Viraldice: #WokeCharlotte Is the ‘Sex and the City’ Meme You Never Knew You Needed but Now Won’t Be Able to Live Without

ince its inception in 1998, Sex and the City has been a classic of television – a sort of time cinematic capsule preserving the era's hopes, dreams, and ambitions. Through the four girlfriends, Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda, Sex and the City examined the zeitgeist of the early aughts, with its emphasis on luxury, glamour, and Manolo Blahnicks.

It also, unfortunately, preserved the most problematic aspects of the era. As noted by many a pop culture observer, Sex and the City was rife with classism, racism, homophobia and transphobia.

The SATC girlfriends, while ostensibly openminded and accepting New Yorkers, were also prone to the worst gaffes that only a bunch of rich white women with disposable incomes could make.

Take, for instance, that time Carrie, a sex columnist, called bisexuality a “layover to gaytown.”

Problematic, right?

How about the curious lack of people of color on the show? Yes, there were a few people of color, but they were more caricatures – sketches – than they were actual characters.

Did they lock 99.7% of all the black people out of New York City while filming Sex and the City? Banish them to the Bronx? Brooklyn? 🤔

— ravenwilkinson (@ravennwilkinson) November 15, 2017

As Hunter Harris explains in an article for Refinery 29,

[SATC] was a show that was simultaneously progressive and regressive, where people of color were either stereotypes or punchlines. Even when Samantha or Miranda — never Carrie or Charlotte — shared their bed with a Black or Latino suitor the lead characters’ empathy or curiosity never expanded beyond stereotypical observations whispered amongst their narrow, white social circles. New York was the main character on a show that featured only one type of New Yorker.