Thoughts on Gen Z not coping with SATC

I’m right on the cutoff between Generation Z and Millennial, so I’m either an elder Gen Z or a baby millennial. I love the show! Whenever I rewatch it there are some cringe scenes I skip, but generally as a whole the show was so ahead of its time and the acting and situations are so phenomenal they hold up well.

I have rewatched the series more times than I will admit or can even count right now. The girls were also and still are my comfort and feel like my girlfriends.

I saw another post where someone was talking about how awful and troubled Carrie is and someone said essentially “that’s the point. If she’s perfect and righteous she wouldn’t be fun to watch and it wouldn’t even be real”. I completely feel and agree with this. Half of the relatability and a lot of the fun is the layers they build into the characters and their flaws; it makes the series so real too. Name someone IRL who hasn’t had a few bad choices followed by worse dates/BFs?

ETA: Thanks for the love on this comment everybody!!

im gen z; born in 2003 and started watching the show in 2022. a lot of women my age LOVE satc. some of us do acknowledge and cringe at some outdated moments, but i’ve never met someone who actually tried to “cancel” anything.

I think its important to remember that each generation looks at things from different lenses and it doesn't make any generation right or wrong. My mom who was gen x did not like SATC because she thought it was too vulgar, me as gen z loves the show but also recognizes that there are some things in the show that were not okay. We make progress as a society and its okay to look back on things and say that was not okay but still appreciate the other positive things it did. Thats how I feel about SATC, there was some bad and some good.

I feel like sex and the city is as popular as ever! you can't scroll tiktok without seeing someone re-creating a carrie bradshaw look or a fan edit of samantha!

Jesus Christ is the NY Post, nothing that comes out of that rag is relevant.

I’m an elder Zoomer who was also mesmerized by SATC as a teen (as were many of my friends at the time). Most of my female friends now have already seen the show, movies, and AJLT on other streaming services. I’ve yet to see any large swaths of gen z trying to “cancel” SATC lol. The article’s author also can’t point to where this is happening as she just makes assumptions about how she imagines gen z will respond to the show.

Some comments in the show did not age well. Those comments were made before we knew Trump and Weinstein were creeps though. So, it's not like HBO glorified known predators.

The fact that the movie Blazing Saddles still streams from time to time tells me SATC will not be cancelled anytime soon.

Why was it so easy to believe 1984 and 2004 were worlds apart, but accepting that 2004 and 2024 are worlds apart is not easy for me

i mean it’s the same criticism the show has always faced. lots of gen z loves sex and the city so i really wouldn’t get mad over it

whoever wrote this article is trying to rage bait people into watching the show again.

seriously?

As I re-watched “Sex and the City” this week, I couldn’t help but wonder … will Gen Z have a total meltdown and cancel Carrie Bradshaw?

i'm starting to hate this whole genz/millenial/genx/boomer stuff. i'm gen x so i suppose i am supposed to 'not give a shit'. that's what we're known for right?

As a Gen X woman this show was so groundbreaking in many ways. I remember all of my male friends and acquaintances hating this show and saying the women were disgusting, because they couldn’t stand the fact that yes: we talked about sex and relationships with our girlfriends. And because it showed that sometimes women just wanted to have sex, no strings attached.

Is gen Z cancelling SATC? I work with a lot of new hires (gen Z) and these ladies are actually pretty cool and patient. Im usually way more troubled by people my age or older who re-discovered harsh feminism or something like that. 

Look at these comments, millennials are going out sad. If you are over 35, you should not be getting this worked up over the opinions of teenagers and 20 somethings! Nobody is “canceling” SATC, give me a break. A 23 year old who adores this show can’t even half-seriously bring up a moment that didn’t age well before the “old man yells at cloud” brigade starts with the “gen z is canceling x” nonsense. Everyone can use a social media break.

OP, I hope you're realizing that you're engaging in a time-honored practice of shitting on the generation coming after you. Like, don't you remember the myriad of articles coming out when we were in our 20s about how we're selfish and entitled and "killing X industry?" It was exhausting then, and it is exhausting now.

Also, the NY POST is a TABLOID, and shouldn't be trusted.

