On Crazy Women: Iggy Azalea, Gone Girl, Fatal Attraction, and How Insanity Became Synonymous With A Lot of Other Things

Whilst cruising down the Durham freeway with a car full of fresh produce, I happened upon a local Top 40 radio station, from which the harsh, manufactured tones of Iggy Azalea were emanating. I was detachedly intrigued. I am more out of touch than ever with the pop music genre that I so vehemently despise, given that I no longer even have the occasional night out at a bar to expose me, however transiently, to the Hits of Today. Despite being perfectly content with my iPod full of Led Zeppelin, Tchaikovsky, Sondheim, Bartok, and myriad other works of High Quality Music (insert the raised eyebrows and pursed lips of a Bona Fide Music Snob here), I listen with amused curiosity to this sample of vacuous, soulless, talentless modern music, a song called “Black Widow”.

The song tells the tale of a spurned woman who threatens to take vengeance on her careless former beau. I’m pretty sure she’s implying that she is either planning to kill him, or has already killed him. The lyrics are not terribly subtle. Here are some examples, for your consideration:

“I’m gonna love ya

Until you hate me

And I’m gonna show ya

What’s really crazy”

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “Whoa, that sounds kind of nuts. Who can possibly relate to lyrics like that?”

It gets worse. Iggy Azalea (whose Gestalt I will document here for posterity, since she will surely fade into unrecognizable anonymity quite soon: an innocent-looking, attractive white girl who has a throaty, guttural, Lil Kim-esque rapping style) continues with the following:

“I'm gonna l-l-l-love you until it hurts
Just to get you I'm doing whatever works
You've never met nobody
That'll do you how I do ya
That will bring you to your knees”

What you’re supposed to extrapolate from this verse is that this woman is genuinely “crazy”: irrational, illogical, unreasonable, and hyper-sexually conniving. This is a song about a mentally ill woman—not person, woman—who gets dumped, tries to win the guy back through sexual tactics, fails, and then kills him.

This is TOP 40 MUSIC???

Okay, I know what you’re thinking again. You’re thinking, “Come on, Rhea, it’s not that serious. It’s just a dumb pop song. Besides, women can be crazy sometimes, amiright?”

I don’t blame you, if that truly is what you’re thinking; we’re bombarded by images in the media of women behaving irrationally and emotionally. It’s a stereotype so well-worn that we’re hardly even cognizant of its stereotypy: the Crazy Wife. The Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. Don’t piss her off, That Bitch Is Crazy. Whenever a woman’s behavior bothers us, we designate her as Crazy. We are comfortable with varying degrees of Crazy Women, a spectrum of hypersensitivity, jealousy, insecurity, and shrill rage that we’ve somehow come to accept as a universal truth of womanhood: Women Are Crazy.

There are so many issues with this stereotype that I scarcely know where to begin dissecting it (and if you know anything about me, you’ll know that I adore stereotypes; thus, a stereotype has to be truly offensive for it to disturb me so).  But let me start by attempting to prove to you that this glibly accepted notion of Crazy Women is so pervasive that a reference to another notorious Crazy Woman popped up in Iggy Azalea’s song about a Crazy Woman:

“I can't fall back go quick
Cause this here a fatal attraction so I take it all or I don't want shit”

I presume you all remember Glenn Close’s character in the 1987 film Fatal Attraction. Close portrayed a jilted mistress of a Manhattan attorney (played by a buoyantly bumbling Michael Douglas) who proceeds to Ruin The Man’s Life with her Excessively Emotional Behavior. The caveat here is that the character is truly mentally ill, and even goes so far as to slit her own wrists and boil Douglas’s kid’s bunny. She then gets shot to death (spoiler alert!) by Douglas’s wife, who Stands By Her Man and does the totally not-crazy thing by killing his Crazy Ex-Mistress. Good for her! Is this an anti-feminist film? Probably. But what film isn’t? (Not many.)

