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Professions of characters’ love interests and flings
a city of
Bankers & Artists
Click on the characters to narrow down:
Of the many possible readings of Sex and the City, one is of a show about Carrie’s conflicted attraction towards artists and bankers, a poet/provider tension that reaches its climax in the last season when she is forced to choose between world renowned artist Alexandr Petrovsky and the tycoon Mr. Big, who spends his days driving around in the back of a chauffeured car and buying the occasional vineyard. “Those are the two big romantic types of Sex and the City’s New York,” says Armstrong. “I was in the middle of watching it when I came here, and if someone had said to me, ‘Do you think you’re going to just meet artists and bankers?’ I’d have said, ‘Yeah, pretty much.’”
Show all
PR
athlete
trainer
urban planner
waiter
web developer
filmmaker/editor
chef
banker
artist
actor
importer
model
architect
publisher
lawyer
doctor
writer
delivery man
club owner
doorman
engineer
farmer
cop
firefighter
furniture designer
busboy
creative director
bar owner
politician
priest
producer
agent
real estate broker
seaman
samantha
CARRIE
LEXI FEATHERSON
ANTHONY
LYNNE
PATRICK CASEY
ALEXANDER LEMLEY
SMITH
RICHARD
STEVE
AIDAN
CHARLOTTE
MR. BIG
MIRANDA
210
142
9
5
7
11
12
15
15
19
21
21
33
133
Number of profanities
spoken by character
The Gutter
Mouth Girls
That Samantha comes out on top as the show’s most foul-mouthed is no surprise. But Carrie’s proclivity for vulgarity is at odds with Parker herself. “Parker didn’t want to do tons of nudity and she didn’t want to swear that much, and I think they did take it down a few notches in the pilot episode for her, but I guess they’re just forced over time. [Parker] doesn’t swear a lot in real life. She’s one of those ‘gosh dang’ people.”
*With only eight episodes, Season 5 was the show's shortest
4
7
1
3
S6
0
1
4
0
S5*
4
14
2
1
S4
4
11
3
2
S3
5
5
9
6
S2
1
2
2
1
S1
Number of sex scenes
per season, by character
What’s Her Number?
By our count, the show’s six-season run featured a total of 96 sex scenes––-those that go just beyond the mere implication of sexual activity. Both Kim Cattrall, who played Samantha Jones, and Cynthia Nixon, who played Miranda Hobbes, established themselves as more amenable to the sex scene. But it was Cattrall who elevated casual sex to a comedic art—those involved in the show referred to her as the “Lucille Ball of the bedroom,” says Armstrong. As she grew into her role, so did the number of sex scenes. As for Nixon, says Armstrong, “She had this very no-nonsense approach to it. ‘I nurse my kid on the subway, I don’t care. I’’ll be naked, I won’t be naked, it doesn’t really matter to me.’”
Parker was more reserved. “She doesn’t have a whole lot of big sex scenes, and if she does, she’s wearing a bra or something.” Accordingly, Kristin Davis, who played Charlotte York, was given more sex scenes than Parker, despite Davis playing the show’s Protestant ingenue. Ironically, it’s Charlotte who receives the most untoward sexual requests throughout the series. “I believe the answer to why is that she has the funniest reactions,” says Armstrong. “[Showrunner] Darren Star said something about throwing a pie in the face of a beautiful girl.”
*With only eight episodes, Season 5 was the show's shortest
3
3
2
1
1
2
2
1
1
2
2
2
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
S6
S5
S4
S3
S2
S1
Number of episodes that mention fashion labels per season, by label
Speaking
of Fashion
Along with being one of the only shows about New York routinely shot on location in the city (Friends was shot at an LA studio), the inclusion of real fashion labels helped imbue Sex and the City with a sense of reality, even if Carrie’s ability to afford what she wore challenged believability. Sarah Jessica Parker, who played Carrie, and costume designer Patricia Field brought their own fashion sensibilities to the show. “Carrie was always conceived as having some fashion sense, but the extent to which that became a thing was in large part because Patricia Field signed on to do the costuming.” So how did Manolo Blahnik specifically, once a name virtually unknown outside the fashion world, become Carrie’s foot fetish? “Patricia Field and Sarah Jessica Parker were fans,” says Armstrong. Simple as that.
Frequency of character-to-character exchanges
It's
carrie's
world
Hover on the chart to see their scores:
The character composition of Sex and the City attempted to portray four friends of equal importance in each other’s lives. But even ensemble casts can’t resist ultimately revolving around a central relation; in Sex and the City, that relation, statistically, is the one between Carrie and Miranda. “It proved what we all intuited,” Armstrong says, “which is when forced to declare a best friend, Carrie and Miranda are it.”
Frequency score
carrie & miranda: 1827
carrie & samantha: 1407
carrie & charlotte: 1025
charlotte miranda: 356
charlotte samantha: 255
miranda samantha: 213
Frequency score
miranda & samantha: 213
Frequency score
charlotte & samantha: 255
Frequency score
charlotte & miranda: 356
Frequency score
carrie & charlotte: 1025
Frequency score
carrie & samantha: 1407
Frequency score
carrie & miranda: 1827
words by Andrew thompson
design by tri vo
THE PLAYBOOK ON BEING FABULOUS TURNED 23 THIS YEAR. WHAT WOULD AN ANALYSIS OF EVERY SEX AND THE CITY SCRIPT REVEAL? WE COULDN’T HELP BUT WONDER.
stats & the city
Two decades after it premiered on HBO, Sex and the City maintains such a cultural currency that it feels like it could have been broadcast yesterday, anxious voicemails and a lack of Tinder notwithstanding. Over the course of six seasons, the first of which debuted 23 years ago, SATC not only reconfigured the country’s perceptions of single 30-something women from Bridget-Jones-pitiful to Carrie-Bradshaw-chic, but also created a phantasmagorical New York of fashion and romance that viewers wanted, and will seemingly always still want, to inhabit.
“It’s an absolutely aspirational lifestyle, but it’s based in reality,” says Jennifer Armstrong, author of Sex and the City and Us: How Four Single Women Changed the Way We Think, Live and Love. (Armstrong last assisted us with parsing Seinfeld, which she explored thoroughly in her book Seinfeldia.) But to Armstrong, even Seinfeld doesn’t compare to the cultural meteorite of Sex and the City, whose mores and narratives continue to guide us. “To this day, it’s why women still move to New York.”
Meanwhile, somewhere in the Flatiron District, we analyzed every script of every episode. Here’s what we learned. And if you don't believe us, check our findings for yourself; it streams on HBOMax.
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