I’m gen z and nobody I know has complained so far. Thank god

Some of y’all are crazy in the comments bashing gen z here no one is cancelling anything. You people on this sub hate Carrie too but when it’s gen z recognizing her issues you’re like “ugh this generation” some of these comments really shows your backwards thinking. People can criticize things about the show, it’s valid. Get a grip

It’s not “Gen Z canceling” it’s just people (of any generation, really) recognizing the problematic parts of the show, talking about it, and still enjoying the series. There were some plot lines that didn’t age well but others that were ahead of its time. That’s okay. It’s a great show nonetheless. I feel like watering it down to just “oh no Gen Z is gonna cancel this one 🙄” is sort of an immature way of thinking. I honestly don’t think anyone is trying to “cancel” it in the first place.

I'm Gen-X and was just a bit younger than they were supposed to be while the show was on. Plus living as a single woman in NY. I definitely noticed the show was not diverse but the other stuff never really pinged my radar. It did feel somewhat edgy to me.

I couldn’t care less what Gen Z’s thoughts are on anything, honestly, and I think maybe we all should do the same

I’m Gen Z and my roommates and I all love SATC. We make fun of AJLT tho

gen z here and i love the show… the reboot however yikes

I'm late gen x, early millenial. Watched the show when it aired, love it, can recognize it as problematic. A few things can be true at the same time: - Carrie is an uneducated prude - This a great show with superb storytelling - The show pushed boundaries and helped normalize (normal) things, for instance female masturbation - no one discussed it on TV back then; when I rewatch, I am amazed how quickly those things changed - Carrie was always meant to be a very imperfect heroine

Gen z here who loves the show! And most of my friends do too, but it might have to do that we are in our twenties and in NYC. Some things haven’t aged well but I don’t think people canceling Carrie stems from that, but rather her being a questionable friend

The show hasn’t been cancelled by Gen Z, this article is just silly, culture-war clickbait

The attitude towards Carrie alone I see on this sub is so bizzare. At no point is the show holding her up as a paradigm of virtue. It is incredible transparent that when she hooks up with Big, it is a moral failing on both their parts. But guess what? Life happens. Humans make errors and can still be good/okay people. I do think the judgement of her misses the entire point of the show.

I think everyone has preemptively assumed that the GeN Z cUlTuRe WarRiOrS who get all their information from tiktok and entertainment from Netflix are going to eviscerate this show and reject its icon status when like … 1) most of us have heard of it 2) most of us have WATCHED it lmfao like it was on hbo. Our moms watched it. I was born in 2000 and the first time i watched the show i was 16 streaming it on hbo. By the end of college majority of my girl friends had seen it or at least parts of it 3) a lot more of us are more capable of critical thought than our elders like to give us credit for !

I was born in 2002. I looove it, and all my friends love it as well

im gen z and i feel like this is stupid. we all already knew that this show has jokes & episodes that aged poorly, problematic scenes, whatever. its a product of the 90s. we can acknowledge and discuss the problematic parts while still enjoying the show. no need to “cancel” anybody🙄

I’m 27 (born in Feb 97) and I love the original show and the first movie. The second movie + And Just Like That can be tossed w/o any loss. I grew up with a open minded, sarcastic, and unconventional mom (although my dad was a Type A, helicopter parent control freak) and I love the original show since I started watching it in 2011 when I was 14. It was one of very few comedic/optimistic outlets at the time I started watching the show.

The only episode I ever really skip due to cringing too much is the bi episode, being a bisexual woman myself. Everything else is tolerable enough for me 🤷🏻‍♀️

I remember watching SATC when it came out and thinking wow this is so groundbreaking! There really was nothing like it at the time.

Remember: this truly is a show about women’s lives and enduring adult friendships. A show about women unapologetically owning their sexuality and women who were at the top of their game at work.

Now, yeah some things are lil cringey, but it was a representation of what society/culture was like. Enjoy it for what it was - a slice of life from 1998-2004. And understand what it meant to have that type of show at the time.

SATC walked so a lot of other shows could run.

I watched sex and the city as a millennial for the first time this year and I have to admit there’s a lot the girls did that was cringe, embarrassing and not great. I still absolutely love the show. It’s ok to not like everything about it. The show was definitely ground breaking in some ways but still upholds the status quo in others and it’s ok to be real about that.

I’m Gen Z, and besides the episodes that didn’t age well (the bisexual episode, the one where sam dated a black man, the one with the transgender women…) I deeply love this show. Carrie can be annoying and selfish, but I think she’s perfect as a main character, how boring would it be to watch someone who’s flawless?

