OPINION:
Once upon a time, “Sex and the City” was a well-written show. I know, because as a straight guy who was single when it aired, I was often held captive by the women I dated to watch it. In time, Stockholm syndrome took hold, and I started to wonder what was going to happen between Carrie and Mr. Big.
What made “SATC” tolerable for male hostages like me was that its dialogues and relationships were believable. Its storylines were based on what people really do, not what society dictates they should do.
This was never more evident than when Jack Berger, a motorcycling journalist dating Carrie, shocked the world when he candidly told Miranda the real reason some guy wasn’t calling her.
“He’s just not that into you.”
This revelation horrified Miranda’s friends who all but prepared indictments against Jack for being insensitive, that is until Miranda admitted this brutal truth helped her come to terms with reality. The phrase went viral because it rang true to almost everyone.
At this memorable moment, “SATC” found its soul by prioritizing truth over sensitivity, a key element its sequel, “And Just Like That…” has abandoned. Instead of being about navigating how people really feel, it is a lesson in how to obey the new woke masters of the “caviar left.”
I sensed this radical shift in the “SATC” formula in the sequel’s first episode when Carrie’s new nonbinary colleague introduced themselves as “Che.” They deny a connection to Che Guevara, saying it’s just short for Cheryl, but the unnecessary dialogue and nickname was an obvious salute to a brutal murderer often depicted by Hollywood as a cool, pop-culture icon.
The real Che called gay men “sexual perverts” and helped establish Cuban forced labor camps that were eventually used to incarcerate gay men. Fidel Castro and Guevara both considered homosexuality “bourgeoisie decadence,” and the regime soon borrowed the Nazi’s Auschwitz motto, “Work sets you free,” by changing it to “Work will make you men.” Somehow, this disturbing irony was lost on the show’s writers.
On Miranda’s first day of graduate school, she apologizes to her Black professor after making a harmless comment on her braids, suddenly fearing the comment may be racist. Instead, she gets reprimanded by a classmate for identifying them with the pronoun, “he.” When she sees her professor on the subway platform, Miranda lashes out against the Trump travel ban, which she mislabels “the Muslim ban” and disavows her corporate law past, saying she “couldn’t be part of the problem anymore.”
Poor Charlotte, the elegant and otherwise conservative WASP of the group, gets schooled by her 12-year-old daughter who reveals she doesn’t like being called a “girl.” Her other, (adopted) Asian-American daughter lectures her for having a “racist” international doll collection.
When Charlotte and her husband learn their “gender-fluid” daughter has changed her name to “Rock,” at school, they meet with officials who explain that, “in matters such as this, we take our cues from the children.” The two parents leave their daughter’s school, the father wondering if their 12-year-old is capable of making such a serious life choice or if, dare he suggests, this is just “for attention.”
Oh, those poor, confused, white heterosexual parents. They thought they had rights. Of course a 12-year-old knows best. Hopefully in time, they can learn from a seventh-grader and omnipotent school how to conform to today’s gender-neutral world. In the next episode, Charlotte capitulates and calls her 12-year-old by the new name sending the message that children and school officials know best.
Later, after Miranda admits to Carrie she had an extramarital lesbian tryst with Che, the credits roll to Grace VanderWaal singing, “I can see clearly now the rain is gone, I accept all the things I cannot change,” implying that sexual orientation and gender are, in fact, changeable.
Perhaps what’s most annoying about this absolutely God-awful show, apart from it not at all being funny, is that its characters’ woke lectures are really directed to the viewer, a radical reeducation program from the caviar left aimed at “saving” misguided white heterosexuals in their journey to repent and conform into a brave new (woke) world.
To this end, the show is not completely irredeemable as it does its viewers a service by depicting the reality of just how hypocritical and obnoxious liberal elites are. After all, what could be more accurate than a bunch of Ivy League-educated white Manhattanites talking about racial oppression over lavish dinner parties in penthouses while complaining about owning too many Prada shoes?
Inadvertently, the writers could not have done a better job in illustrating just how vomitous and hypocritical liberal elite high society has become.
“And Just Like That…” isn’t really a television situation comedy. It’s an unimaginative propaganda vehicle for the radical left’s generic woke message that if you’re having problems in your life it can only be because of three reasons: You’ve spent years in denial about really being gay, you need to transition your gender, or you finally accept that since you were born white you must be a racist — because then, and only then, can you find absolution, inner peace and harmony from your natural-born disability of heterosexual whiteness.
Thanks, HBO, but I’m just not that into it.
• Jeffrey Scott Shapiro served as an assistant attorney general for the District of Columbia from 2007 to 2009. He is a practicing lawyer and the assistant commentary editor for The Washington Times.
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