Iggy Azalea’s reference to the film is not so much a self-aware nod to the caricature she is depicting in “Black Widow” as it is a tacit acknowledgement that the archetype of the Crazy Woman is permanent, affixed, and rarely questioned. Harris O’Malley wrote a stereotype-damning article for The Huffington Post called “On Labeling Women Crazy” that I thought was excellent; it was triumphantly quoted throughout social media platforms for about two-point-five days and then it was scarcely mentioned again. In the interim, songs like “Black Widow” have come out. Tabloids have relentlessly mocked Taylor Swift for having a lot of boyfriends and writing mean songs when they break up with her. Gillian Flynn’s novel Gone Girl, about a woman who clearly has a whiff of Antisocial Personality Disorder, has rocketed to cataclysmic levels of popularity. We’ve all comfortably settled back in to the idea that women, when they behave in a way that’s objectionable in some way, are Just Being Crazy.

O’Malley admits in his article that, when he used the “C” word, “for the most part, crazy meant ‘acting in a way I didn't like.’”.  But why is it so tempting to chalk up unpleasant behavior in women to something essentially unrelated to unpleasantness, like mental illness? Is it because we as a society tend not to use “crazy” and “mentally ill” as mutually exclusive, interchangeable terms? Colloquially, “crazy” can be used as a synonym for “irrational”, “erratic”, “emotional”, “angry”, “shocking”, and any number of adjectives that are independent of mental illness.  Interestingly, there is no catch-all adjective for men when they act in a way that others don’t like.

But let’s return to Gone Girl for a moment. Truly, I found this book exquisite. I did, however, take issue with the fact that Amy had to be The Crazy One.  Do we really need another example in popular culture of a woman who is genuinely nuts, to provide additional fodder to the already crackling bonfire of anti-feminism? Why couldn’t pathetic, ineffectual, unlikable, insecure Nick be the mentally ill person, instead of the victim that we’re all forced to feel sorry for in the end? (Because, admit it, you did feel a little bit of righteous pity for the poor sucker, taking one for the team and sticking it out for his kid. I, on the other hand, momentarily hated the author for letting Nick be a martyr.)

But it’s not just the fact that Amy is “crazy” that bothers me: it’s the fact that her love for Nick tips her over the edge. In every form of media, women and love are inextricably intertwined. The default for a main character is Male and White; the only time a non-Male is needed is when there needs to be a romantic subplot, and the only time a non-White is needed is when there is a racially-specific subplot. (I’m sure you can think of an isolated example that deviates from this formula, but an isolated example does not a pattern make.) Why was Arwen even included in the Lord of the Rings Trilogy? To provide a romantic subplot. What was Hermione’s ultimate purpose in the Harry Potter series? To have Ron’s babies. How does Katniss end up, after all that revolution-leading? Married with babies. That’s the ultimate goal for women, isn’t it? Love, romance, babies? “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife”?

That fantasy is the root of Amy’s insanity in Gone Girl. According to the media, power drives men and love drives women Crazy. It’s that simple.

All that Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus bullshit was supposed to be humorous and harmless: the woman wanting to lock a man down in order to best her biological clock and procreate, the man hilariously fighting tooth-and-nail to preserve bachelorhood and independence. A comical tug-of-war between the sexes that somehow ends in happily-ever-after. Romantic comedy garbage. What we subversively ended up with was yet another facile, palatable, culturally accepted strategy for subjugating women.

Don’t hire her, women are too emotional for that kind of job!

You better get a pre-nup; otherwise, your wife may go crazy and try to take half.

My girlfriend won’t let me do that. She’s crazy.

I just don’t think a woman can be President. A President has to be logical and level-headed…

In most Western societies like the United States, institutionalized subjugation of women has more or less fallen by the wayside; necessity in turn demands that there be another way of dismissing women and ensuring that, despite the fact that women can technically pursue the same career opportunities and function independently of men, the superiority of men is maintained. Instead of taking away a woman’s right to vote or her physical safety or her right to wear whatever she wants to wear in public, we take away a woman’s sanity. We rupture her image so that she’ll toe the line—because what sane person wants to be labeled “Crazy”?

