Anonymous
04/30/2025 18:00
Subject: SATC: what is it that Big found hard to handle about Carrie?
Was Big genuinely super rich? I haven't watched the show in maybe 20 years. I know he had a driver driving him around in black sedans or limos but I don't recall them showing his penthouse or vacation homes, did they?
Anonymous
04/30/2025 16:42
Subject: SATC: what is it that Big found hard to handle about Carrie?
Anonymous wrote:Carrie and Big defined the 2000s and contributed greatly to the erosion of dating, marriage, and American values.
1) A chauffeured loner is supposed to be a "cool finance guy." He's not. He's an uncharismatic dork doing a Gordon Gekko impression.
2) A middle aged shrew advice columnist nobody reads is the "hot girl." She's not.
3) Their on-again/off-again sometimes f buddies, sometimes just phone pals crap is mockery of family values. It was the vangard for gen-x and millennial quasi-polyamorous floating listlessly through life.
4) They're not funny. Think of the funniest thing either one of them did. Can you think of *anything*? Even throw in Charlotte and Sam. In retrospect, I'm struggling to think of one time the cast made me smirk. It later evolved to, we're all just watching for the...hideous fashion and to see if Big will ever marry the shrew?
5) After breaking women's brains with SATC, they salted the earth with a few movies and now this senior citizen 'just like that' streaming series. "Just do whatever, girl bosses focus on career and shoes and vodka cocktails, family can wait, we're so fun, quirky and hard to please hehe"...how is this aspirational again?
Brunch granny, you always overestimate the influence of a show like this.
You should go back and rewatch the early seasons. It was very funny. Carrie was widely read. Do you think she earned enough from her column because no one read her?
Anonymous
04/30/2025 16:37
Subject: SATC: what is it that Big found hard to handle about Carrie?
Carrie and Big defined the 2000s and contributed greatly to the erosion of dating, marriage, and American values.
1) A chauffeured loner is supposed to be a "cool finance guy." He's not. He's an uncharismatic dork doing a Gordon Gekko impression.
2) A middle aged shrew advice columnist nobody reads is the "hot girl." She's not.
3) Their on-again/off-again sometimes f buddies, sometimes just phone pals crap is mockery of family values. It was the vangard for gen-x and millennial quasi-polyamorous floating listlessly through life.
4) They're not funny. Think of the funniest thing either one of them did. Can you think of *anything*? Even throw in Charlotte and Sam. In retrospect, I'm struggling to think of one time the cast made me smirk. It later evolved to, we're all just watching for the...hideous fashion and to see if Big will ever marry the shrew?
5) After breaking women's brains with SATC, they salted the earth with a few movies and now this senior citizen 'just like that' streaming series. "Just do whatever, girl bosses focus on career and shoes and vodka cocktails, family can wait, we're so fun, quirky and hard to please hehe"...how is this aspirational again?
1) A chauffeured loner is supposed to be a "cool finance guy." He's not. He's an uncharismatic dork doing a Gordon Gekko impression.
2) A middle aged shrew advice columnist nobody reads is the "hot girl." She's not.
3) Their on-again/off-again sometimes f buddies, sometimes just phone pals crap is mockery of family values. It was the vangard for gen-x and millennial quasi-polyamorous floating listlessly through life.
4) They're not funny. Think of the funniest thing either one of them did. Can you think of *anything*? Even throw in Charlotte and Sam. In retrospect, I'm struggling to think of one time the cast made me smirk. It later evolved to, we're all just watching for the...hideous fashion and to see if Big will ever marry the shrew?
5) After breaking women's brains with SATC, they salted the earth with a few movies and now this senior citizen 'just like that' streaming series. "Just do whatever, girl bosses focus on career and shoes and vodka cocktails, family can wait, we're so fun, quirky and hard to please hehe"...how is this aspirational again?
Anonymous
04/30/2025 11:10
Subject: SATC: what is it that Big found hard to handle about Carrie?
