It may be popular to call Sex and the City ‘problematic’ – but it remains relevant for many women

Sex and the City has enjoyed the heady heights of critical acclaim, then reached the bottom of the barrel of general disdain in the 20 years since it first hit screens.

The show was hailed as a groundbreaking portrayal of life for (a very small, privileged group of) single women at the turn of the century, and by the time its final episode aired, millions of people were hooked.

In the years following the finale, however, SATC has become more known for how problematic its characters, themes and storylines are in hindsight.

And it’s true – there are big problems with the show, which should have been picked up on before it ever even aired. Why did it focus on four white women? It was set in one of the most diverse cities in the world, did it never occur to the production team that it might be an idea to include someone of a different ethnicity? There’s barely even any representation throughout the show’s hundreds of secondary characters.

Not to mention the different body types, economic and social spheres it failed to represent.

Then there’s the biphobia, the lack of awareness around wealth (it’s been asked before, but HOW does Carrie fund her lifestyle on one column a week?), and just the general air of living within a truly metropolitan elite bubble.

But to write it off completely is to ignore all the ways in which the show had an impact. Before SATC was broadcast, there weren’t many major series that focused on the lives of women, with men only ever serving as foils to the female protagonists. There still aren’t, for that matter, but the situation has improved. Would the hilarious Broad City exist if SATC hadn’t preceded it? I’d say probably not. They’ve sent it up, of course, and the duo spend a lot less time discussing the men they are dating, but Ilana and Abbi are the woke Carrie and co millennials were crying out for.

This is clear to see in the way the women in Broad City – and elsewhere – own their sexuality; SATC paved the way for women being seen to discuss openly their proclivities and peccadillos in a way we’d never seen before.

While the characters were typically discussed by commentators as though they occupied four distinct points along the sexuality spectrum, going from prudish to proudly promiscuous, really they were portrayed as being more complex in their attitudes to sex, just like human women everywhere. That was truly groundbreaking, and a real step forwards for films and TV made for and about women.

This is the crux of why, ultimately, I think SATC still has value. There was a reality to it, despite the gloss, and while it failed to address many issues, is there a series about which you can’t say the same? It was a show about a group of women living and dating in New York, and it actually threw off more stereotypes than it adhered to.

Yes, it was infuriating that Carrie never took responsibility for her financial failures, and the finale let her off the hook with a rich boyfriend swooping in to save her and her bank balance, but it was still refreshing to see a female character written to be so unlikeable at times – self-centred, obsessive and whiny, she was recognisable as the kind of person we can all be sometimes. Also new and different was the fact that she never aimed for the cookie-cutter husband and twin babies ending that so often awaits fictional heroines.

It often appears that there is a higher bar for women-focused art to meet, as if there’s an assumed silliness that runs so deep it can’t be taken seriously. This is true of books, where a huge chunk of women’s fiction is termed chick-lit and seen as nothing more than fluff, while there is no equivalent for men. Rom-coms, in the main aimed at women, are routinely denigrated by critics and viewers alike, despite being a hugely popular genre and often very clever, insightful films.

And the same applies to Sex and the City. It deserves a lot of criticism, but not nearly as much as it gets, and it should be appreciated for what it is, not just pilloried for what it failed to be.

Of course, that’s only true of the TV series. The movies are trash.