31: Carrie Bradshaw and Carrie Bradshaw

Carrie Bradshaw. In the wake of my New Year's Resolutioning and the continuing horror of my Word-A-Day calendar (it's trying to teach me the words 'phlegm' and 'gambol.' I'm a week of one and two syllable words away from setting that bitch on fire), I have been thinking a lot about Carrie Bradshaw.

I was (FINALLY) linked to the Emily Nussbaum article, "Difficult Women" and got really into her discussion of Carrie as an anti-hero, because everyone who has re-watched the show at least once knows that Carrie is the worst person in the world*.

The first watch-through you see the world through Manolo Blahnik coloured glasses: everything is beautiful and nothing hurts; crop tops work with tutus OR overalls and you can wear them in the coldest seasons because cabs are a third of the price that they are in Canada.  The horrible relationships are fun and cutesy, because they come peppered with puns and euphemistic nicknames.

When in actuality, she is just the friend who lets this happen. In so many less obvious, metaphorical ways and then in this exact way, where you're naked, immobile on the floor and she sends her boyfriend to help you. Because in her mind, what's the difference? And she'll cheat on that boyfriend/fiance, and she'll let a Russian hottie fall down the stairs and break her face open and she'll do countless other crappy things, but those things mean less, because those people mean less.  

Now, I have always fallen hard for awesome female friendships in television shows. It's the only thing that explains my deep Grey's Anatomy adoration. And to add to that,  I am a total fig newton. So the only way I would like Sex and the City more is if it was called Friendship and the City, but that's not as sexy an HBO title and really sounds more like what Whitney Port's MTV show should have been called.

It's the friend betrayal in Sex and the City that stings the most. How could you do that to someone who trusts you so completely, shows you herself at her lowest, and is vulnerable enough to call you and confess when she's eating chocolate cake out of a garbage can?

"Your good friend has just taken a piece of cake out of the garbage and eaten it. You will probably need this information when you check me into the Betty Crocker Clinic." 

- Miranda 4.04 What's Sex Got To Do With It

And so I have fallen in love with The Carrie Diaries. It's all the whimsy and fun fashion choices without the heft and righteous indignation. Friendship... and screencapping outfits!**

Angry Carrie! and look overalls! Always a good choice.

She's wearing a rainbow slightly off shoulder tee with floral overalls and pastel blue nailpolish in a scene where she is suffering from food poisoning and yelling to her ex-boyfriend about her broken heart.  Because why not? It's not that serious. Of course, it's the most serious thing in the world, because it's Carrie Bradshaw's love life and she's a classic narcissist, but it's also not.

The Carrie Diaries embraces all the parts about Carrie that you saw in that first viewing. She's open and assertive enough to get the things she wants, but she's still calling Gossip columnists to retract the hurtful rumours she started. She goes after the things and people she loves and for the first time she is actually totally into a guy who MAKES HER A BETTER PERSON! She's Kelly Ripa and June Colburn and every optimistic person you can't help but love and wish you could be more like. She's a tiny spitfire with electric curls.  She likes her friends and she likes her 'enemies' and she... just likes everyone and is super swell to them all! Her bratty little sister has sex in her bed and it turns into a bonding moment.

The Carrie Diaries is not trying to be game changing television or equal to its prequel/sequel/whatever Sex and the City's relation is to it. It's the marshmallowy soft parts. It isn't canon, but it's using Sex and the City plot points wherever it's fun to do so. I don't care that Carrie Diaries Carrie didn't lose her virginity to Seth Bateman on a ping-pong table in a rec room like Sex and the City Carrie and yet I care a whole hella lot that she lost her virginity to Adam Weaver on a foosball table in a rec room. It's just enough to cement her as Carrie, no matter if it's Purse Carrie or Necklace Carrie.

2014 Nevena wants to have that carefree Carrie Bradshaw spirit.  So, I bought a pair of overalls and I'm gonna forgive that little sucker for today's "catchpole". I guess I have been using it in the wrong context.  

*slight hyperbole.
** it doesn't fit into the topic of discussion, so as not to detract from that I will put it in a double asterix afterthought. The true shining moment The Carrie Diaries is actually that there is a character called Donna LaDonna. Naturally she is Sam Jones' cousin and naturally she is fabulous.