Her whole aura gave off damaged goods energy. That’s what happens when you don’t marry in your mid or late 20s - you become nutty and full of emotional and mental baggage and prior trauma from your countless failed relationships and one-night stands.
Anonymous
04/29/2025 19:58
Subject: SATC: what is it that Big found hard to handle about Carrie?
She was needy and he was damaged. Bingo.
Anonymous
04/29/2025 19:54
Subject: Re:SATC: what is it that Big found hard to handle about Carrie?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:She was too complicated for him. He married Natasha because he wanted simple, uncomplicated arm candy. See the last episode of season 2.
I think that is the explanation that makes the most sense but what I am wondering is, what is so dang complicated about her that he keeps running from? She doesn't seem complicated to me. In the early seasons, her main interests were Big, her girlfriends, fashion, going out, and writing her column. She wasn't even that into her career (they make her more into a "career woman" after she starts writing her first book).
And he later decides he's all in just because she left NY for Paris?
It's very confusing and sends a mixed message to female viewers.
It’s confusing because they ruined the character by having him want her when she went to Paris. They would’ve never ended up together.
Anonymous
04/29/2025 19:41
Subject: SATC: what is it that Big found hard to handle about Carrie?
The show is so cringe. Didn’t age well at all. Neurotic ugly shallow middle aged women whoring around Manhattan until they’re 40. How aspirational…
Anonymous
04/29/2025 18:00
Subject: Re:SATC: what is it that Big found hard to handle about Carrie?
Anonymous wrote:The part where he leaves her at the altar in the first movie is a bridge too far for me. After all their breakups and reunions and the growth he shows over 6 seasons, I don't think he would do that. Yes he might get scared and freaked out but you don't leave someone at the altar in front of ~ 300 guests. Decent people just don't do that.
Eh he had a moment, and she was so wrapped up in herself and her fancy dress that when he reached out, she blew him off. She didn't consider his feelings at all through the whole marriage planning thing.
Anonymous
04/29/2025 17:37
Subject: SATC: what is it that Big found hard to handle about Carrie?
I've never thought Charlotte was "old money" as much as people say. I think she probably grew up UMC. If she were old money, she would have met someone like Trey much sooner than 34 and she wouldn't have been shocked by the prenup.
Anonymous
04/29/2025 17:33
Subject: SATC: what is it that Big found hard to handle about Carrie?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:lAnonymous wrote:I love this thread. What else about SATC can we talk about? Not the movies.
Trey is getting a bad rap in this thread for being stiff and boring but so was Charlotte. They were equally matched IMO.
Speaking of those 2, something that always bugged me was him giving her the apartment in the divorce. That was prime real estate and had been in his family for generations - and he gives her the house, where she moves her new husband in and has a family there.
Trey and Charlotte couldn't have been married more than 15 months and that includes a separation. I'm usually not team MIL, but Bunny really should have pulled out the big guns, maybe had Trey declared insane - whatever it took to put a stop to that nonsense.
Ha! I think he felt guilty about his "issues".
Exactly. He realized he didn't hold up his end of the marital bargain. He knew she wanted a full sexual partner and children. This was the best he could give her to "make her whole."
Yep. He was just a decent guy. I always liked Trey. Char must've made millions out of this short marriage!
She did, and then to smugly say "Oh, I earned that apartment" because she gave a guy a few blow jobs is insane.
She didn't owe Carrie the money but she owed Carrie sympathy and concern as her friend. But she wouldn't talk about money in public because "it's impolite" (coming from a woman who talked about licking her dh's ahole over lunch). No wonder Carrie snapped at her.
Anonymous
04/29/2025 17:31
Subject: Re:SATC: what is it that Big found hard to handle about Carrie?
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.
No. No. Trey was old money from generational wealth. Big was self-made in finance with UMC wealthy parents (but not family office sort of money). Many wall st. bankers had black cars the firm would expense out for late nights at the office so that’s a moot point
This is never stated explicitly in the show but people who consider them experts throw around terms like "old money" and "new money" when in reality it doesn't matter. "Omg he wore flashy suits so he must be new money!" coming from someone with no money.
