It is a particularly tragic thing to witness the resurrection of a beloved television series, only to watch it die a humiliating death at the hands of its creators. Call it a “crime against the humanities.” In the case of the new show And Just Like That, HBO Max’s reboot of the late-’90s/early-aughts phenomenon, Sex and the City, I find the show’s producers, including star Sarah Jessica Parker, guilty of murder in the first degree.
Evidence of woke brainwashing abounds from the first scene of the series, during which the ladies gab over lunch. There are only three of them this go-round: SJP’s Carrie, Miranda, played by failed New York gubernatorial candidate Cynthia Nixon, and Kristin Davis’s Charlotte. Kim Cattrall, who portrayed the series’ most colorful character, Samantha, chose not to participate due to bad blood with Parker & Co. From their conversation, we glean that Mighty Feminist Miranda has enrolled at Columbia University to earn a master’s degree in human rights so that she can “help underprivileged women.” How noble. Apparently, her Harvard education and years of practicing law in New York aren’t enough to embark on this new endeavor. She must now spend two years (and about a hundred grand, I’m assuming, since that’s what I currently owe for my Columbia education) repenting for her white privilege in a stuffy Upper West Side classroom.
And the second scene really thrills. This one takes place in a midtown recording studio, where Carrie co-hosts a podcast about sex (er, gender), hosted by a self-described “queer nonbinary Mexican-Irish diva” named Che Diaz, played by the real-life queer nonbinary actress Sara Ramirez, since, these days, all queer characters must be played by equally queer actors. Just ask Jeffrey Tambor.
During introductions, Che (they/them) reduces Carrie and the third co-host, Jackie Nee (played by real-life podcaster Bobby Lee), to the “boring” categories of “cisgender woman” and “cishet man.” Mind you, it’s impossible to refuse participation in this movement without being labeled a bigot: For the nonbinary identity to be valid, we all must think according to gender stereotypes so that they can be the hip and evolved ones and everyone else can be stuck in the past, even though it is their identities (which are tenuous and always poised to change on a whim) that largely depend upon how they dress and style their hair, and also on how others perceive them.
Throughout the podcast, Che periodically hits a button that triggers a recording of a deep voice saying “Woke Moment,” which prompts Che to recite relevant dogma, such as how “no one person can represent an entire community” of minorities, patly. Carrie and Jackie chuckle and nod along good-naturedly, making it all look like great fun. But, as anyone who has witnessed the takeover of their classrooms or workplaces by this neo-puritanism, there’s nothing fun about any of it. It stifles the intellect and creativity, creates an atmosphere of fear and censorship, and forges an in-group and an out-group.
To get an idea of how not fun it is, we need only watch Miranda attend her first class of the spring semester. As soon as Old White Woman Miranda, the Karen, walks through the door and sits down, the room full of 20-somethings goes quiet. The person sitting next to her, a blue-haired, androgynous student who in the olden days we would have called a lesbian, says to Miranda, “That’s where the professor sits.” Miranda apologizes and moves to another seat. Then, a black woman with long braids enters the room and sits in the same chair that Miranda had tried to sit in. “Excuse me, the professor sits there — he just told me,” Miranda says, referring to Blue Hair, whom no cognizant human being would ever mistake for a man. “Someone’s quick with the pronouns,” says Blue Hair excitedly, acknowledging Miranda’s inadvertent proficiency at gender ideology (short hair = man, long hair = woman). The black woman responds, “I’m the professor.” What follows is a conversation so cringeworthy it warrants reproduction.
Miranda: You’re the professor? You’re Nya Wallace?
Nya: Why do you seem so surprised?
Miranda: Well, your braids. [The students gawk in horror.]
Nya: A law professor can’t have hair like mine? [Nya looks around the room, inviting the tribunal into what is gearing up to be a delicious public shaming.] Why is that?
Miranda: Oh no, no, no, I didn’t… I didn’t mean because of the braids. I was, I was… I was just thrown because the braids are, are [brief shot of the Red Guards’ faces] so different than the hair in your photo on the Columbia website. My comment had nothing whatsoever to do with it being a black hairstyle. [Another shot of Red Guards.] I knew that you were black when I signed up for this class. Uh, that was important to me.
Nya: You signed up for this class because I’m black?
Miranda: Well, not just because you’re black. I picked this class because you’re such a force in academia on top of everything you do as a community activist. God, I sound like such a brown-nose. I mean, um… Please just forget that I ever said anything about your hair. Hair has nothing whatsoever to do with, uh, appropriateness or intelligence or gravitas, obviously. I mean, do I look like someone who attaches any significance to hair? I let mine go gray, and I don’t care if it makes me look old. Not that I’m ageist! Do I sound ageist? [Blue Hair, smiling, nods.]