I’m 25 which (I think?) makes me Gen Z and I just watched SATC for the first time a few months ago. I had seen the Carrie diaries as a teenager and for some reason had just never watched the OG. Yes, some comments, scenes, dialogue aged terribly but that’s just what happens to tv shows in a forever evolving society. It was nothing to make me dislike the show. I haven’t heard of anyone “cancelling” the show, I’ve actually been recommending it to any and everyone I can

I totally agree with you. I’m a millennial too and I used to watch it with my mum late at night it was our mother daughter treat but we used to skip some part ofc 😂 I don’t watch it the same way now that I’m 30 but it’s still a comfort tv show that I love to watch over and over just for the memories and how it used to make me feel and all the laughter we used to get watching it. The new version AJLT is very boring and trying to fit in the new generation too much, while the original one SATC used to be different because it wanted to relate but also was indeed in advanced of its time and that’s why it got the attention it got back in the days at least from my perspective being French and watching it in France.  I don’t really pay attention to Gen Z opinion bc their generation still didn’t do anything compare to what our generation 90s did do when it comes to pop culture in tv show movie or even music. That’s why they are irrelevant imo, their opinion is equal to their generation and what they got/created/accomplished in those area. It’s from their opinion on something they only experience years later from their own perspective. You basically had to be there to get it. I also get why people don’t like it, I can’t stand Carrie as well watching it now, she is too needy and so much more but I still love the tv show for what it used to be.

I’m a young millennial and staunch lefty that rolls her eyes at gen z on this. I feel like such a boomer, but I literally think “God these kids are soft” and they can’t enjoy comedy for comedy, everything has to be “offensive“. So when I see the posts about young people whining about some thing that didn’t age while I just roll my eyes and scroll on.

Not everything has to be for everyone. It’s like friends and Monica‘s weight. My weight has yo-yo-ed my whole life and I’m not up in arms about the fat jokes that went on for 10 years, I still love that show. I think this generation is so scared of hurting absolutely anybody’s feelings that they are not gonna get nearly the quality of shows or comedy generations prior did.

Gen z needs to fuck off and get a job and shut up. All these basement dwellers with too much time on their hands.

They want to wear all the clothes and steal our style from our generation but they want to cancel our culture? It’s all or nothing babies.

Ha, I used to sneak to watch it too when I was about 13 or 14. It would be on in the afternoon after school but before my mum got home from work, so I'd watch it until I heard her car pull up and then I'd frantically change the channel 😅 was one of the first box sets I bought on DVD when I moved out and I binged the whole thing.

I’m Gez and I loved watching the show since I was a kid when I should have been watching Yo Gaba Gaba or something like that.

Certain parts of the show didn't age well, but what do people expect? It's a show from 20+ years ago. It's not like we could change the past. All we could do is enjoy the show and look how far we made it since then.

As a gen z who is currently watching this show, I don't know what's going on. Is this like when people said transwomen were trying to cancel Aretha Franklin when it was a joke one person made? I like the show and though I do think Carrie is generally not too good of a person who is? She doesn't have to be perfect nor do the other characters and they also aren't real. I still like the show and root for the characters despite them making me mad. Plus I'd cancel Charlette for slut shaming over whatever issue they had with Carrie.

This article is ridiculous. It’s from the ny post so it checks out.

I’m gen z and all of my friends love this show. I even remember going with my mom to see the movies in theater lol

i’m gen z, started watching it last year, i love it🤷🏼‍♀️ a lot of my generation actually really does love the show and seeing the old humor that was deemed acceptable, and progressive at the time

I'm a gen Z and absolutely love SATC. As the show getting more exposure through Netflix, I'm also seeing people making SATC edits on insta and tiktok, which something i always wished to see but didn't see before. No idea where they're cancelling Carrie. On the twitter, all I'm seeing is jokes about the show which are hilarious.

I’m a gen z, born in 2001, and I absolutely love this show. I’ve rewatched it about 5 times now, and it just gets so much better every time. I feel like I’ve lived this life before lol

Gen Z isn’t cancelling Carrie. A quick search of this subreddit will show you many anti-Carrie posts from people of all ages.

