In Defense of Carrie Bradshaw

Graphics by Abby Aggarwala

Last month, And Just Like That, the reboot to Sex and the City, wrapped up, with the season finale being released on Aug. 14. When Netflix released the original Sex and the City in April 2024, I—along with much of Generation Z—quickly fell in love with it. However, one thing seemed to be true: Gen Z HATED Carrie Bradshaw. Which was interesting, because when the series debuted in June 1998, women idolized her. She was fashionable, a hilariously honest writer and led a glamorous lifestyle in a rent-controlled Brownstone on the Upper East Side.

Since then, Carrie’s character has gone from a groundbreaking and modern New York woman of the ‘90s to an insecure red-flag. There is a website—carriebradshawistheworst.com— that nitpicks Carrie’s behavior in every single episode, including the movies and in the reboot.

I couldn’t help but wonder–why does society hate her so much? Do we despise Carrie Bradshaw, because we are Carrie Bradshaw? Reflecting back, Carrie has many issues: such as being obsessed with a man who doesn't love you back, leading a guy on, ditching your friends for a guy, being an overspender, etc. Some would say these are traits we should not have, but are ones we can be guilty of from time to time.

Carrie’s worst traits sting because they are ours too. Instead of confronting our own messy, selfish and insecure tendencies, we end up projecting and directing our frustration onto Carrie. Psychologists might call this “projection”, something society does when we dislike qualities in others because they remind us of our own. Carrie’s selfishness, poor financial decision making and her romantic tunnel vision are all behaviors we’d rather not admit to. By critiquing her online, Gen Z gets to distance ourselves from these flaws, pretending we’d never be that messy, even if most of us are.

“I think she makes dumb decisions quite often but I enjoy how that reflects the fact that she’s just a human woman like the rest of us,” Estrella Rosario, a Syracuse University student, said.  

Although she said she saw Carrie’s obsession with Mr. Big as “a bit much,” she said that feeling was common for women to go through in relationships. In Rosario’s view, the backlash against Carrie came from her embodying the “cliché” woman–one who loves shopping, makeup, finding love and making mistakes. These are some traits that some young women reject today. So, I don't find Carrie Bradshaw to be a bad character. I see that her characters reflects parts of ourselves we'd rather ignore. That may be what makes her character simultaneously frustrating and enduring. She isn’t a role model, but she was never meant to be one–she is flawed, and her choices are meant to force us to examine our own. In that sense, Carrie Bradshaw has aged well. It’s not because she remains aspirational–it’s because she continues to provoke conversation about the traits we would rather deny in ourselves.