There have been many pieces written recently about whether Sex and The City holds up. The show is celebrating its 20th anniversary so it’s the perfect time to revisit and determine if it’s still as feminist, progressive and great as pop culture has immortalized it to be. My fave essays on the topic are this one in Flare on the show’s race blind spots and Vanity Fair’s take on how SATC holds up in the #MeToo era. There’s no question that Sex and the City is still iconic and I still love it but watching it now, there are a lot of things that make me cringe. Hard. I like to think that for the most part, we’ve grown and developed more inclusive and sensitive lenses through which to view the world. A TV show that is no longer on the air cannot grow and change with the rest of us.
Which brings me to Friends. I would argue that overall, Friends does not hold up. It’s not as funny as you remember, it was sh-t at diversity (don’t @ me about Ross’s girlfriends), there are SO MANY homophobic jokes, etc. There is one thing that unequivocally does hold up in both Friends and Sex and the City, though, and that’s their portrayals of female friendship. The foundation of SATC is the friendship between Miranda, Carrie, Samantha and Charlotte. The heart of Friends, of course, is also friendship but the most interesting dynamic to me was always between Rachel and Monica.
And even though I’ve never really liked Jennifer Aniston, her lasting friendship with Courteney Cox always made me smile. They are each other’s Ride or Die. They’ve seen each other through career highs and lows, marriages, divorces, and everything in between. I love that. No snark. Seriously. I love friendship!
Jennifer Aniston and Courteney Cox walked the red carpet at AFI’s Lifetime Achievement Award Gala together in matching black to support George Clooney. Lainey predicted that George’s big night would bring out the A-List. Jen and Court are the popular girls of the A-list. Hollywood is like high school and they are in the in-crowd. Usually, I would want to roll my eyes at pretty popular girls in matching outfits just like I did in high school but again, their friendship is too endearing.
Jen and Court showed up to the Chanel dinner in Malibu together last week, also walking the red carpet together in coordinated ensembles. They’ve been best friends since the ‘90s attending public events together for years but they don’t usually walk red carpets together like this, do they? Jen is still freshly divorced. Every other day there’s another story about Justin’s “edgy and arty” bullsh-t or linking him to someone else. Are Jen and Court showing a united front? Most of the language surrounding Jen post-breakup is that she’s happy, loves her life, has great supportive girlfriends and that she doesn’t need a man to fulfill her. I like this narrative. My female friendships have fulfilled me in my life way more than a man ever could or will. No disrespect to my life partner. He knows his place.
Yesterday was National Best Friend Day. There were Rachel and Monica memes all over Instagram. Blame it on the nostalgia but these two arm-in-arm on BFF day is making me feel things I wasn’t expecting.
Wait. Did I just start liking Jennifer Aniston?
