“Sex and the City” has dominated the pop culture sphere ever since its release almost three decades ago. It is hard not to see glimpses of the show reappearing in the media, even years after its release, with questions regarding whether you are a Charlotte, Samantha, Miranda or a Carrie coming up all of the time.
Each of the core four girls has their own shortcomings, which help to make the show a well-renowned, cult classic. I mean, in all honesty, nobody wants to watch a seven-season-long series where the protagonists are incapable of making any mistakes or having any flaws — it makes them relatable, and makes us want to keep watching.
However, one character’s flaws seem to trump them all, and those are the actions of Carrie Bradshaw, the show’s protagonist. While Carrie’s mistakes and faults are what keep us watching, sometimes they make you wonder how she had friends or men willing to stick with her and her chaos!
While Carrie has made quite a fair deal of questionable choices in the show, here are some of the character’s most significant shortcomings:
- The Sex Columnist is Not So “Sex Positive”
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For someone whose life revolves around being a sex columnist, Carrie is actually pretty vanilla when it comes to exploring her own sexuality.
When comparing Bradshaw to her friends, in particular, sex and body positive Samantha Jones, it makes you wonder why she would even consider a job writing about intimacy in the first place. She has exceptionally narrow views on sexuality, even ending a relationship with a partner after finding out he was bisexual and had dated a man in the past, notoriously calling bisexuality the “layover into gaytown,” a statement that is completely untrue and seriously outdated.
Additionally, she is super judgmental towards a lot of her friends choices in the bedroom, particularly Samantha. An iconic example of this was when Carrie walked in on Samantha being intimate with her Worldwide Express driver. Instead of just laughing off the embarrassing moment, Carrie continuously uses it to sex-shame Samantha, not stopping until Samantha vocally stands up for herself and her own sexual choices.
- She’s Not a Reliable Friend
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Bradshaw continuously prioritizes the men in her life, placing her real friends on the back burner in order to win over the interests of men who, in all honesty, just aren’t always that into her.
Miranda Hobbes, one of Bradshaw’s closest friends, is probably the biggest victim of Carrie’s chronic flakiness and unreliability, with her continuously putting Hobbes into bad situations or just straight up bailing on her responsibilities to Miranda as her friend. Here are just a few examples of her Bradshaw’s inconsistencies:
Carrie bailing on her own plans with Miranda because Mr. Big deigned to invite her over for dinner – and oh yeah, she never called Miranda to tell her, leaving her stranded at the restaurant. Bradshaw sends her boyfriend Aiden Shaw to check on Miranda when she hurt her neck in the shower instead of going herself – Shaw ends up finding Miranda naked on the floor and Carrie doesn’t even seem sorry about it… Carrie forces Miranda to go on a double date with her incredibly clingy ex, just so Bradshaw can try to get back with Aiden Shaw. Bradshaw’s complete inability to focus on the needs of her friends is evident when you see the ways in which she treats them and expects them to bend to her every need.
- She’s the Queen of Bad Finances
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Leave it to Carrie Bradshaw to have $40,000 worth of Manolo Blahniks sitting in her closet and not enough money to pay next month’s rent.
In the fourth season of the television show, Carrie is struggling to put together the funds to be able to afford the $30,000 down payment for her apartment following her intense breakup with her ex, Aiden Shaw. While Miranda and Samantha kindly offer to help Carrie out with footing the bill, she turns them down and instead turns to Charlotte, who had refrained from offering.
When Charlotte explains to Carrie that she doesn’t think it is a healthy or good idea to involve finances in their friendship, Carrie crashes out, essentially bullying Charlotte into feeling bad about her choice to continue to wear her wedding ring despite just filing for divorce.
Instead of trying to understand why Charlotte might still be attached to her wedding band, or why she may not want to essentially be used as a bank by one of her closest friends, Carrie instead chooses to attack Charlotte due to the fact that she didn’t immediately jump to financially assist her.
At the end of the day, does Carrie learn her lesson and choose to be more responsible with her finances? Nope. Charlotte ends up giving her the wedding ring to sell, and Carrie continues to splurge on shoes.
