Cynthia Nixon Exposes Sex and the City’s Biggest Missteps
Brace yourself for a reality check: Cynthia Nixon just shredded the fairy-tale gloss of Sex and the City. The former Miranda Hobbes isn’t here to gush over Carrie’s Manolos or wax poetic about midnight Cosmopolitans—she straight-up confessed what she “hated” about the show that made her and two dozen pairs of Jimmy Choos household names. In a recent sit-down with The Hollywood Reporter (via People Magazine), Nixon admitted that despite her love for the series’ witty banter, “certain things haven’t aged well.” You don’t say.
Nixon’s top gripe? The fantasy-land portrayal of New York. She blasted the series for painting the city as a playground for white, well-heeled singleton bros and gaggles of giggly girlfriends—minus any meaningful diversity. According to Dotdash Meredith’s interview notes, she found it jarring that “we never saw Black or brown faces in our crew or as major characters,” calling that omission “hard to defend” today. That’s a pretty stark admission from someone who helped cement the show’s prestige.
Then there’s the consumer-culture orgy. Cynthia confessed she “hated how we fetishized fashion over actual substance.” Ever wonder why Carrie Bradshaw’s closet looked like Bloomingdale’s on steroids? It turned out to be a symptom of the writers’ disregard for real-world struggles—another checkbox for Nixon’s “doesn’t hold up” list. She also scoffed at some cringe-worthy storylines: Miranda’s whirlwind pregnancy arc, which leaned into caricature instead of nuance, and the one-note portrayal of Samantha as the fearless sex-bomb, without any real exploration of her deeper humanity.
Perhaps most eyebrow-raising is Nixon’s take on the series’ handling of the city’s LGBTQ community. While Bradshaw’s pals explored casual hook-ups aplenty, the show’s gay characters barely received storylines with depth or commitment. Nixon called that “a missed opportunity” for a show that prided itself on flipping social scripts.
Of course, nostalgia buffs will clutch their pearls, but Cynthia insists that modern audiences deserve better than a rerun of dated tropes. She hinted that any future reboot—looking at you, And Just Like That—should lean into diversity, ditch the unlimited shoe budget fantasy, and give us characters with actual flaws beyond their shoe sizes.
And yes, she still loves the core concept: four women navigating love, friendship and big-city angst. She just wants us to swap the rose-tinted skyline for something more representative of 2024. So there you have it—Sex and the City may have looked fabulous through a designer lens, but it was far from flawless. Nothing shocking here, folks. Let’s all act surprised.
Sources: Celebrity Storm and People Magazine, Dotdash Meredith
Attribution: Creative Commons Licensed
