SATC: what is it that Big found hard to handle about Carrie?

[Anonymous]

Is "complicated" a code word for "head case"? Then yeah I can see him not wanting to marry her. Men aren't hard to figure out, the vast majority just want a woman that's easy on the eyes and easy to get along with. We never saw much about Natasha's personal life because then Carrie would have had to admit her own issues. It's easier for her to assume Natasha is a simpleton Barbie doll and Big is shallow.

+1

All we knew about Natasha was that she was tall, gorgeous and didn't dress like a Gwen Stefani impersonator. How dare she fall in love with a guy and marry him! Who did she thing she was!! Big told Carrie that he was bored which quickly got her into bed. Cheating with the same person over time doesn't make that person "the one". The affair in their apartment in their marital bed was my bridge too far.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Carrie was so dumb, for being in their 30s/40s she and Big had such an immature relationship. The time I most wanted to reach through the screen and shake her was the episode where Big freaked out about her leaving personal items at his place. Even my high school boyfriend let me leave a hairbrush at his parents' house. It should have been such a wake up call for her, textbook case of He's Just Not That Into You.

+1

I don't know. I had a 30-something boyfriend who freaked out when I brought a hairdryer over. Those kind of guys are out there.

Was he married?

What? No. Neither was Big when Carrie was carrying around her toothbrush and underwear in her purse.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Apart from being a self absored drama queen with the intellectual capacity of a rubber tree plant, she was also not in Big's social class--and it showed. He didn't really want to marry "down", and that was Natasha.

I always thought it was funny that Big was supposed to be of a higher social class, especially his attendance with Mah-Mah at an Episcopalian church. He looked like any other Manhattan striver out of CCNY or St John's Charlotte's first husband had the patrician manner and air totally missing from Big. I thought he and Carrie looks and acted from the same class.

Yes, I agree (I'm the one who wrote the comment above), but the writers made a point of it several times. He wasn't as well cast as Charlotte's husband in that sense. But he did still manage to come across as slightly less crass than Carrie.

Completely agree re: casting choices, but to be fair, the bolded is easy to do for just about everyone.

[Anonymous]

They both seemed like rather vacuous assholes.

[Anonymous]

The show was too much like a wishful romance novel/wet dream for your average aging, selfish, dramatic, gold-digging, horse-faced woman who can't land a man.

Daaaaaayum!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Trey is old money wealthy. His family is wealthy, probably from multiple generations of wealth. He went to top schools and got a nice paying job as a doctor.

Big is new money wealthy. He didn't come from wealth (or only modestly wealthy), but went to school and got a very high paying job in NYC.

It's pretty apparent that they were differentiating between old and new money with these two characters.

Trey and Char are both old money as reflected in their priorities and mannerisms.

Carrie is a LMC trashy gold digger who wouldn't know class if it hit her in the face. Her obsession with name brand items; lack of financial sense; lewd behavior; socialing in dirty clubs and lust for rich men signify her poor tacky taste. She thinks spending money you do not have on name brand goods you do not need is the epitome of elegance and Mr Big, a gauche NYC Wall Street striver is the be all of class and dignity.

I think Big married Natasha because he, like Carrie, is a social climber who needed to marry into class in order to fit in and attain social legitimacy.He's a smart guy, he knows the kind of women rich men marry. It is his social climbing ways that made him run away from a commitment to carry for almost a decdsfe. As much as he enjoyed their trsyts and her company, for a long time her status as the sex columisny splashed across the side of the bus was a serious deal breaker for him.

He and Carrie are alike; they are both outsiders who came to NYC in search for glamour and riches. They have these fantasies of "old New York" based on movies and music and each try to act like how they think elegant New Yorkers should act like. Annoying Strivers. He only settled for Carrie when he realized his time was running out and that he had aged out of the competitive marriage market he had tentatively dipped his toes in earlier. They are sort of made for each other.

I don't think of Carrie as LMC or brand-obsessed. Fashion obsessed, yes. She was well read, a writer, and completed the NYT crossword puzzles... Also don't think Big was a NYC outsider. The show kept him a mystery, but we know he went to an Episcopalian church with his mother in a fancy neighborhood, so I think we know he came from money. Also, there was one episode where he runs into old friends (I think when he fails to introduce Carrie), and they talk about backpacking or skiing across Europe when younger. I picture him as a NYC prep school or boarding school type and Princeton grad.

No way. He's NJ commuter town who went into finance and thinks his towncar is amazing.

+1

I don't understand where posters are getting that he was supposed to be old money. He was new money.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Trey is old money wealthy. His family is wealthy, probably from multiple generations of wealth. He went to top schools and got a nice paying job as a doctor.