Nya: You really want me to answer that question?
Miranda: [Properly ashamed] I am so sorry for taking everyone’s time. This is not at all who I am. I will just be quiet now.
Nya: OK, uh… [stands up] Hi, hi, hello, everyone. Welcome to Policies and Principles of Humanitarian Law. I am professor Nya Wallace, and before we delve into this complicated and important work, I just want to clear up that on the Columbia University website, I am rockin’ a short Halle Berry, right?
I mean this sincerely: Kudos to the show’s creators for nailing precisely what it is like inside a Columbia classroom these days.
Here’s where I admit that this wasn’t an entirely open-and-shut case; the show does occasionally manage to deliver some of the same depth that made Sex and the City so watchable. In one smartly written scene, Miranda tells Carrie about what happened in the classroom. “It’s a miracle nobody pulled out their phone, or I would be a meme now,” she says, acknowledging the dark reality of cancel culture, which its perpetrators still try to claim doesn’t exist. “I was so worried about saying the wrong thing in this climate that I said all the wrong things.”
Nuanced heart-to-hearts such as this one recur between the friends throughout the 10-episode season, though they are rare. More often the characters are reduced to identity mouthpieces, which makes the show heartbreaking to watch. The original series was groundbreaking because of the women’s candid and novel takes on the realities of sex and the innate differences between women and men. It was refreshing to see four politically unaligned women speak about love, marriage, the workplace, and the dueling ideas of feminism without denigrating womanhood. It’s the failure of And Just Like That to continue this tradition that, in the end, makes it so irredeemable.
In episode three, Charlotte’s 12-year-old daughter, Rose, a tomboy who loves skateboarding and playing video games, tells her mother that she doesn’t like being called a girl because she doesn’t feel like a girl. The first thing that Charlotte, or any parent, could do in this situation is gently remind her daughter that, well, she is a girl, and then ask her why she feels that way. Most likely, Rose would explain that she’s confused about her identity because she doesn’t like girly things, and she might even admit that she has crushes on girls instead of boys, since most gender-nonconforming children will grow up to be same-sex attracted. Whereupon her mother could take this golden opportunity to challenge gender norms and explain to her daughter that girls can be and do anything they want, that being female is wonderful, and that it’s perfectly normal to like people of the same sex. Instead, Charlotte’s response is frazzled and naive. Later, after Charlotte recounts the conversation to her gay friend Anthony, she says it’s important she entertain the idea that her daughter isn’t a girl. Anthony, incredulous, asks, “Who says?” Charlotte answers, “Everyone!”
Weeks later, Charlotte accidentally finds out during a PTA call that Rose’s school has socially transitioned her, addressing her by a new name (“Rock”) and new pronouns (they/them). During a parent-teacher meeting, rather than ask her daughter’s teachers in what universe would they think it was OK to do something so drastic without speaking with the girl’s parents first, Charlotte plays along.
Later in episode three, at Che’s comedy show, which is, without a doubt, the least funny three minutes of the entire season, the ladies are enraptured by what can only be described as a religious revival. To a crowd of androgynous and transgender people, Che testifies about transgender media representation, sex positivity, and her coming out to her family as “queer, bisexual, and nonbinary.” Miranda whoops and cheers, her eyes practically pinwheels. Spoiler alert: She ends up leaving her husband and best friend, Steve, for the narcissistic pothead Che.
Another spoiler: Did I mention Mr. Big drops dead? Because of course he does! Haven’t you heard? Life isn’t about joy and laughter or, God forbid, living happily ever after. Life is hard. It’s about taking accountability. It’s about doing the work. In fact, why don’t they bring back Friends just to off Ross in a plane crash? And The Office’s Jim and Pam? Kill ‘em both, the centrist scum.
By the end of the season, Rose — sorry, Rock — has cut her — dammit, their — hair short and is wearing suits, Charlotte has agreed to throw Rock a they mitzvah (in lieu of a bat mitzvah), and Miranda has flown off to L.A. to be with Che. As for Carrie? Wearing a ridiculous orange dress that would look more appropriate on a clown, she stands alone on a bridge in Paris, shaking her dead husband’s ashes — along, I imagine, with all of my hopes that And Just Like That wouldn’t turn out to be just another casualty of wokeness — into the Seine below.
The prosecution rests.
Ben Appel is a writer living in New York City. He is at work on his first book, about his liberation from the church of social justice. Find him on Twitter @benappel and at benappelwrites.com.