- She Self Sabotages (To the MAX)
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In earlier seasons, Bradshaw started dating a respectful and nice guy, Ben. Ben had recently sworn off dating, but decided he wanted to give Carrie a chance — a choice that did not pan out well for either of them.
Now this might be a little bit relatable, but every time Bradshaw seems to find a man who has the potential to treat her right and respect her, she has to go out and ruin it on some false idea that there must be something “wrong” with a person if they are attractive, respectful and still single.
Ben was kind-hearted, lovable, and, in all honesty, treated Carrie the complete opposite of how poorly Big had. However, to Carrie, Ben’s lack of red flags was a red flag, and she decided to look through all of his personal belongings after only about two weeks of dating him, mind you.
Ben ended up coming home during Carrie’s self induced mania and witnessed her rifling through his stuff. Knowing what was good for his own mental health, he cut it off with her at that very moment, ending what I believe was the only non-toxic relationship Carrie had in the entirety of “Sex and the City.”
- She Has No Self Respect
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I cannot stress the amount of times that I have rewatched episodes of “Sex and the City” and literally screamed “girl, stand up!” at the TV. She continuously throws herself at Mr. Big, who has made it very evident that he has problems not just with commitment, but specifically, with commitment to Carrie.
Regardless of Big’s lack of effort, Carrie continuously shows up at his doorstep, practically begging for attention from a man who is so emotionally checked out, he doesn’t even bother to tell her that he’s moving to California.
- She Broke Up A Marriage! (And Her Own Relationship)
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Perhaps the most infamous of all of Carrie’s mishaps: her affair with Mr. Big. After ending her relationship with Big, he traveled to Paris and ended up getting engaged and then married to a 25-year-old model named Natasha Naginsky.
Naginsky is everything that Carrie isn’t; she’s modest, refined and quiet, with a plain but sophisticated style that strays far from Carrie’s eclectic nature. While Natasha fits the standard of Big’s upper-crust, old money culture, it becomes evident early on that while Natasha might be the girl expected for him, he is still infatuated with the idea of Carrie.
Natasha Naginsky Carrie, who is also in a relationship with Aiden at this point, realizes she still has feelings for Big, which kickstarts an affair for the ages, one that only ends when Natasha finds Carrie in her home with Big when she was expected her to be in the Hamptons for the rest of the weekend.
The fact that both Carrie and Big could talk to one another’s significant others as if they weren’t absolutely betraying them on a daily basis is mind-blowing to me, and definitely a marker of Carrie’s worst moral crime on the show.
- She Doesn’t Understand the Consequences of Her Actions
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Carrie has made poor choices time and time again in her dating and social life, and still doesn’t grasp the concept of her actions having consequences. She is finally faced with the reality that she had played a large part in ruining Natasha’s marriage when she runs into Naginsky and is given a dirty look. Instead of just leaving it at that, Bradshaw decides she can’t bear the idea of someone in NYC hating her that much and that she needs to make amends.
So, what does Carrie do? Does she choose to leave Natasha, the woman whose marriage she just ruined alone? Nope. Instead barges in on Natasha’s lunch and chooses to take that time to “apologize” for the affair, an action Natasha is clearly disgusted by.
Similarly, Carrie runs into a women named Nina Katz who had dated Aiden Shaw after Carrie had broken his heart. Katz also gives Carrie a dirty look once she makes the connection that she is Aiden’s ex, something that Carrie obsessed over for days, caring more about Katz opinion of her over how much she notably hurt Aiden.
At the end of the day, Carrie Bradshaw’s worst traits are also the very reason “Sex and the City” has remained so culturally relevant for nearly thirty years. She is selfish, judgmental, impulsive and often painfully unaware of how deeply her actions affect the people around her, but her messiness is what keeps her from becoming a hollow, aspirational fantasy of what a protagonist “should be.”
Carrie isn’t written to be a role model; she’s written to be a mirror, reflecting the uncomfortable realities of insecurity and emotional immaturity that so many watches share and recognize in themselves.
Bradshaw’s flaws spark debate, frustration and endless rewatches precisely because they feel human, even when they’re infuriating. Loving “Sex and the City” reminds us that sometimes the most compelling protagonists are the ones who make the biggest mistakes and still manage to keep us watching.