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Why is And Just Like That so terrible? · The Front

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: From The Australian. This is the weekend edition of the Front.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: I'm Claire Harvey. Sex and the City. There's a show
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: that delivered on its promise plenty of sex in one
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  Speaker 1: of the most exciting cities of them all, New York.
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  Speaker 1: The appeal of the show was escapist fun, dates, designer shoes, cocktails,
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  Speaker 1: frivolous sex, grounded in something bigger, the modern woman's search
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: for meaning in a life where everything was optional, men, marriage, children,
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  Speaker 1: and maybe even love. Then came two movies that gave
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: fans a creeping sense something had been lost from the
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  Speaker 1: magic formula, and now a whole new series that confirms it.
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  Speaker 1: It's called and Just like that. Jessica Hallerin is actually
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  Speaker 1: the Australian Chief sportswriter, but she's here today in a
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  Speaker 1: different capacity to talk to us about Sex and the City.
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  Speaker 1: And just like that, just you are our resident megafan
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  Speaker 1: and also our resident critic. I guess tell me when
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: Sex and the City first came out. You and I
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  Speaker 1: were in our early twenties. We were out having a
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  Speaker 1: lot of sex and drinking a lot of cocktails and
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: having fabulous lives, just like the girls in Manhattan. Why
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  Speaker 1: was the original Sex in the City so important culturally.
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  Speaker 2: It was just this sort of moment in time it
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  Speaker 2: being said in New York.
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  Speaker 1: The women all looked amazing.
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  Speaker 2: It was just this perfect sort of form of escapism
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  Speaker 2: I found. I'd go to a girlfriend's house and we
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  Speaker 2: all sit around the TV and drink a ten dollar
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  Speaker 2: bottle of wine, and.
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  Speaker 1: It was a ritual. Everybody was watching it. Have you
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  Speaker 1: seen the New York Times style section? You know, I
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  Speaker 1: can't handle hard news before noon. There's a beautiful man
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  Speaker 1: downtown selling beautiful furniture. We're going Samford a whole afternoon
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  Speaker 1: plan with Australian burg. I'm not just going to drop
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  Speaker 1: everything to go downtown to see some cute guy. He's straight.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: I get my purse.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: There was a great range of characters too. Even though
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  Speaker 1: it was called Sex in the City, their attitudes to
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  Speaker 1: sex ranged from the relatively prudish to the completely liberated.
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  Speaker 1: And they were a new kind of iteration of the
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  Speaker 1: working woman, weren't they.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah? Absolutely, And everybody would sort of sit around and go, oh,
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  Speaker 2: are you a Carrie or are you a Miranda? Or
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  Speaker 2: you're a Samantha, And it really became a topic of conversation,
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  Speaker 2: and they were having these conversations on television that we'd
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  Speaker 2: really never heard women speak about before.
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  Speaker 1: You see, this is why I don't date. The men
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  Speaker 1: out there are free. Well, that's completely unfair. I'm sorry.
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  Speaker 2: If a man is over thirty and single, there's something
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  Speaker 2: wrong with him.
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  Speaker 1: It's still winning. They're being weeded out from propagating the species. Okay,
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  Speaker 1: what about us, We're just choosing. It was a really
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  Speaker 1: groundbreaking series, and it's hit the tone I feel like
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  Speaker 1: for the early two thousands in some ways, and became
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  Speaker 1: this moment for women in general. It changed fashion too,
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  Speaker 1: didn't it. I remember before that I wore little suits
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  Speaker 1: from Sports Girl to work, and afterwards it was like, well,
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  Speaker 1: you can wear a dress and sneakers and a denim
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  Speaker 1: jacket and still be fashionable and professional in fact more so.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, And I remember carry wearing these big flowers at
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  Speaker 2: one point, and then everybody started wearing the flowers, I
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  Speaker 2: think from Milana Hill here.
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  Speaker 1: It looked ridiculous that I was mostlessly mocked for attempting
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  Speaker 1: a flower in my hair once when I was in
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  Speaker 1: my early twenties by one of our stuff. Yeah. So
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  Speaker 1: then there were a couple of movies. The TV series
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  Speaker 1: ended in two thousand and four, and then twenty and
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  Speaker 1: eight and twenty ten there were movies for me. That's
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  Speaker 1: when Six and the City started to go downhill. The
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  Speaker 1: first movie I liked. I thought that was well put together.
