No One Wants to Be Miranda
There's a change that every girl must go through to be called a woman.
They must, from wherever and whenever they decide, watch every episode of Sex and the City from carefree ingenue season 1 to classic season 6, and both movies (although, the second movie can be watched once and forgotten). It's a rite of passage that allows you to move from the outer circle to the inner circle of girl, nay, WOMAN world.
You start as a youngin, allowed to stay up at your own discretion on weekends, watching SATC as TBS reruns. You don't quite get it, and you definitely have the volume down low, cause you know your mom would not approve. Then one day it clicks, and you begin to treat this show like the biblical rite of passage it is.
I guarantee that no matter where you are, in a group of girls there will either be a reference to, a discussion of, or a general understanding of Sex and the City. I can also guarantee that in any group of girlfriends, they have had the WYSATCC discussion: Whose Your Sex and the City Character? And, unless you really are a cliche, your answer will vary from group to group. Everyone knows, one group's Samantha is another group's Charlotte.
There is, however, a dislike of the character Miranda, the character I am most often classified as. She's the archetypal "strong woman" for our generation, and our older wiser sisters/friends/cousins. Any girl who shows any sort of feminist qualities, is labeled the Miranda. So why? WHY do we despair at being called Miranda? We certainly shouldn't, and yet we do.
I myself consider myself half Miranda, half Samantha (from the first movie of course), simply BECAUSE of their strong, independent personalities. Except, unlike Samantha, I do believe in settling down, and in true love. I think what people forget (as they are blinded by the short hair, the caustic attitude, and my god the shoulder pads), is that Miranda isn't manly. She's not the anti-woman, she's the modern woman.
Sure, she wears the worst clothing (if you like Charlotte's Stepford Wives style), is decidedly UN-romantic and frankly can be a bit mean, but she's also a badass. She's a kickass lawyer who marries the sweetest man, has a baby, keeps her friends, and stays true to her ideals WHILE proving that compromise can happen without forgetting yourself. She marries Steve, has a baby, and makes herself and him happy. She's a living example that women can have it all. And please, her clothing gets better. IT WAS THE 80s! I mean, can we talk about some of the outfits Carrie wears? But since it's Carrie we don't call it ugly, we call it quirky, or high fashion.
Miranda is a damn good friend, a damn good mother, and a damn good lover. She proves to women everywhere, that you DONT have to be the expected romantic, sappy, girly woman to get the happy ending. You can have the white picket fence, happy marriage and family without renouncing your badass feminist ways. Not every woman has to have the maternal instinct from the time they're 15 to be a good mother, and it doesn't make you any less of a woman.
I think, the fear of being labeled Miranda says more about us women, then it does the character. It says we're still not comfortable being labeled a feminist, if it means we're not still magazine-level pretty and secretly conform to all the things a 'typical' woman is meant to do.
The day we WANT to all be Miranda's is the day we all win.
I guarantee that no matter where you are, in a group of girls there will either be a reference to, a discussion of, or a general understanding of Sex and the City. I can also guarantee that in any group of girlfriends, they have had the WYSATCC discussion: Whose Your Sex and the City Character? And, unless you really are a cliche, your answer will vary from group to group. Everyone knows, one group's Samantha is another group's Charlotte.
There is, however, a dislike of the character Miranda, the character I am most often classified as. She's the archetypal "strong woman" for our generation, and our older wiser sisters/friends/cousins. Any girl who shows any sort of feminist qualities, is labeled the Miranda. So why? WHY do we despair at being called Miranda? We certainly shouldn't, and yet we do.
I myself consider myself half Miranda, half Samantha (from the first movie of course), simply BECAUSE of their strong, independent personalities. Except, unlike Samantha, I do believe in settling down, and in true love. I think what people forget (as they are blinded by the short hair, the caustic attitude, and my god the shoulder pads), is that Miranda isn't manly. She's not the anti-woman, she's the modern woman.
Sure, she wears the worst clothing (if you like Charlotte's Stepford Wives style), is decidedly UN-romantic and frankly can be a bit mean, but she's also a badass. She's a kickass lawyer who marries the sweetest man, has a baby, keeps her friends, and stays true to her ideals WHILE proving that compromise can happen without forgetting yourself. She marries Steve, has a baby, and makes herself and him happy. She's a living example that women can have it all. And please, her clothing gets better. IT WAS THE 80s! I mean, can we talk about some of the outfits Carrie wears? But since it's Carrie we don't call it ugly, we call it quirky, or high fashion.
Miranda is a damn good friend, a damn good mother, and a damn good lover. She proves to women everywhere, that you DONT have to be the expected romantic, sappy, girly woman to get the happy ending. You can have the white picket fence, happy marriage and family without renouncing your badass feminist ways. Not every woman has to have the maternal instinct from the time they're 15 to be a good mother, and it doesn't make you any less of a woman.
I think, the fear of being labeled Miranda says more about us women, then it does the character. It says we're still not comfortable being labeled a feminist, if it means we're not still magazine-level pretty and secretly conform to all the things a 'typical' woman is meant to do.
The day we WANT to all be Miranda's is the day we all win.
No comments:
Post a Comment