In Gone Girl, Nick admits that the thing he fears the most is an angry woman: “I was not good with angry women. They brought something out in me that was unsavory.” Given that this fear is shared by many real-life man, I would ask you to consider that this fear arises from a perceived discord between angry women and gender roles: traditional gender roles demand that men be spitfires—hunters, aggressors, protectors—while women are docile, nurturing, and calming. When a woman is angry, she is by definition not docile, nurturing, and calming. Anger is only acceptable when it is testosterone-fueled. In order to reconcile this perceived disparity with the ostensible modern-day rejection of such arcane gender roles, men must find another justification for why angry women scare them so much: it must be because Women Are Crazy! And an angry woman might prevent a man from doing exactly what he wants to do, which is unpleasant, which means…she must be dismissed.

What better way to dismiss someone than to disparage her very sanity? Brilliant, successful, fascinating Amy is reduced to a pitiable maniac by the end of Gone Girl, just another Crazy Bitch, which is a terrible shame. We don’t remember her witty prose or her ingenuity or the fact that she went to Harvard—all we retain from her character is the psycho way she ruined Nick’s life. If that isn’t anti-feminist, then I don’t know what is.

There are plenty of Internet memes circulating that explore the question, “Why do we need feminism?” I implore you to consider a different, but related, question: “Why do we think we need anti-feminism?” Is it the same reason why white Republicans seem to feel the need to see President Obama as a “nice” Black guy—the kind of Black guy who wears sweaters tied around his neck and goes to Harvard, instead of the kind of Black guy who wears bling and robs liquor stores—the need to see the “other” as something that fits neatly into a carefully shaped mold of acceptability and comfort? Or is it because women, when freed of institutionalized subjugation, possess skills and attributes that are a threat to the long-standing, cross-cultural, and nearly universally accepted dominance of men?

It’s true that the United States has still not seen a female President, but there are plenty of female surgeons, and I would argue that a surgeon, on any given day, wields more power than any Head of State. (Did Dubya ever stand over another human being with a knife in his hand, and then did that human being walk away from him, cured of an illness? Nope.) There have been female surgeons for a long time, and lots of men know this. Perhaps what men are really afraid of is not angry women, but powerful women. Women who may not feel the need to do “crazy” stuff to get their attention.

Because as long as women are the crazy ones, men are the sane ones.

I will complete this thought by explaining that there are two things that bother me the most about the “Crazy Woman” stereotype. Number one: overusing the word “crazy” trivializes mental illness and further marginalizes a group of patients who are afflicted by a genuine medical problem, like bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and personality disorders. These patients are sick, just like any other patient, and the colloquial use of the word “crazy” only diminishes their suffering. Number two: I don’t like the fact that women sometimes refer to themselves as “crazy”. I hate that Iggy Azalea came out with this dumb “Black Widow” song, which will surely be snickered at by underage frat boys in bars who will nudge each other and guffaw about how this song reminds them of some Crazy Bitch they used to know. I hate the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope. I hate that Lana Del Rey (one of the only modern-day singers I can even stomach) calls herself “f---ing crazy” at the end of her dreamy, immaculate track “Ride”, opening the door for idiotic, machismo-driven conversations about how “all hot girls are crazy”. The essence of the “Crazy Woman” stereotype is diminishment: diminishing mental illness as a serious medical problem, diminishing women and taking away their individuality—their flaws and quirks and foibles and triumphs—and replacing them with a blanket of Female Hysteria and Craziness.

I do believe that fear is at the root of all this. There are certain men who have seen what certain women can do when unencumbered by certain societal restraints. There are certain men who have seen a female surgeon, for example, operating with her elbows deep in bowels and blood, at the end of her thirteenth hour on her feet, nine months pregnant, when her water breaks and she delivers a screaming infant with no pain medication—and then returns to the operating room to finish the case. (This is a true story.) That is indomitable power. That is a feat that no man will ever say that he did—just a biological disparity, a Darwinian twist that forever leaves man inferior to woman: Man Will Never Bring Forth Life From His Own Body. Anything he can do, I can do better.

Maybe that’s why they’re afraid.

Am I crazy for thinking that?