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  Speaker 1: The storylines were incredibly believable. But I remember when Sex
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  Speaker 1: and the City, the second movie came out, it was
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  Speaker 1: just getting widely panned and I thought, oh, it couldn't
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  Speaker 1: be that bad. It was terrible. It was absolutely horrendous.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, the Lies of Manali Caming.
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  Speaker 1: I remember watching, going, what are we watching?
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: Little Food?
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  Speaker 1: They went to the Middle East on an ill fated
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  Speaker 1: kind of girls trip. I vividly remember a scene in
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  Speaker 1: a marketplace where Samantha was kind of getting pursued by
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  Speaker 1: sortied locals, and it just felt kind of racist.
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  Speaker 2: It just went from being this cleverly written, tightly written
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  Speaker 2: franchise to being nothing but a Dog's Breakfast sort of
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  Speaker 2: mash up of a musical with just some.
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  Speaker 1: Really poor storylines. And I don't think it's for covered since.
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  Speaker 1: So in twenty twenty one, and just like that, that
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  Speaker 1: mood two huge excitement. You know, it was really wonderful
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  Speaker 1: to see these women now in their late fifties returning
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  Speaker 1: to the screen. But from the very first episode there
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  Speaker 1: was disappointment, wasn't there yeah, where we have to go
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  Speaker 1: back to?
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  Speaker 2: Here is this sort of breakdown off screen between Sarah
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  Speaker 2: Jessica Parker and King Katrell. One of the main characters,
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  Speaker 2: Samantha Jones and her not returning to this franchise and
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  Speaker 2: the number of issues sort of bubbling around it, and
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  Speaker 2: as to why she's not coming back. Some of the
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  Speaker 2: things that have been floated is money. The other reasons
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  Speaker 2: was she felt like, why bring Samantha back? Can't we
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  Speaker 2: just let these characters go? But I think the biggest
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  Speaker 2: problem with this franchise is no Samantha Jones.
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  Speaker 1: I am heart. I'm also demanding, stubborn, self sufficient and
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  Speaker 1: always right in bed, at the office and everywhere else.
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  Speaker 1: They've attempted to replace Samantha with a couple of new
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  Speaker 1: additions to the quartet, a university professor called Nia and
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  Speaker 1: a woman called Lisa Todd Wexley, both women of color
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  Speaker 1: who kind of joined the group on the fringes. The
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  Speaker 1: Nia character has disappeared after season one of and just
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  Speaker 1: like that, whatever, Man, I.
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  Speaker 2: Don't know, Nia just disappeared, Jay disappeared, Miranda's lover. I
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  Speaker 2: think what is happening here is that Michael Patrick King,
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  Speaker 2: the show runner, the original creator, the chief writer of
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  Speaker 2: this is bulldozing ahead with his vision without really stopping
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  Speaker 2: to listen to what the people are saying out there,
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  Speaker 2: which is they are incredibly disappointed that characters that we
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  Speaker 2: originally loved and adored, like say, Miranda, has completely departed
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  Speaker 2: from who she is.
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  Speaker 1: She's a lesbian now yes some of the time.
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  Speaker 2: Yes.
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  Speaker 1: And she's an alcoholic yes, it was right. Maybe you
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: do have a drinking problem. I don't have a drinking problem.
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  Speaker 1: I just got a little carried away. You are married,
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  Speaker 1: and you just had sex in my kitchen. I'm unhappy.
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  Speaker 1: I'm unhappy. Okay.
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  Speaker 2: Recently, there was an episode, which is a party episode,
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  Speaker 2: which involved Miranda becoming almost like a caricature of herself.
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  Speaker 2: She was a bit of a clown. She was wearing
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  Speaker 2: this silver jumpsuit and she was overseeing this party for Charlotte,
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  Speaker 2: and it really didn't feel like Miranda, and I felt
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  Speaker 2: kind of embarrassed for her, and actually.
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  Speaker 1: Felt embarrassed for the show. Yeah, this is a character who,
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: throughout sex and the city was the hard nosed corporate
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  Speaker 1: lawyer who treated her puppy dogish kind of boyfriend quite
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  Speaker 1: meanly and didn't really need anyone, and she was hilarious.
