Can SATC’s Carrie be Jewish this time? - The Jewish Chronicle

You could call Sex and the City a “Jewish show” and I would be inclined to agree. From the cast, to the dialogue and even the setting. The setting was New York — home to the largest Jewish community in the world outside Israel — and it captured that energy, wit and glamour in every scene and line of dialogue. And I’m sure the much anticipated spin off series, And Just Like That, hitting our screens later this year, will do the same. But being a Jewish show, it comes with its own Jewish issues (don’t we all?) especially when it comes to how the community is depicted — or not, as the case may be.

The most obvious example is Sarah Jessica Parker —she is a Jewish actress yet her alter ego Carrie Bradshaw is not. Even though it would have made complete sense, given Carrie’s personality. Her impulsiveness, passion and love of glamour and style — as captured by the show’s Jewish writers such as Cindy Chupack and creator Darren Star — were spot on. Star even admitted as much, remarking in an interview “[Carrie] wasn’t specifically written as a Jewish character, because there was a universality to her, but a lot of her qualities people would attribute to someone who is Jewish. But it wasn’t necessary to define her as any religion.” This strikes me as a strange comment as obviously it’s not just about religion. Carrie’s Jewish qualities hit home and Parker brought them beautifully to life , which is why so many of us related to her. Yet looking back, her apparent Jewishness — in any sense of the word — is never touched upon. It reminds me of Dirty Dancing, a film is so Jewish it hurts, yet which shies away from ever bringing it up.)

But perhaps the most overtly troubling characters are Charlotte, who marries Jewish lawyer Harry. She’s the Episcopalian “Park Avenue Princess” trophy wife — positioned as every Jewish man’s dream.

Obviously Charlotte’s story of converting for marriage rings true for a lot of people. And the depiction of her conversion to Judaism was praised for its accuracy and gave many viewers an insight into Jewish life and religion they’d never had before — a surprising gear change for a show famous for sex, Cosmos and Manolos. But it’s the way these two were positioned as Beauty and the Beast that felt like there’s a lot to unpack.

Much was made of Harry being unattractive. Charlotte was initially repulsed by him, but fell in love despite his “ogreish’ appearance, seduced by the fact that he completely worships her. She even snaps at him during an argument, “Do you know what people are thinking when they look at us together? Do you?” And Harry’s attitude reeks of self-hatred: “Who would have thought a shiksa goddess like you would fall for a putz like me?” And let’s not forget Sex and the City 2, when the women go to Abu Dhabi, Charlotte is eager to drop ‘Goldenblatt’ and use her maiden name rather than face any possible antisemitism.

This isn’t a case of Jewish people being wrongfully or insensitively portrayed by non-Jewish writers. But you can still have blind spots even when writing about your own people. In Friends, co-created by Marta Kauffman, we see flashbacks of “spoilt Jewish princess” Rachel Green with a comically huge nose that she later gets ‘fixed’. Even dramatisations like Unorthodox and Disobedience — adaptations of books by Jewish authors — still manage to produce one-dimensional portrayals of the ‘backwards’ and ‘oppressive’ Orthodox community (made apparent when compared to more nuanced shows about the same topic, like Shtisel).

With antisemitism firmly in the spotlight, I really hope the new spin-off might deal with SATC’s Jewish themes beyond religion. They could explore how Charlotte and Harry’s daughters Lily and Rose feel about their Jewishness (I hope they give Rose frizzy, curly hair but this is probably asking too much). Or Carrie, whose family we never hear about, could ‘discover’ she is in fact Jewish (who knew?) and devote some time to exploring that as a 50-something woman embarking on a new chapter. Given that we now have shows like The Marvellous Mrs Maisel, where celebrating Jewishness and New York go hand-in-hand, it will be interesting to see if And Just Like That can approach the topic with a little more sensitivity and chutzpah than the iconic show that preceded it.