The Irate Gatsby

In addition to the much-maligned yet brilliantly evocative The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald has penned other remarkable tributes to the Roaring Twenties, an era that sends an appreciative chill down the spine of every aesthetically oriented, fashion-conscious student of history. What our generation largely appears to have taken from Fitzgerald’s body of work is not the harsh dichotomy between excess and economic disaster, however, nor is it the melancholy of a generation that would live through two World Wars—it is the fact that, even almost a hundred years ago, twentysomethings loved to party. With the recent release of yet another Gatsby film, the Jazz Age has returned to the collective subconscious to remind us that, much like the millenials of today, Jay Gatsby raged all night, every night. (He dressed much better and had nicer worldly possessions than we do, though, probably because he was not burdened by six-figure student loan debt.)

            Perhaps this is a reflection of my rapid psychological aging, but the concept of “partying” has begun to lose its meaning for me. As a young teenager, the idea of a party seemed more or less synonymous with “fun” and at least conceptually related to “relaxation”, “celebration”, and possibly “stress relief” or “letting loose”. Yet I’ve begun to observe that, behind the veneer of obviousness, partying is just something for twentysomethings to do, because they can. For those who are firmly entrenched in the 9-to-5, weekends are expected to be jam-packed with “partying” and “fun”. Never mind that every person is an individual with an individual opinion on what is fun and what isn’t. We seem to think that “fun” can be defined by a specific recipe or conglomeration of circumstances, i.e. alcohol plus electronic dance music plus more alcohol plus Instagram equals fun. Is one antisocial or pessimistic if this formula fails to provide enjoyment?

            It may come as a shock, but in the glamorous life of a full-time medical student with no income, luxury getaways are few and far between, unless said student is fortunate enough to have a significant other who is kind-hearted, generous, and filled with compassion for the sorry state of said student’s general circumstances. My own significant other took me to South Beach in Miami last week for four days of beach lounging, sampling delicious Cuban food, and timidly wading into the terrifyingly beautiful tides of the Atlantic Ocean. (Now see, all that sounds fun to me!) True to form, I planned a detailed itinerary for our trip. In the spirit of vacation, I decided that we ought to visit some of the famed Miami night-clubs, where the women are evidently so stunning that men’s wallets simply abandon their pockets and empty their contents into the women’s Chanel baguettes. While this doesn’t sound like the most “fun” thing in the universe to me, I figured that my man-friend and I are young, hip, and good-looking, and don’t young, hip, good-looking people generally go to clubs to have “fun”? (My inner voice responded that, although I have indeed had my fair share of rollicking good times at clubs, I am now older, poorer, and perpetually more exhausted than I once was.)

            After a sumptuous dinner at an unspeakably chic restaurant, where all the waiters had pleasingly European accents and every item on the menu was virtually unpronounceable, all I wanted was to release myself from the restrictive prison of the push-up bra built in to my dress and don my most comfortable yoga pants in order to bask uninhibited in the aftermath of the gustatory extravaganza. But I sternly reminded myself that we were on vacation, and we would have “fun”, even if it meant several hours of sleepily standing in five-inch heels while nursing a $25 cocktail and being audibly reminded of the ongoing peristalsis of a delectable four-course meal.

            In a run-of-the-mill drinking establishment in most major cities, one must simply present oneself to a disgruntled-looking doorman with a government-issued ID proving that one is of legal drinking age, and be reasonably dressed (that is to say, not in the nude or wearing Crocs) in order to gain admission and spend one’s hard-earned money on pathetically watered-down alcoholic beverages. In cities where the night-life is not so tantalizing (such as the District of Columbia), one might be expected to also surrender $10-$15 to this doorman before even setting foot in the drinking establishment, which always puts one in an evil mood and leads to much muttered cursing under one’s breath. In Miami, however, the criteria for entering a club is more stringent. An ordinary person with average or below-average aesthetic appeal and/or a sense of frugality has not a prayer of entering a drinking establishment in Miami. Not one to be underprepared for any situation, I had done my research and was well aware of the gauntlet that would-be revelers must face if they wish to party in Miami and pretend they’re in a Pitbull music video. Holding my man-friend by the hand, I teetered warily in my stilettos towards a bald man in a dark suit with a Bluetooth affixed importantly to one ear. He stood behind an extensive network of velvet ropes. On the other side of the ropes was a mass of well-dressed twentysomethings (mostly female), shouting over the throbbing music, evidently trying to get the bald man’s attention. They reminded me of the prostitutes from Les Mis.

