For all its faults, my love for Sex and The City - and now, And Just Like That – is enduring. No matter the nonsensical notes it hits, Carrie’s world has brought me joy over the past two decades and I will be gutted if we don’t get to return to it in a third season of AJLT.
If it does come back, I hope that the SATC-verse can finally fix one particular blind spot, which it just can’t seem to shake: any plotline relating to a character's weight. Because let's face it, they have handled it terribly so far.
The nadir, to date, was Samantha’s ‘I eat so I don’t cheat’ storyline in the first SATC movie, which resulted in that gobsmacking scene, where she travels from LA to New York to surprise her best friends, only for them to stare aghast at her stomach and ask, ‘How could you not notice?’ about her supposed weight gain. Horrendous.
Watching this week’s episode of AJLT, it felt like little has changed when it comes to the problematic handling of weight, with Charlotte’s plotline delivering an equally WTF moment. Buying a new dress for her return to full-time work at an art gallery, Charlotte becomes self-conscious about the snugness of the fit. At first you might think 'fair enough!', feeling body conscious is an internal reckoning, as much to do with your own perception of how we look, rather than what anyone else thinks.
I could just about stick with it through the bone broth crash diet, and the three-pairs-of-Spanx joke that followed, but I lost it completely when Charlotte met her new colleague Lela – someone several dress sizes larger than herself – which prompts Charlotte to gleefully remove the triple layer of Spanx in the bathroom, all her anxieties about her body now miraculously solved.
Whatever body-positive message the show was trying to convey failed to hit the mark, in my opinion. Because what was the show trying to say? That the only way that Charlotte can feel ok is to see someone feeling confident in a larger body? That plus-size women are brilliant because they ‘inspire’ other, smaller women? It didn’t help that Lela served no other purpose in the episode beyond making Charlotte feel better about herself.
I’ve listened to enough of the show’s official companion podcast, And Just Like That.. The Writers Room with showrunner Michael Patrick King, producers Elisa Zuritsky, Julie Rottenberg and Susan Fales-Hill, to know that they wouldn’t have intended for that to be the message. And sure enough, on the podcast, they explain: ‘Sometimes it’s easier to fixate on concrete thing like a dress, or your weight, rather than the bigger, scarier thing of “Do I still have it? Can I still do it?” The dress becomes a metaphor: does it still fit me: this ‘gallerina’ role at 56 with two kids, and a husband - and a couple of extra pounds.’
That, I guess, is true. Although I wish they could have explored the issue of what it’s like to return to the workplace and rediscover your professional identity after an extended break to raise a family, making it about weight.
As for the conveniently body-confident colleague? ‘[Charlotte] was trapped in who she used to be,’ King says. ‘Lela comes in and is just like “Be you” - which is the great growth and evolution of people who are younger… they feel entitled to be themselves.’ He continues: ‘Charlotte sees that the world has changed.. She’s exhaling, literally. She has left her insecurity behind and is marching forward into her next chapter.’
While I get what they were going for, it’s a little bit too neat for me - and frankly, just not representative of the complex, ongoing internal push-and-pull many women have when it comes to how they feel about their body. Rarely can you flip a switch with such ease and turn on a newfound sense of unshakeable body confidence: it’s way more complicated – and difficult - than that.
And that’s often been the problem with how SATC/AJLT addresses weight – it’s overly simplified. This is not the first time that Charlotte has had a body-image-related plotline. In season three of SATC, there’s an episode where she’s too anxious to take her towel off in a steam room because she feels self-conscious about her thighs. When she plucks up the courage to get naked, another woman compliments her breasts and just like that, Charlotte is suddenly cured of all her anxieties! Hurrah!
We saw the same 2D treatment in this season of AJLT, when Che is humiliated in a wardrobe fitting for their (now defunct) sitcom, tearfully breaking down to Miranda about it later. It was a surprisingly tender moment that could have been ripe for some real exploration of the agony of being body shamed. But no, a quick cuddle from Miranda and the insecurity appears to be gone. The moment passes, and the issue is done and dusted, never referenced again.
I can appreciate that the show is a comedy that can’t dissect a huge, nuanced issues like this in great depth or detail – but the glib, throwaway manner it deal withs them feels worse, somehow. Until they can figure out a way to write about weight and body image in a more meaningful, authentic and non-infuriating way, I kind of hope they just steer clear of the topic. My love for the SATC-verse can only take so much testing.