Some people need to go outside and touch grass. I'm 25 and don't know which generation I'm part of (and honestly couldn't care less) but I have younger friends who have watched SATC and they're huge fans, of course there are people who are not gonna like the show, the same way there are older people who don't, who cares.

i was born in 2000, and this was my moms absolute favorite show. i can remember being 3 and 4, and i’d be watching it in bed with her. all these years later, it’s my favorite show. this is my comfort show, and i’ve watched it enough to be able to quote the episodes. a lot of my friends my age also love this show. no chance of it getting cancelled

I loved this show growing up but it truly just hits different in your 30s and it became one of my biggest comfort shows. Yeah yeah things didn’t age well but they are also not the target demographic for the show.

I don’t know if it’s true but I read an article once about how younger people first get their exposure to sex via violent internet porn. So that’s why they have an aversion to sex scenes.

Idk I tend to give Gen Z a lot more credit. I think on average, any given Gen Z-er is a lot more grounded, sane, mature, understanding, and forgiving than they're given credit for. I get that the values are different and online the loudest most critical voices are the ones that can stick out, (and certainly I get pissed at these voices sometimes for disrespecting the progressives and the activists that came before them that paved the way for them only to get yelled at) but I think the average Z is progressive but reasonable, and capable of appreciating context and nuance. I don't like how they're viewed sometimes, and I don't think it's fair or true.

I find it silly to cancel a fictional character. I personally have bigger things to worry about than a character who can be annoying and bigoted and hypocritical but at the end of the day is NOT REAL!

• Gen Z

It's cute (if) Gen Z wants to cancel the main character of a series that was a major cultural phenomenon of its time. Good luck with that.

I really wish people would stop expecting comedy or content of older shows to be evergreen. No one had a crystal ball back then to say "hey, maybe we shouldn't say this?" or "this storyline isn't going to age well 20-30 years from now". The same way that GenZ is probably creating content now that won't age well or look great in the 2040s. The show was a product of its time. Even mainstays like The Golden Girls have their problematic moments.

I mean, the show wasn't made for them so my knee-jerk reaction is, who cares what they think? It was made for GenX (as 3 of the actresses were born in 1965) and Millennials (since more than a few stories revolved around 20-somethings, and even one focusing on the teen Bat Mitzvah brats). I guess you could also say it was made for Baby Boomers as well, as Kim Cattrall and Chris Noth were born in the 50s.

Cancel all you want, you can't take away my DVDs/Blu-rays!!

Gen Z here (born 2000). I don’t think anyone is seriously trying to cancel the original SATC series but I do think some people get too offended by stupid comments on the show. I think it’s something that is more you can laugh at rather than get seriously offended by. This is going off of things I’ve seen on the internet.

ETA: I actually find the over-“woke-ness” of AJLT to be more insulting than anything on SATC.

The show is timeless, because people don't change as much as we think we do, especially wealthy/elites. So whether they agree or not, for many in similar circles, these characters demonstrate a potential reality.

Off topic but does Anyone know where to watch the second MOVIE, Sex & The City 2?! Yes I know it sucked but I want to watch it again (lol) and every platform it was on, it will not play and says Unavailable.

I’m a millennial and I don’t like Carrie. She was ok to me when I was younger and immature, but rewatching later in life I can’t believe she’s late 30s. I’m embarrassed for the character. I don’t want to cancel her, and I don’t think younger people want to either. If anything I’m glad that the young people can recognize the character is not someone to look up to. In my teens I thought that was normal behavior and I could relate.

As i Gen Z i have watching SATC 3 times. i will say sometimes things are said that take me back but i think i can laugh at it from a this was a different time perspective. I’m also a lesbian and honestly have nothing to do with men but still love the show. My only problem when im watching these days is the lack of diversity. I also hated the new And Just Like That.

I was born in 2002, and I watched the show for the first time at 12. It’s my favorite show. I’m not exactly offended by it even though I’m extremely left leaning. Of course I think that some aspects of the show aged badly, and maybe some of them were bad for the time (and place) of it airing.

I think the biggest problem even from the perspective of the late 90’s is the fact that they barely ever show any POC, and it’s like, New York. It’s culturally diverse, but the fact that they don’t seem to date any POC (besides Samantha and Miranda once each) and aren’t really friends with them either is a bit unrealistic.