            I observed the scene in silence for a few minutes. While the dialogue was inaudible, thanks to the pounding dance music, I noticed that every so often, the important-looking bald man would seem to carefully consider a proposal before removing a velvet rope and allowing a group (generally one comprised of slender women in tight dresses) to pass. This brief observation period also gave me an opportunity to take in my surroundings. Indubitably, it was a lovely venue. We were outdoors, behind a posh hotel, near a vast swimming pool softly lit in shades of blue and purple. Elegant cabanas and plush sofas surrounded the pool. I caught a glimpse of tall, broad mirrors in gilded frames, leaning against tremendous vases filled with tropical plants. Pockets of stunning women with endlessly long and tanned legs seemed to have been perched strategically along the pool, and it occurred to me that they were as much a part of the functional décor as the cabanas.

            The clamoring hordes thinned momentarily and there was no one standing between us and the bald doorman, who would inexplicably be charged with the task of either granting or denying us permission to patronize the establishment. Smoothly, my man-friend (whom I had not bothered to notify of my research on the bizarre social rituals of Miami, since I knew that the years he spent in New York City had already rendered him keenly aware of such practices) asked the doorman what “the deal” was. I heard the doorman reply, in an unctuous voice over the continuous pounding of music and shouted conversation, that guests could either buy a table for the night (which would cost a cool $3,000), or open up a bar tab with a minimum of $150 per person. Or we could walk right in with no monetary restrictions if we were “on the list”. I rolled my eyes and stood by, aloof, not bothering to conceal my disdain. Not to be rebuffed, my man-friend asked conversationally, “for future reference”: what do people do to get on the list? The bald man seemed charmed. I heard him give a detailed response about club promoters or knowing somebody who knew somebody, and I lost interest. I was not at all averse to the notion of abandoning the project altogether and going back to the hotel, where we could watch The Golden Girls on TV (and where I could finally, deliciously rip the excruciating hair extensions out of my scalp). The bald man gave my man-friend a calculating look and asked, “Where are you guys from?” The response (“New York City”) must have triggered something in his cold soul, because he then said, “Tell you what. Be my guest,” and cast aside the velvet ropes, thus opening the golden gates to Paradise to the genuflecting peasants. 

            Truthfully, sarcasm aside, I was indifferent to this outcome. While I wanted to maximize our experience in Miami and take it all in, I could tell that this particular venue was simply not my style. First and foremost, the music was unbearable. Electronic music must be an acquired taste, one that I have yet to cultivate, but remixes of popular Top 40 hits have always filled me with sheer horror. If I’m in a sufficiently sporting mood and happen to get caught up in the moment, I will dance and sing along with reckless abandon to some dreadful remix at a party or a club, but numerous stars have to align for that to occur. Generally speaking, that genre of music makes me want to cover my ears and sob. Jay Gatsby, for all his flaws, at least had a full orchestra playing live music at his parties.

            Despite the assault in my ears, I had to admit that, visually speaking, it was all opulence and splendor. Yet the “fun” was conspicuous only by its absence. The rail-thin, beautiful women standing in their clusters along the edge of the pool or perched gracefully on sofas all seemed to be staring blankly at their phones. Some were talking to each other, and some were taking photos (bright flashes illuminating frozen smiles and tan arms perched carefully on slender hips). There wasn’t much laughter and the laughter that did occasionally tinkle high above the pounding beats sounded forced and manufactured. My consort ordered a glass of wine for himself and a gin-and-tonic for me. A group of blonde women with vaguely European accents hovered by the bar, talking loudly and drinking champagne. They checked their phones after each sip.

            With all the luxurious fixings, I hadn’t expected it to feel so common. But it was. It was dreadfully, depressingly common, like a college bar where nineteen-year-olds clamor to get in with their fake ID’s and fraternity pledges vomit all over the sticky tiled floor--only more expensive and less fun. There was no gentility, no elegance, and certainly none of the irreverence and silliness that had made my previous clubbing experiences enjoyable.

