clamor for the shoes. They registered for whatever they wanted for their birthdays, or for no occasion at all—no occasion to do with men or procreation. Trend pieces have continued throughout the years since its airing to slobber over this idea.
As late as 2017, reports still attributed “sologamy” to this one Sex and the City episode. “The commitment can be anything from a quiet private moment in a room by yourself with a candle and a mirror to a full-blown wedding bonanza complete with dress, cake, reception and vows,” the UK-based Sun newspaper reported. It even mentioned a Japanese travel agency that will organize a self-wedding for about $3,200.
Baltimore high school science teacher Elizabeth Schap calls “A Woman’s Right to Shoes” “my episodic soulmate, my life’s script. The story spoke to everything I was feeling about being single in a world where no one was.” She felt like her family and friends couldn’t understand her single life because it hadn’t hit any traditional milestones. Since she first saw the episode in her midtwenties, she has made everyone close to her watch it: her mother, her sister, her married friends.
• • •
Writer Cindy Chupack was assigned the script for an episode called “Catch-38,” in which Carrie gets closer to Aleksandr, as signified by him giving her the keys and the alarm code to his apartment. But Baryshnikov’s character also reveals he’s had a vasectomy. If Carrie, who’s now thirty-eight, ends up with him for any serious length of time, she must give up children for good.
Chupack, who was thirty-eight at the time, recalls that as she worked on the script, she felt like her fellow writers were interrogating her. She remembers being asked point-blank: “If you had wanted a baby, wouldn’t you have had one already?”
She was the Carrie in this scenario, and even before Chupack was ready to decide for herself how strongly she felt about having children, the show forced her to examine her feelings just as it did the viewing audience. Michael Patrick King had once again played matchmaker for a writer and the issues presented in a script assignment.
The plot line reminded Chupack of a past-life reading she once got as a gift. It had been over the phone, which made her question it: How could someone tell what her past lives were over the phone? If she believed in fortune-telling’s accuracy at all, in-person seemed like the right way to do it. In any case, the psychic told Chupack that she hadn’t had a good relationship since ancient Greece. Chupack jokes that she knew was she in a slump, but ancient Greece? Wow. “You’ve always had children,” the psychic told Chupack. “But in this life, you’re supposed to learn how to love and be loved.”
She didn’t gain total clarity about her own situation as she wrote the episode, but she was proud of a metaphor she slipped in. Just after finding out about the vasectomy, Carrie eats a black-and-white cookie while at a playground with Charlotte. Black-and-whites are a favorite of Chupack’s and a classic New York City treat. Chupack’s idea: This wasn’t a black-and-white issue. She wrote:
CHARLOTTE: But we’re thirty-eight, these are the years.
CARRIE: Yes, I know, I’ve heard! I’m running out of time. I don’t even have time to eat this cookie.
CHARLOTTE: How is it?
CARRIE: It’s so good I forgot to have children.
DR. ROBERT LEEDS
Miranda made progress in her own love life as well, and also answered one of the most repeated—and most warranted—criticisms of the show. She dated her dreamy neighbor Dr. Robert Leeds, played by the black actor Blair Underwood, known for his work in films like Deep Impact and on TV’s L.A. Law.
The show had drawn fire for its whiteness from the beginning, and had made matters worse with Samantha’s relationship with black hip-hop producer Chivon. Samantha later dated a Hispanic woman, only to decide she wasn’t as lesbian as she’d hoped to be. Since then, Sex and the City had rolled with the seismic cultural mood shift of 9/11 seamlessly, but still hadn’t addressed its own whiteness. The actresses, forced to answer much of the media criticism, had lobbied for diversity for some time. Nixon spoke candidly in interviews, calling the lack of diversity “irresponsible.” She told the Associated Press, “I think it’s about time.”
The show introduced Dr. Leeds, the New York Knicks’ team physician, as Miranda’s perfect match: as successful as she, charming, and handsome as hell. Alas, he was not to be her destiny, but a mere prelude to it. His perfection forces her to see that she’s meant to be with the less-perfect love of her life, Steve. This becomes apparent when Robert says “I Love You” on a giant, custom-made cookie. She finds she can’t say it back because she’s still in love with Steve (though, no fool, she does eat the cookie). When Miranda professes her love to Steve at their son Brady’s first birthday party, it marks the unceremonious end to her courtship with Robert.
The addition of Robert nodded to, even if it didn’t do enough for, the significant black fandom of the show. Many women of color responded to the same qualities in the series that white women did: its freeing depiction of female sexuality, its prioritizing of female friendship, its emphasis on fashion, and its glamorous take on city life. Beyoncé was a fan: “Only time we don’t speak is during Sex and the City,” her future husband, Jay Z, raps during their duet “ ’03 Bonnie and Clyde.” “She got Carrie fever.”
“Women of color have laughed along with SATC, we have loved it, we have gotten invested in the characters,” Samhita Mukhopadhyay wrote on Feministing. “We could relate to endless stories of dating while being savvy, independent, and smart. We even managed to ignore the fact that they have never had a prominent person of color on the show. (Let’s be real, some of us like shoes and handbags, too.)”
Women of color have spoken and written about how they could enjoy the best of Sex and the City even while laughing at and critiquing its whiteness, just as they did with Friends, Seinfeld, or any number of mainstream shows that were, as usual, predominantly white. “Showing that people of color also have full romantic lives would have made such a difference in making the show not thinly ‘politically correct’ but a show with a much deeper accuracy to everything it pretended to be about: love, sex, friendship, and New York City,” Hunter Harris wrote on Refinery29. Still, she added, “These characters provided some central (and corny) metaphors for my life. Cut through the classist and incredibly narrow understanding of New York and it had a real value: It taught me how to have girl talk and what exactly a booty call text was. I also learned that it was okay to desire a full sex life.”
Susana Morris, a black English professor at Auburn University, told author Rebecca Traister in her book All the Single Ladies that moving to Atlanta in 2002 and seeing all of the “fierce, single black women” reminded her, in a way, of Sex and the City. She had enjoyed watching it with her Dominican, lesbian roommate despite the cast’s lack of resemblance to either of them. “There is this thing,” she said of the parts she did relate to. “It’s having friends, going on the town, living it up, finding a network of women.”
