Carrie Bradshaw?

[smilingontheinsidee]

So I know it’s been debated to death of what a toxic person she is and bad friend and this thread is nothing to do with that.

Aibu to think it was really odd that you barely knew anything of her life before NY? She briefly touched on her father leaving but her mother is never mentioned or makes an appearance and whether she has siblings or half siblings,

I just find it odd to have a main character and have no background to them.

Ah, I mistook the 'as a mid twenties woman, she was...and I liked her' structure of your paragraph as referring to her, not you, your feelings coming after that without saying you were the person in their mid twenties at the time.

Feel free to unhide the thread.

There was a prequel series about 10 years ago with a young Austin butler from the Elvis movie & Freeman Agyman in it.

It was called something like the Carrie Diaries

I think that was kindof the point, they weren't close to their own families and had formed their own 'family'

There was an older man who walked Charlotte down the aisle to trey. I assumed that was her dad?

It was a fun, surface-superficial show. Building significant character backstories would have made it more difficult to write and less relatable.

I think its a lot more common in America to be distant from family too because of the sheer size of the country and limited holiday, it's not like they all stayed in the same.place they grew up, they moved away for their careers.
One contestant on master chef a few series ago hadn't seen her little brother for 2 years!

I think people are mistaking this for me meaning they had to have close family or have family on the show. That’s not what I mean at all.

I just saying it would have been interesting to know more about her life, why she doesn’t seemingly have a relationship with her mum,

I think it’s unusual to have four women that ALL genuinely seem very removed from their family and that never seem to go visit them etc. But I also don’t remember any episode that showed a holiday like Christmas or Thanks Giving and what each of them do

I don’t think so, I never got the impression the other three were close with each other.

I loved the show when I was younger but on watching it recently I found Carrie quite shallow and annoying. She isn’t a character you warmed to unlike the others but I think that’s partly to do with SJP being a bit of a crap actress. I do like her but she can’t act for toffee and is the same character in every film!

Yes I found that part of it very believable.

I have parents but I rarely see them - I don’t live remotely close to them. A couple of times a year. I don’t ever have any need to talk about them to friends. If you were to watch all my coffees and lunches and drinks out with friends as single woman I doubt I would have talked about my parents or my childhood once.

I haven’t met the parents of the vast majority of my friends with the exceptions of those that married since I’ve known them, I suppose.

OP - I thought that was very believable actually. They were all people who’d moved to New York (as far as I could tell), they didn’t have family in the city, and as such they weren’t part of their lives.

when I was in my 20s (and before I get jumped on, I know SATC they are all 30s) I moved to London from the North. My parents and sibling stopped being people who were part of my life day to day, friends met them for the first time at my wedding.

in SATC, they didn’t give back stories about family, or even how the women first met, or the career paths that got them to this stage. I like that they didn’t feel the need to shoehorn that all in. It felt very deliberate to be different to Friends, where the backstory was such a big part and all the characters were connected going back to childhood or college (with only Phoebe and Joey being new friends made as adults).

I did get the impression they were close but reflected the more realistic approach of 4 women where 3 of them have very full on careers and other demands on their time, meet up regularly but not all the time. There’s possibly an element that Carrie is the glue of the friendship group /the organiser of meet ups but didn’t get the impression that the others weren’t independently friends with each other.

It’s quite common in shows of that sort of time, SATC, Friends etc very minimal interactions with family, no support networks etc. I suppose because we were watching through the lense of their relationships with each other, not their broader lives.

I like that the show never does flashbacks. One thing that annoys me in a lot of long running American shows is the tendency to go back and "explore the history" of the characters.

There's quite a lot of family in Friends! Multiple storylines for family members of each of the six, and they also fill in a lot about ethnic and class background too. Not like SATC at all. But then, most of the Friends characters are supposed to have grown up in or around New York.

as others have said it didn’t really need to have much background - you knew enough about Carrie from what the show gave you.

Also most of the episodes use her column as a narrative device, talking about what happened that day/week as writing content which was also the plot of the episode (so we saw what she was writing about, essentially) - so she most wouldn’t likely wouldn’t discuss family background etc in a column about sex and dating.

I just finished my umpteenth rerun last night and was thinking about all of this throughout.

Even the strong story of Samantha's breast cancer had no mention of any family being informed.

I think they handled it well though. Her friends and the gorgeous Smith were enough.

Wouldn't have liked them to shoehorn in an English Mother like Daphne's in Frasier 🤨

Definitely not, Carrie was pretty much the glue. The three have the odd moments here and there.

Miranda didn’t ask Charlotte to be godmother, Charlotte admitted she only asked Samantha to be bridesmaid so she didn’t feel left out.

I didn’t expect things to be shoehorned in or intensive background stories.

I just personally find it odd that you have no idea at all if Carrie had siblings. She had two weddings and there’s no mention of ANY family,

The part about her dad wasn’t shoehorned in and was maybe a 1 minute reference. Which is all I expect, not huge detailed pasts.

No was, in Friends we learn a lot about their families and there was multiple stories lines. Ross and Monica’s parents featured quite regularly. Both Rachel’s sisters and her parents featured, Phoebe had triples for her brother etc.

You had episodes that showed them at college age.

The whole point of the show was about women whose lives DIDN’T revolve around their families.

Again. I’m not saying any of their lives have to revolve around their families. I’m talking about a brief 30 second reference (like Carries dad leaving). I really don’t know why you’ve interpreted that as me saying their lives must revolve around family.

I’m saying in 6 seasons and 2 films plus an extra 2 seasons of the new show, Carries has had two weddings, been engaged to Aiden, moved to Paris, had her husband die and at no point has even a slightest reference been made to her mum.

I’d never noticed the lack of back story tbh, so a non issue for me. Not the point of the show and for me, didn’t affect my enjoyment of it in the slightest.

I did notice it and thought what pp said - the family is not the point of the series, it’s about friendships and relationships in NYC. Friends was much broader, and more of a sitcom. It also had hundreds of episodes with endless new characters.

so I did find the lack of background different, I’d agree with that.

I love a good SATC/Carrie thread but honestly the attitude of the OP makes me scared to contribute!