            We made our way to a semi-indoor area, where, at first glance, the chances of dancing appeared to be somewhat higher. At least dancing would allow me to enjoy myself and expend some calories, and my man-friend is a marvelous dancer. I may no longer enjoy “partying” in the traditional, formulaic sense of the word, but I strongly suspect that I will always adore dancing, even to the grating sounds of loathsome pop music remixes. Unfortunately, the only dancing taking place in this area of the club was the choreiform gyrations of a wan blonde in a crop top and cutoff denim shorts. She would alternate between wildly thrusting her bony limbs in the air and suggestively rubbing against several paunchy men who had gathered around her. I detachedly noted that she seemed to be high on Ecstasy. To her credit, she did seem to be one of the few people in this club who was having genuine fun.

            With my hopes for dancing temporarily dashed, I turned my attention to a line of interchangeable young women with perfectly shaped bodies who erupted from a back door, holding large, illuminated bottles of expensive-looking liquor high above their sleek manes and cheering with rehearsed enthusiasm. These were the fabled bottle service girls, paradigms of female commodification, living testaments to the futility of feminism.  They wore identical, skin-tight, turquoise Herve Leger dresses with hems so short that an ill-timed squat would leave nothing to the imagination. They cheered and pumped the huge bottles high in the air, making a concerted effort to appear carefree and effortlessly sexy. Had there been more men in the club, I have no doubt that hundred dollar bills would have been flying in their direction. In a different crowd, the appearance of such women would have surely been invigorating. It was a performance, and I wondered if everyone was falling for it, or if it was just me who could see that one of the bottle service girls had bags under her eyes and another had put a black cotton cardigan over her minuscule dress and was sniffling as if she had a cold. I could see that these were just ordinary(albeit very attractive) girls doing a job—not some fantasy sex kittens who lived in a perpetual party—but could anyone else see that? Or did no one else even want to see it?

            A dance remix of Lana Del Rey’s “Summertime Sadness” came on, and I knew it was time to go. I had had enough. We danced with some restraint where we stood (so as not to interfere with the flailing blonde), finished our drinks, and made our way towards the exit. Endless crowds of beautiful women continued to recline in their cabanas and stare at their phones. I wondered if they couldn’t have just stayed at home and stared at their phones all night instead. The whole place, for all its glitz and clinical revelry, stunk of ennui. Were all these people here simply because they had nothing else to do that night? Did they all want to be able to say that they had been there, that they hadn’t missed out—much like the New Yorkers of Gatsby’s era, who had swarmed his famous parties with no invitation, because it was the thing to do?

            While I understand that debauchery and privilege tend to go hand-in-hand, I fail to see the allure of a prepackaged “party” with the promise of generic “fun” in the form of a prettily illuminated pool, expensive cocktails, overproduced “music”, and scantily clad women.  On an individual level, what is actually going on that can be classified as “fun”? For my part, it was somewhat enjoyable to engage in people-watching—to observe the stunning women posing and displaying their glamorously trendy outfits—but it didn’t take long for me to grow bored with that activity. Attempts at conversation with my man-friend were resounding failures, given how skull-shatteringly loud the music was, so we virtually stood in silence, drinking our $25 beverages, watching hordes of beautiful strangers stare at their phones. To me, it was a loud, expensive, depressing bore.

            I have no doubt that an astute reader may wonder if I was simply jealous, and that was why I didn’t enjoy myself at this glossy night club. And to that, I will readily concur: I am jealous. I envy people who can glean simple enjoyment out of a neatly assembled, formulaic “party” , and I say that with no judgment or aspersions cast on the character or intelligence of such people. It’s just not my thing. I would have probably appreciated Jay Gatsby’s parties, if only for the live music and the fabulous attire, but likely not more than once or twice. Perhaps I simply have a lower threshold for boredom. (After all, I generally don’t enjoy a movie unless there’s at least one massive battle sequence and/or car chase.) Or perhaps I lack the ability to turn off the overly analytical region of my brain. I ask myself, why is a certain activity considered fun? Am I truly having fun, or is this an illusion of fun as defined by purveyors of a product?