I think it’s an age thing. I’m a millennial and didn’t like it 10 years. Now that I’m in my 30s I’ve been binging

Its normal, if u watch a show from the 1940s im pretty sure that u wouldn’t enjoyed bc of some racist, homophobics, misogynistic jokes and its okay, times change

The new show is so bad an cringe worse than the cringe moments in satc

Im Gen Z and all I keep replaying in my head (beside my mom & aunts being more strict on making sure I don’t catch the watching SATC then they were when I actually started having sex) is how if Carrie moved to Paris with Big in season 2 it would have saved us 2 seasons of teeth pulling lol … she would have found her niche/target audiences in Paris way sooner than Portroski or whatever .. and she would have more than likely found true love and left Mr. Big asshole

I love the show for entertainment purposes. Yes there are a lot of things that annoy me especially as a black woman however, it is entertainment. I can't take to heart what semi fictional characters do or say. The writers were and are tone deaf and heavily bias but it's like watching your problematic neighbors act a fool in the open... entertaining. Sometimes I am floored by the shows choices but as one SATC critic once said... black women (especially up until the 2000's) are taught to live in their world but never vis versa. . Gen Z had the privilege of growing up with shows that celebrated diversity of skin tone, sexuality, and opinion. Think about that before you devalue the voices of critics

I'm GenX and SATC is my comfort show. I've watched a few eps with my GenZ teen and they are mortified lol

My response is "whatever, guess you had to be there"

I would hope Zoomers would understand that SATC, like every other show, is a product of its times, and some things that were considered "normal" aren't anymore, but we can still appreciate the other aspects? I am a Gen X WOC, and whenever I would re-watch episodes of Friends many years later, some things would literally make me cringe. They did NOT handle the topic of minorities and people with non-American accents well (like making fun of Indian accents, which people in my own family have), and then the writers of the show would try to address the criticisms by cooking up well-intentioned but unrealistic scenarios, like "color-blind" interracial dating. SATC has similar moments which obviously did not age well. But there are other things to be entertained by. I can watch I Love Lucy, a show I grew up with, with all of the gender roles and sexist beliefs that were normal for 1950s America, but still laugh. I'm not going to write off Lucy just because they did a show "proving" that ultimately, women are better as homemakers, while men are better at professionals.

Literally cancel culture is so stupid. I get not wanting cope with previous mistakes but there was so much good that came out of SATC for all walks of people. No one can ignore that and it’s sad Gen Z is attempting to do so. Not everything can be this perfect politically correct piece of art. Art has NEVER been perfect, so why start to expect it to be perfect now?

Have these people nothing better to do? I’m so sick of these children cancelling things from the past. Times are different now yes but leave the past be. Absolutely psychotic

"Cancelling" the show for not being "woke enough" is stupid AF. Like anything else, it is a product of its time.

"Cancelling" Carrie, a fictional character who is incredibly toxic and dysfunctional, on the other hand...

I mean, I agree with the implication that young women shouldn't look up to Carrie. She isn't a role model in any sense of the word.

I'm actually incredibly proud of younger generations for understanding what us millennials didn't understand: that we shouldn't glamorize or validate toxic people and toxic relationships.

And contrary to some of the comments here, Carrie's toxicity, and the toxicity of her relationships, weren't identified when the show aired.

Carrie was seen as the "it girl.".

I am glad we have moved on from that.

I’m a Gen Xer that really doesn’t care what they think. Some things didn’t age well, I get that but they just don’t get the show

Is it difficult to understand that SATC is a product of its time? It is a portrait of an era. Problematizing a program like this is pathetic

Some (not all) gen z think they invented social progress however what seems to be missing with some of these "critiques" lack context and critical thinking. The idea of cancelling art of the past because it offends your current values is basically the liberal version of book burning. A lot of SATC has lines or plots that wouldn't currently fly today and it's good we are moving to a more socially conscious place but when looking at the past it should be through the lens of the social context of time. I remember reading an interview with Bell Hooks and I remember her saying that young people should read everything even if it offends you.

I’m glad I got to enjoy watching this show with my girlfriends in high school before the “woke” stuff and people being sensitive. None of us were offended by any of it whatsoever and grew to love the characters, and it’s stuck with us for life, I think that’s special, I also think the show was special.

Gen z need to get over their ‘wokeness’

Gen Z needs a backbone. They never would have lasted through the 80s and 90s. Imagine having to make a collect call at a pay phone.

Two words DON’T CARE 🤷