A Carrie Diary

An impassioned defense of HBO's most fabulous anti-hero.

Writing this from my bed, back supported by a pile of clean laundry and Norman Fucking Rockwell on repeat, days after my most embarrassing instance of romantic self-sabotage to date, is almost comically fitting. I’m not sure what it says about me that my misadventures in dating seem to be a driving force of inspiration for my writing, nor what it says about me that my love life seems to be little more than a series of continued misadventures, but I’ll save that discussion for the therapy consultation I keep putting off.

Somewhere in the void between guilty pleasure and deeply shameful vice lies my love of celebrity gossip magazines. When I was younger, I’d spend hours flipping through J-14 and People, keeping up to date with the latest movie star couplings, ripping out Zac Efron posters to plaster on my walls, and my favorite pastime, filling out personality quizzes.

Even now, I find it hard not to fill out every bubble and check off every box that crosses my path. I get an indescribable sense of excitement from stringing together the observations I’ve made about myself in passing and handing them to the powers that be to receive definitive answers to such pressing questions as: Which Sex and the City Character Are You?

The first time openpsychometrics.com (one of the most analytical and thorough character indexes, in my expert opinion) informed me that I’m a Carrie, I recoiled. At that time, I was on my first watch of the show, which would soon become a source of comfort, guidance, and wisdom as I trudged through the Manhattan dating scene. Primed by a false belief that I wasn’t a hopeless romantic and a considerable amount of vitriol from nearly every social media platform I scrolled on, I’d written Carrie off as narcissistic, dissatisfied, and exhaustingly chaotic. It brings me great shame to admit this now, but I was initially in the camp that she was the sole shortcoming in an otherwise perfect show and amongst an otherwise ideal group of friends.

I was far from alone –slander of Carrie’s personality seemed to be as common amongst viewers in my cohort as adoration of her style. So I couldn’t help but wonder: how can we all love this show and hate its protagonist?

It would be easy to chalk it up to poor media literacy, inherent hatred of complex female characters, or an honest assessment of a woman who is undoubtedly highly flawed. Those reasons might well factor into the distaste, but I think the honest answer is that many of us see ourselves in her –just the version that we are actively encouraged to suppress.

As both the central character and narrator of Sex and the City, Carrie is the lens through which we view every plotline. As visitors to her inner world, we are privy to her strengths, shortcomings, and contradictions. With offenses ranging from the trivial (perpetual tardiness, corny jokes, an inexplicable tendency to shriek at the most random times) to the morally wrong (having an affair with her married ex-boyfriend, then bringing said ex-boyfriend to the home of the boyfriend she cheated on him with), to say she is a difficult character to root for would be an understatement.

And with her character traits being much less fixed and easy to categorize as Samantha, Miranda, and Charlotte, she is subject to much more criticism. It is nearly impossible to engage in SATC discourse without hearing about how insufferable Carrie is. Though not unfounded, and fun to indulge in from time to time, Carrie slander reflects a concerning trend: rejection of media with contradictory, well-realized, genuinely human characters.

A sentiment that often receives a significant amount of support is that Carrie shouldn’t be the main character at all. It’s not uncommon to encounter a tweet or TikTok claiming “Samantha should have been the lead.” For as iconic as Samantha is and as utterly perfect as Kim Cattrall is in the role, anyone who actually understood the show could tell you how asinine a statement this is. Sure, it’s fun to momentarily fantasize about such a larger-than-life character, with such iconic one-liners taking the main stage –it would certainly be less excruciating than watching a woman consumed with self-doubt spend the better part of a decade in a cat-and-mouse game with Manhattan’s least emotionally available bachelor– but what would we learn from it? Those insufferable moments, in which Carrie is unable to articulate her desires, shake her bad habits, and act in a non-cringe-worthy way, are essential to both her character and the world of the show. To desire a show led by a character that rarely reflects on the consequences of her actions is to be averse to the lessons we all must learn in life.

Another popular talking point of the Anti-Carrie camp is that she is a bad friend: never being there for her girls when they need her, constantly steamrolling over them and overvaluing her problems, and generally just taking far more than she gives. Season 4, episode 16, in which Carrie had 30 days to either buy her apartment or rent beyond her means, culminating in her yelling at Charlotte for being the only one of her friends to not offer her a loan for the down payment, is often the primary example cited in this argument.

Of course, she has many irredeemable moments (especially in season 5 –that bob was evil), but as someone who was formerly one of her major detractors, even referring to s4e16 as a testament to her greediness and poor friendship, the vitriol she receives for her behavior is the result of both poor analysis of the show, and the permeation of hyper individuality in our culture. It seems obvious to most that her poor finances (primarily caused by her excessive overspending on designer shoes) is her cross to bear, and it should not be on anyone –especially someone who has toed the line of the upper echelon as well as Charlotte–to take it from her. So, when Charlotte ultimately offers Carrie the wedding ring from her ex-husband Trey, that she had been struggling to let go of in the very same episode, it is not appreciated as a moment in which a character who once saw marriage as the ultimate goal now expressing a lifelong commitment to her dear friend, but rather seen as an unnecessary sacrifice to a hapless, fiscally irresponsible woman who didn’t deserve it –irrefutable proof that Charlotte is the superior friend and overall character.

For all of Gen Z’s claims that we are a new kind of young adult, and will be the ones to shake up old systems and change the world, we can’t even fathom the concept of unconditional friendship. In the era of Venmo requests immediately after dinner, unspoken time limits on returning borrowed clothes, and incessant reposting of Instagram stories, our very concept of love is seen mainly through a transactional lens. We have cultivated a social culture that places more value on equilibrium than true fairness.

Carrie herself acknowledges that her anger toward Charlotte in this episode is irrational, yet in our haste to condemn her, we forget the well-established fact that these women have been friends for years and love one another so deeply that they’ll endure periods of hardship —knowing that if and when the roles are reversed, the others will be there to lift them.

And for many, that is the magic of Sex and The City. Through the changing seasons of New York, the little-discussed personal growth that occurs in the 30s, and the oscillating entourage of men, the four main characters remain inseparable. It is unbelievably powerful to watch these four women, with their wildly different ethos, embark on the often fruitless quest of finding romantic love, knowing they are forever anchored by their love for one another. And seeing this love through the eyes of a protagonist who clearly cherishes it, messy and contradictory as she is, is a one-of-a-kind viewing experience.

So I implore the Carries of the world to take pride in who they are, recognize the power in their vulnerability, be willing to get embarrassed and heartbroken, and remind your friends how much you love them –but maybe pass on this season’s Manolo’s.