And Just Like That… we learn that Sex And The City is due to return to our screen with a title that is so unmemorable I had to put it at the beginning of this paragraph just to remind myself of it. The news that And Just Like That… a new 10-part series, is in the pipeline, has sent social media into some kind of frenzy, most of which has revolved around horror at the fact that the unstoppable, uninhibited Samantha Jones character will not be back. With the announcement of the series, naturally, comes a number of key questions, none of which we actually know the answer to – yet.
Will the show have been reinvented to introduce new BAME girlfriends, and LGBT storylines?
Because let’s face it, Sex And The City, was so white that even back in the day, people were complaining about it. Not only that, but apart from Samantha's occasional experiment with lesbian sex, it was mostly thoroughly heteronormative. That kind of narrative just doesn’t wash in these times of Black Lives Matter and LGBTQi rights. It seems inevitable, and quite right, that this will have to be fixed, and just like that… a new friend will have to be introduced who is BAME. Not only that, but surely one of the characters will have to fall in love with a woman, or start examining her gender identity. Given that Cynthia Nixon (Miranda), who self-describes as queer is married to a woman and has a son who has transitioned from female to male, is one of the executive producers it seems highly likely this will be addressed in some way. Nixon also observed in a interview last year, “It was always a problem how little racial diversity there was.”
Will it tell the full, often-glossed-over, story of midlife sex?
Having written a book about the menopause (titled Still Hot!), I can say that for me, this is one of my big questions and hopes – that the series gives us a no-holds barred depiction of sex in the menopause, including everything from perimenopausal testosterone-driven sex rampages to libido loss. I’m talking the kind of chat you would get from Tracey Cox, sex expert, and author of Great Sex Starts At 50. There are several signs that this might be the case. Firstly there's the fact that the title of the show is now missing the word sex. Secondly, there's the loss of empowered and sex-loving Samantha from the story. A Sex And The City where Samantha talked about vaginal atrophy and oestrogen gels – now that would be something.
Will it be anything like Sex And The City 2?
Oh, please, no. Most of us who even had any vague fan-like devotion to the first series are looking for something that will overwrite and wipe our memories clean of that excruciating experience. After watching it, writer Lindy West suggested “if this is what modern womanhood means, then just f***ing veil me and sew up all my holes”.
And might one of the characters have had a #MeToo moment or have joined Tinder?
So much has happened since Sex and The City last made it onto the screen, that it feels as if a whole era of change in attitudes towards sexual empowerment and consent as well as a new approach to dating, are going to have to be accounted for. The MeToo movement broke seven years after the release of Sex And The City 2. The series' portrayal of female sexual freedom has never looked the same since. An understorey of harassment and non-consensuality was exposed, which now looks conspicuously absent from the series.
Will there be shoes?
Surely. But some of them, in this Covid-19 era of job-loss and bankruptcy, will have to be cheap designer-copies bought through Wish.
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