Anonymous
04/29/2025 17:30
Subject: SATC: what is it that Big found hard to handle about Carrie?
Carrie gets a bad rap because she could be super annoying. Other than the cheating she truly didn't do anything terrible. Don't tell me "Oh she was hung up on Big" counts as terrible because I know some of you did that in your 20s and 30s. Other than the cheating, what did she do that was bad.
People act like Charlotte can do no wrong because she's pretty when in reality she was also annoying. Half the scenes she's in, Miranda, Samantha, and Carrie are trying to have a serious conversation and Charlotte's in the background waving her arms around and screeching in a high pitched voice. I found her just as selfish as Carrie, she just didn't cheat. (Oh, wait, she did, but it's always overlooked.)
Samantha made for the best TV but was probably a sex addict using sex as a coping mechanism.
Miranda was the most true to life but she was a dumbass for tethering herself to Steve.
People act like Charlotte can do no wrong because she's pretty when in reality she was also annoying. Half the scenes she's in, Miranda, Samantha, and Carrie are trying to have a serious conversation and Charlotte's in the background waving her arms around and screeching in a high pitched voice. I found her just as selfish as Carrie, she just didn't cheat. (Oh, wait, she did, but it's always overlooked.)
Samantha made for the best TV but was probably a sex addict using sex as a coping mechanism.
Miranda was the most true to life but she was a dumbass for tethering herself to Steve.
Anonymous
04/29/2025 16:19
Subject: SATC: what is it that Big found hard to handle about Carrie?
Anonymous wrote:I'm re watching the series and wondering about this.
The first couple of seasons, they're back and forth, back and forth. You get the impression that Carrie wants a commitment and would marry him if he asked but Bif is your typical commitment phobe with FOMO. Ok makes sense.
But then he randomly marries Natasha? Who he couldn't have been dating for that long after Carrie. Wtf, I thought he was a commitment phobe? Then he conducts the affair with Carie, letting you think Carrie is really the woman he is in love with. Carrie leaves him because of the situation and humiliation of the scene with Natasha finding out and chasing them down the stairs and breaking her tooth but I do think that if Big had made his big romantic gesture at that point, a la the finale, she would have fallen into his arms. Then there's an episode in the 5th season where he reaches out to her, they have sex, and he gets scared again and retreats.
So his commitment issues were clearly related to Carrie in particular. What do you think it was about her that scared him? Any thoughts about this.
(I realize this is all fictional and I'm putting too much thought into this)
The show writers were neurotic gay Jewish men. That’s why it doesn’t make sense. See also Charlotte struggling to date well and settling for the bald guy at age 40 if whatever.
Anonymous
04/29/2025 15:53
Subject: Re:SATC: what is it that Big found hard to handle about Carrie?
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.
+1
SATC did an excellent job portraying NYers from different socioeconomic backgrounds.
Even though there was a social discrepancy between Big and Carrie, Big was not truly upper class. He was cosplaying as upper class socially due to likely having amassed wealth in his profession as a banker to compete with the upper classes.
Like Carrie he was a social climber and his choice of wife reflected that every time. Now that he wanted in , he targeted women from the NYC upper class.
The one-time appearance of his mother does raise questions, however, as she had the airs of someone who was upper class. Her behavior contradicts Big's ostentatious displays of wealth and status. So Maybe he Is supposed to also be upper class?
NP to this old thread. I read his mom at the church scene as once he made it big (I assumed IB/trader who had made it big in crazy days of the 80s--Big Swinging D*cks being the genesis of his name) he supported his mother who was MC from Long Island or NJ. Hence, her own "airs" in how she acted. She was "new rich." Unlike Trey's mother who had old New England wealth, including the Manhattan apartment that Charlotte got in the divorce settlement.
Anonymous
04/29/2025 15:32
Subject: SATC: what is it that Big found hard to handle about Carrie?
I'm pretty sure it was the shoes. No man wants a women who is that obsessed with shoes.