Why Carrie Bradshaw?

Two Sunday's ago (2/22), one of the most prominent cultural icons of our era came to an end. I am referring of course to the finale of the HBO series "Sex and the City." However, the ending left me feeling greatly dissatisfied, and I would like to write this viewpoint to express my grievances. Spoiler Alert. Don't read on if you intend to watch the finale at some later date.

First of all, let us look at the three supporting characters: Miranda, Samantha, and Charlotte. Miranda learns that love is about making sacrifices, Samantha learns that love is not all about sex, and Charlotte learns that love is not all about appearances. While this may be an oversimplification, the point I'm trying to make is that they all learn something and grow from their experiences. Which is good.

But when we come to Carrie, we discover something that is not good; Carrie remained as a static character and seemed not to move onto the future, but back into the past. She learned nothing significant from her experiences, unless one were to count the extremely superficial "oh, Petrovsky just isn't right for me" lesson.

And yes, Petrovsky was meant to have been unavailable, to have guilt tripped her into missing her party, and to have accidentally hit her in the face, but these are all rather minor incidences if Carrie's feelings for him were strong enough for her to sacrifice her life in Manhattan in the first place. And thus I can only surmise that Carrie was not aware of her own lack of feelings for Petrovsky and went along with Petrovsky for reasons unknown.

And then there was Carrie's long exposition to Petrovsky about how she's seeking the "can't bear to be without the other person" love. Now, this is obviously untrue. I distinctly recall an episode in an earlier season in which Carrie was dating this addict who was addicted to alcohol, cigarettes, etc. Eventually he became addicted to Carrie and was obsessed with her, but Carrie dumped him. Therefore, I suspect that there is an unsaid condition in Carrie's concept of love: "can't bear to be without the other person kind of love unless the other person is not rich or not attractive or is otherwise unsuitable as a mate." Which seems rather mercenary, no?

But the thing that infuriates me the most is Carrie's lack of independence. I have always believed that in the finale Carrie would make some grandiose gesture to express her newfound independence from men. Instead, she abandons her life to be with a guy, refers to herself as a "Russian girl," and willingly abandons her own party to be at a function with a guy.

Abandoning her life (Petrovsky could have abandoned his life for her instead) and referring to herself as a "Russian girl" are undoubtedly signs of her lack of independence (maybe even her lack of self-esteem). She sees herself not as "Carrie Bradshaw," but as "the girlfriend of (insert name of person she's dating)" -- not as an independent human being but as an accessory to another human being. This is similar to how when Carrie broke up with Big, one of the reasons she mentioned was his reluctance to introduce her as his girlfriend.

Some people may contend that Carrie abandoned her party not because she's being dependent, but because she's being nice. To that, I must say that she could have interrupted Petrovsky at any time to ask him if he'll be fine before proceeding to her party late. Rather, it seems to me that she wanted Petrovsky to hold her hand and bring her around as if she were a living piece of jewelry he's wearing. And as a further example of her passivity, she sat on the benches to wait instead of admiring the art or introducing herself to the people there.

This brings me to Big, a.k.a. John. The Big character is amazingly perfect. He's handsome, caring, rich, and always there (such a level of perfection is highly improbable). It's almost as if some higher power has predestined Big and Carrie to be together. And a higher power in the form of a scriptwriter did. The unfortunate thing is that in real life, a girl is not going to meet Mr. Super Perfect by being as passive as Carrie. Let's face it, she basically did nothing: it was Big who 'miraculously' kept bumping into her. It's like an ending straight out of a fairy tale.

So I have shown my reasons for thinking that Carrie is an insecure, whiny, and clingy girl who has never grown up. But why is this necessarily bad?

"Sex and the City" was a highly popular show that almost all urban and suburban women used to watch. Most of these women identify with Carrie, or even think they are Carrie. As such, Carrie's fate was of great social concern because what happens to her will subtly influence the subconscious of a lot of people. Because of this, the series' producers had a moral obligation to provide an ending that was not so detrimental to women's concept of themselves. After all, the series was supposed to be somewhat feminist and was supposed to present independent women, so it was inappropriate to have a main character who thinks of herself as a passive piece of vagina.

A possible counter to my dislike of Carrie Bradshaw's objectification of herself is that I'm just a guy who is against women who are comfortable with their sexuality. However, I would like to point out that a woman who is comfortable with her sexuality is not necessarily independent. Carrie's objectification of herself is different from Samantha's objectification of sex. Nor do I see how my personal prejudices, if any, could deny the reasons I have stated above of their validity.

If this is all that the series had to offer, I think "Powerpuff Girls" on Cartoon Network is a better feminist series. The Powerpuff Girls don't objectify themselves, nor are they subservient to any male (except perhaps the Mayor, but he's being controlled by Ms. Bellum). And most importantly, the girls there don't think of themselves as "the Professor's Girls."

Richard Huang is a junior majoring in Quantitative Economics.