Big is new money wealthy. He didn't come from wealth (or only modestly wealthy), but went to school and got a very high paying job in NYC.

It's pretty apparent that they were differentiating between old and new money with these two characters.

Trey and Char are both old money as reflected in their priorities and mannerisms.

Carrie is a LMC trashy gold digger who wouldn't know class if it hit her in the face. Her obsession with name brand items; lack of financial sense; lewd behavior; socialing in dirty clubs and lust for rich men signify her poor tacky taste. She thinks spending money you do not have on name brand goods you do not need is the epitome of elegance and Mr Big, a gauche NYC Wall Street striver is the be all of class and dignity.

I think Big married Natasha because he, like Carrie, is a social climber who needed to marry into class in order to fit in and attain social legitimacy.He's a smart guy, he knows the kind of women rich men marry. It is his social climbing ways that made him run away from a commitment to carry for almost a decdsfe. As much as he enjoyed their trsyts and her company, for a long time her status as the sex columisny splashed across the side of the bus was a serious deal breaker for him.

He and Carrie are alike; they are both outsiders who came to NYC in search for glamour and riches. They have these fantasies of "old New York" based on movies and music and each try to act like how they think elegant New Yorkers should act like. Annoying Strivers. He only settled for Carrie when he realized his time was running out and that he had aged out of the competitive marriage market he had tentatively dipped his toes in earlier. They are sort of made for each other.

I don't think of Carrie as LMC or brand-obsessed. Fashion obsessed, yes. She was well read, a writer, and completed the NYT crossword puzzles... Also don't think Big was a NYC outsider. The show kept him a mystery, but we know he went to an Episcopalian church with his mother in a fancy neighborhood, so I think we know he came from money. Also, there was one episode where he runs into old friends (I think when he fails to introduce Carrie), and they talk about backpacking or skiing across Europe when younger. I picture him as a NYC prep school or boarding school type and Princeton grad.

What? How does anything about Carrie's behavior, tastes and disposition show that she grew up in a nice family with means and comfort? She knows nothing about personal finance, hasn't developed a cultivated sense for literature or fashion, both of which she claims to be an expert. She is supposed to be a writer but each of her pieces read awfully and had shallow points made about the relationship between the sexes. Have you ever seen her read Dante's Inferno or Harper's Magazine?

Big was clearly an outsider and a loner. He probably spent his youth working his way up the financial world and now deems people he grew up with too lowly for his company.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Trey is old money wealthy. His family is wealthy, probably from multiple generations of wealth. He went to top schools and got a nice paying job as a doctor.

Big is new money wealthy. He didn't come from wealth (or only modestly wealthy), but went to school and got a very high paying job in NYC.

It's pretty apparent that they were differentiating between old and new money with these two characters.

Where did the show reveal that Big was new money? The episode where he went to the Episcopalian church with his mother made him seem very old money. He always seemed to be connected, too...and the 24/7 driver. Also, his name was John James Preston. I think both he and Trey were old money, and that is why Big wound up with Natasha. He just wasn't as stuffy as Trey. We don't learn as much about his background bc he was supposed to remain a mystery.

I agree--I never got the impression that Big was new money/striver class. His mother lives in Manhattan, too, and she's Episcopalian and very well-dressed--this was signalling on the part of the writers.

He didn't want to marry Carrie because I didn't think he could bring her home to mom. That whole Big's mom episode was him being embarrassed by her.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Trey is old money wealthy. His family is wealthy, probably from multiple generations of wealth. He went to top schools and got a nice paying job as a doctor.

Big is new money wealthy. He didn't come from wealth (or only modestly wealthy), but went to school and got a very high paying job in NYC.

It's pretty apparent that they were differentiating between old and new money with these two characters.

Trey and Char are both old money as reflected in their priorities and mannerisms.

Carrie is a LMC trashy gold digger who wouldn't know class if it hit her in the face. Her obsession with name brand items; lack of financial sense; lewd behavior; socialing in dirty clubs and lust for rich men signify her poor tacky taste. She thinks spending money you do not have on name brand goods you do not need is the epitome of elegance and Mr Big, a gauche NYC Wall Street striver is the be all of class and dignity.

I think Big married Natasha because he, like Carrie, is a social climber who needed to marry into class in order to fit in and attain social legitimacy.He's a smart guy, he knows the kind of women rich men marry. It is his social climbing ways that made him run away from a commitment to carry for almost a decdsfe. As much as he enjoyed their trsyts and her company, for a long time her status as the sex columisny splashed across the side of the bus was a serious deal breaker for him.

He and Carrie are alike; they are both outsiders who came to NYC in search for glamour and riches. They have these fantasies of "old New York" based on movies and music and each try to act like how they think elegant New Yorkers should act like. Annoying Strivers. He only settled for Carrie when he realized his time was running out and that he had aged out of the competitive marriage market he had tentatively dipped his toes in earlier. They are sort of made for each other.