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  Speaker 1: Now she's extreme, needy, very insecure. She's given up corporate
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  Speaker 1: law to work for something that looks like Human Rights Watch.
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  Speaker 1: She's lost everything that made her interesting, hasn't she Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: she has.
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  Speaker 2: And so then it also leads to very weird interactions
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  Speaker 2: with other characters. And most recently, there was a very
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  Speaker 2: contentious scene at the end of an episode which involved
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  Speaker 2: Carrie and Miranda having a fight where Miranda is challenging
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  Speaker 2: Carrie about her relationship with the writer downstairs, who is
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: a potential new love interest, and it just turns into
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  Speaker 2: Carry becoming this horrible, depressed, mean girl. And it was interesting.
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: I was listening to a podcast with Michael Patrick King.
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: Hello Lovers, Welcome back to and just like that the
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: Writer's Room the Official.
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  Speaker 2: And he described that scene as one of his favorite
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  Speaker 2: scenes ever, and I just was like, this is the problem.
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  Speaker 1: One of my favorite scenes of all time. Carrie and
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  Speaker 1: Miranda in the kitchen. I've just been reading the entire
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  Speaker 1: party scene.
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  Speaker 2: Can we talk?
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  Speaker 1: We're not enjoying it.
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  Speaker 2: I'm now just watching for the clothes, which also aren't
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  Speaker 2: as good.
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  Speaker 1: They aren't as good.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, Pat Field's not there, so that's also another
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  Speaker 2: loss for the franchise.
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: Coming up. Did we ask for storylines about age related
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: medical conditions. I went back to the original Sex in
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  Speaker 1: the City and watched the whole six seasons. I'd never
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: really focused on them properly. I hadn't watched it all
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  Speaker 1: the way through, and I thought, I wonder if actually
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  Speaker 1: our sensibilities have changed as a society and it was
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  Speaker 1: always kind of bad. Actually it was not bad. It
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  Speaker 1: has aged really really well. Apart from the lack of
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  Speaker 1: diverse original series, it was great. It wasn't kind of
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  Speaker 1: silly and confected like it is now. Yeah, silly and confected.
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  Speaker 1: And for the most part, people are now just hate
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  Speaker 1: watching it, right, Like, I haven't found anybody that's gone,
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  Speaker 1: oh no, it's fantastic, isn't it. One of the things
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  Speaker 1: that I find confronting about it is seeing these women older,
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  Speaker 1: And you know, this is my issue. I struggle to
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  Speaker 1: see the bad plastic surgery they've had, the kind of
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  Speaker 1: excessive filler. Although maybe I would also struggle if they
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  Speaker 1: hadn't had any plastic surgery or filler. You know, maybe
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  Speaker 1: this is like internalized misfortuning. You know what, do you
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  Speaker 1: think their faces are significantly changed, all except Miranda.
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  Speaker 2: I think it's really hard to move on from the
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  Speaker 2: early two thousands. I just don't think society has been
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  Speaker 2: set up for us to actually look at aging faces
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  Speaker 2: like we did. I mean, you know you and I
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  Speaker 2: also grew up with the Golden Girls, where forty year
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  Speaker 2: olds look like sixty years. But on the whole, I
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: think the way that their addressing aging is interesting but
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  Speaker 2: also uncomfortable. Right, The beauty of Sex and the City
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  Speaker 2: was we had these four women living in New York,
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  Speaker 2: living sort of these fantasy lives. But the fantasy has
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  Speaker 2: gone from and just like that, but it's probably become
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  Speaker 2: a bit too real in some ways. The closest you
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  Speaker 2: got in Sex and the City to a medical issue
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  Speaker 2: was when Carrie's diaphram got stuck and Samantha had to
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  Speaker 2: retrieve it for her.
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  Speaker 1: Now and just like that, there's bowel cancer and prostate
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  Speaker 1: cancer and people dropping dead and adult and happies. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: it's not very sexy. This episode of the Front was
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  Speaker 1: hosted by me Claire Harvey and co produced with Jasper Leigue,
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  Speaker 1: who edited the episode and also wrote our theme. Thanks
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  Speaker 1: for joining us on the front this week. Our team
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: also includes Kristen Amiot, Leat Sammerglue, Tiffany Dimak, Joshua Burton,
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: and Stephanie Coombs.