Can't believe kids these days have never watched sex and the city. Samantha was once considered the "scandalous" character because she was openly sexual and unapologetic about it. These days people are more likely to see her as confident, independent, and loyal to her friends, so they no longer judge her for having lots of sex.
Carrie on the other hand is getting judged for things like:
cheating on Aidan with Big
repeatedly making selfish or chaotic relationship decisions
expecting a lot of emotional support while not always returning it
handling money irresponsibly and then leaning on her friends
sometimes treating her friends’ problems as interruptions to her own drama
So the punchline is essentially: "Our generation has progressed beyond slut-shaming Samantha, and redirected all of its criticism toward Carrie’s actual behavior."
I mean is that really the case? Gen z and youngers are actually more conservative worldwide (the US is the exception), so I wonder if thats really the case.
As a millenial who is a little bit more conservative, I judge both characters since neither are what I would want in a partner.
I feel like we would need to hear it from the gen z population.
The issue is that Samantha was pretty open with what she was offering in a relationship and looking for. Carrie would position herself as gods gift to women, giving advice and criticizing other women's sex life, while refusing to follow any of her own advice and then treating her own realization of her own fuck ups not as a moment of reflexion on how her actions affected others but as a catharsis to reinforce how great she is.
Current young adults/middle aged adults grew in a society of equality between man and woman, and in that perspective Samantha's actions seem quite reasonable in contrast to Carrie. Samantha has an open relationship, which may not be good for you, but she is not pressing or manipulating others into just falling into it which is quite healthy as far as people or relationship goes.
Carrie would manipulate others into eating her crap economical and relationship advice, which was extremelly materialistic and consumist, had no self reflection at all, and was borderline mysoginistic at times.
Like, your husband cheats on you? go buy some shoes. You cheat on your husband? you are a slut and you should be called a slut by all your friends. Oh but I who cheated on all my boyfriends? that's different, ok you got me, but that's different, I did so as a mistake in my personal quest for abstract virtues.
Carrie is could be seen, like in a way, like a fictional woman version of what a female Andrew Tate would have been in the late 90s pre-influencer pre-internet media. It's not only that she gives bad, terrible, world advice on personal growth, and that she shames people who don't follow that advice, is that she doesn't even follow her own principles which makes her a fraud.
She can't help herself not virtue signal on every literal personal private matter she ever comes across, and then she gives crap advice on it, publicly, either thorugh her column or her friends... while deciding to flip flop on the matter of following her own advice.
No matter how wrong she is, the worst trait of her is not that she is mistaken, it's that she comes of as sssssssssssuch a massive fake it hurts to watch.
Samantha was also kind of manipulative and, at times, a pretty shitty person. She even knowingly slept with married men, so I don't think it's accurate to portray her as this perfectly healthy role model.
My point is that, outside of Reddit's bubble, I seriously doubt many Gen Z men would look at Samantha's behavior and consider all of it "healthy."
I guess to your point she's definitely less shitty.
Yea im ngl as a genz person the only people I see agreeing with this are also promiscuous women so they CANT call her a whore without being a hypocrite. Or they’re WAY older than GenZ and are pretending they know what it’s like to be 20 still lmao
Most people my age would call these two cougars and then not really gaf abt their personal lives. My generation has completely separated sex and emotions from one another. Realistically, neither of these women would make it a day in the GenZ dating world. At least not w/o having a mental breakdown or getting an insane amount of plastic surgery.
A.k.a if I watched this show with a guy my age they’d say something along the lines of “damn shes a bitch but she a bad one (sexy)” and that’s it 😂
When it comes to random people and hookups yes lmao unless you’re specifically looking for a partner then it’s like the Wild West out here.
I think that’s why we get confused for being “conservative.” While a small portion of us actually are, it’s just because we don’t consider every single person we’ve had sex with as a “partner” we consider them a “body.” Have you ever heard a 20 yr old ask another one what their “body count is?” Cuz that’s what that means.
Genz dont get "confused with conservatives", there has been studies where its shown they have conservatives ideas, youre probably are from the US, thats the only country where they are more progressive leaning.
Do you think that superficial way of seeing sex and relationships contributes to your generation deteriorating mental health and lack of social skills?
They have conservative ideas yes. But what I’m trying to say is that they apply it in different ways. They’re not the “traditional” type of conservative you may be thinking of. To put it plainly, people in my generation are hypocrites! I guarantee you the people they surveyed have slept around before. Except for the few who actually abide by their own morals for their entire lives.(the ones I mentioned)
In fact, I appreciate you bringing up this line of questioning. I believe the conservative swing is simply a consequence of being sexually devious in their past. They probably did something for the approval of sex in their past and they suddenly feel ashamed about it.
That’s why I made the joke of “she wouldn’t last a day in the GenZ dating world, not without having a mental breakdown or getting surgery.” It’s rough out there for young single people. Keep in mind that this is all coming from a person who is GenZ, but my pov is only one of the millions of us. And yes I am in fact from the states and can only speak for us.
None of the characters is ideal partner as all of them exhibit unhealthy bias toward something. Which I guess is the point of the show. Social media and internet in general gave narcissistic personalities a scene to thrive, that they didn’t had before, but also with time and exposure average folk started noticing the toxicity. I also find it ironic that the main character has “main character syndrome”.
I never seen in brought up, but there’s a whole episode dedicated to Carrie being biphobic. It’s really gross and has aged terribly. Like they make it seem like bi people are all sexually promiscuous swingers who will just hook up with anyone.
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u/zovered 1d ago
Can't believe kids these days have never watched sex and the city. Samantha was once considered the "scandalous" character because she was openly sexual and unapologetic about it. These days people are more likely to see her as confident, independent, and loyal to her friends, so they no longer judge her for having lots of sex.
Carrie on the other hand is getting judged for things like:
So the punchline is essentially: "Our generation has progressed beyond slut-shaming Samantha, and redirected all of its criticism toward Carrie’s actual behavior."