I don't think of Carrie as LMC or brand-obsessed. Fashion obsessed, yes. She was well read, a writer, and completed the NYT crossword puzzles... Also don't think Big was a NYC outsider. The show kept him a mystery, but we know he went to an Episcopalian church with his mother in a fancy neighborhood, so I think we know he came from money. Also, there was one episode where he runs into old friends (I think when he fails to introduce Carrie), and they talk about backpacking or skiing across Europe when younger. I picture him as a NYC prep school or boarding school type and Princeton grad.

No way. He's NJ commuter town who went into finance and thinks his towncar is amazing.

But then what explains his mother's church being in Manhattan?

[Anonymous]

Well, according to Wiki:

According to accounts in the press, the Mr. Big character was based on publishing executive Ron Galotti, former publisher of GQ and Talk. Bushnell told New York Magazine in 2004, "He was one of those New York guys with a big personality — you just notice him as soon as he walks in the room," and "I called him Mr. Big because he was like a big man on campus."

And Ron Galotti's wiki page says:

The Bronx-born Galotti was raised in Peekskill, Westchester County, New York. His parents ran a liquor store. Young Ron raised chickens and earned a five-year 4-H pin from the Yorktown Grange. Galotti's father died when Ron was nine years old. After barely managing to graduate high school, he enrolled in the Air Force, at the height of the Vietnam War. He was stationed for more than 3 years in the Philippines, rising to the rank of sergeant. He earned income by loan-sharking and later opened a brothel with the usury proceeds. While at Vogue, he and his editor in chief, Anna Wintour, once retaliated against an anti-fur protest by PETA outside the Condé Nast offices during the company's annual Christmas party by sending down a plate of roast beef.

I think it's safe to say the series writers were mixing their signals. The mother we meet in the series didn't seem to come from that background.

[Anonymous]

Retcon. It doesn't HAVE TO make sense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I love that we're still talking about this show over a decade later. Not sarcasm, just shows how powerful this series was to a lot of us!

It was powerful. It made tons of young women think it was fine to sleep around like Carrie and everything would work out. That dating requires you to sleep around. That it's normal to hang around for a man who won't commit. I swear I have friends stil single in Manhattan because of that show.

That's sad. I was in my 20's when the show was popular and I always took the sleeping around on the show for what it was, the show. It made for some crazy storylines and definitely got people talking.

As for the men who won't commit part, I'd say the show influenced me NOT to put up with bullshit like that. I was livid when she stayed with him after he left her at the altar. He always treated her like a side piece.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Trey is old money wealthy. His family is wealthy, probably from multiple generations of wealth. He went to top schools and got a nice paying job as a doctor.

Big is new money wealthy. He didn't come from wealth (or only modestly wealthy), but went to school and got a very high paying job in NYC.

It's pretty apparent that they were differentiating between old and new money with these two characters.

Where did the show reveal that Big was new money? The episode where he went to the Episcopalian church with his mother made him seem very old money. He always seemed to be connected, too...and the 24/7 driver. Also, his name was John James Preston. I think both he and Trey were old money, and that is why Big wound up with Natasha. He just wasn't as stuffy as Trey. We don't learn as much about his background bc he was supposed to remain a mystery.

I agree--I never got the impression that Big was new money/striver class. His mother lives in Manhattan, too, and she's Episcopalian and very well-dressed--this was signalling on the part of the writers.

He didn't want to marry Carrie because I didn't think he could bring her home to mom. That whole Big's mom episode was him being embarrassed by her.

+2. The show didn't write him as "new money. " The episode with his mother at church indicated that he was supposed to be from old money, or at least that his mother had money. Agree that he was prep school/ivy. Carrie didn't fit into that scene, but Natasha did. The fact that he had a driver became part of his character and factored into several scenes with Carrie.

[Anonymous]

I love this thread. What else about SATC can we talk about? Not the movies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I love that we're still talking about this show over a decade later. Not sarcasm, just shows how powerful this series was to a lot of us!

It was powerful. It made tons of young women think it was fine to sleep around like Carrie and everything would work out. That dating requires you to sleep around. That it's normal to hang around for a man who won't commit. I swear I have friends stil single in Manhattan because of that show.

It also made women my mother's age (at the time 55) start wearing clothes typically only seen on 25 year olds going to the club and talking openly about sex. It was a rather dramatic change in my mom's case. I remember one friend's wedding where she showed up wearing a too short and too tight cocktail dress with 4 inch heels and long dangly earrings. I said mom, seriously. You're not Carrie.
She's back to her St. John suits now.