            Later that night, after removing my high heels, tasteful mini-dress, ankle bracelets, and hair extensions (as well as a hank of my own hair that was painfully extracted in the process), I downloaded The Great Gatsby on my Kindle and settled into the cool, sterile-looking white hotel bed.  And I reminded myself that it’s perfectly acceptable to be a lot of different things at once. It’s okay to be outgoing, friendly, and sociable while also enjoying the solitude of an evening on the couch with an excellent book and a plate of Nutella-slathered toast. It’s okay to dress like a glamorous diva with a penchant for haute couture while nursing a supremely geeky obsession for The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter. It’s okay to want to be a part of something while also seeing its weaknesses, as Nick Carraway saw the internal ugliness of Gatsby’s seemingly charmed life—and it’s also okay to be repulsed by insincerity and emptiness. In the end, I was so unimpressed by the depressingly empty social scene that we experienced that night that I wasn’t at all disappointed when we didn’t get around to hitting any more clubs for the remainder of our vacation. Instead, we lounged on the beach. We talked, we laughed, we swam, we ate amazing food. We had fun. Authentic, individualized fun, with no illusions.

            

Why Carrie Bradshaw Is The Worst

            I realize that I won’t win any points for timeliness with this one, but I feel compelled to unleash some pent-up feelings regarding a certain curly-haired protagonist from a certain late-90’s/early-2000’s hit TV series. You see, the deplorability of Carrie Bradshaw has caused me to have some conflicting thoughts on HBO’s sometimes excellent, sometimes dreadful, always giggle-worthy Sex and the City. While the show has been off the air for—wait for it—almost ten years, it still is and likely always will be a part of the collective subconscious of American women, including yours truly, partially due to the allegedly relatable main character. Unfortunately, said main character makes my skin crawl, and hence, the aforementioned conflicting thoughts about the show.

            We all have that one friend. The friend who grates on our nerves and frequently causes us to clench our teeth in unmitigated exasperation, but we keep around anyway for whatever perverse reason. For me, Carrie Bradshaw is that friend. Oh, sure, she doesn’t actually know me. She’s not even real, I get that. But, to the show writers’ credit, she has been written so organically that I feel perfectly justified in having genuine emotional reactions to her and her repugnant behavior. Such is the elaborate monstrosity of good fiction. 

             A little background, for the uninitiated. Sex and the City is an appealing, clever romp through the glamorous parts of Manhattan with four middle-aged single women who enjoy lunch, casual sex, and complaining about men. Is it sexist? Of course it is. But it doesn’t think it’s sexist, which almost-but-not-quite makes it somewhat okay. After all, the intention of the show is clearly to celebrate female sexuality and independence, at which it often fails miserably—but I give the show-runners credit for trying. They even try to avoid stereotypical female archetypes, which is…again, a failed effort. Miranda is a cheeky, caustic, miserable pessimist of a corporate lawyer. Samantha is a promiscuous, witty, femme fatale pseudo-male who literally lives to bone. Charlotte is an ultra-conservative, irritatingly idealistic, Disney princess wannabe. And Carrie is just the worst.

            To explain my basically irrational disgust with Carrie, I will take a page out of Miranda’s book and make an abridged list of reasons elucidating why this shrill-voiced moron is the absolute worst of the worst.

5. All she really cares about is herself.

            Fine, so Carrie is the main character and narrator of the series. She is entitled to have some degree of self-absorption, given that much of the show’s action takes place in her general vicinity. However, she takes egocentricity to a whole new level. In Season 4, after Miranda sprains her neck and hilariously has to wear an Aspen collar, Carrie comes over for a monologue about her boyfriend, disguised as breakfast and checking on her immobilized friend. Miranda, who is awesome, calls her out on her selfish nonsense, and I only wish that Miranda had also had the sense to chase Carrie out of her apartment, pelting her with bagels as she fled down Eighth Avenue in her absurdly high heels…but I digress. Earlier in Season 4, Carrie is asked to walk in a fashion show, and, although it is made explicitly clear that Carrie is participating in this event to serve as a juxtaposition to the real models, she still acts like a total bitchy diva and orders Stanford (her pocket gay) to bring her a glass of champagne while she smokes like a chimney and whines about basically everything. In the final season, Carrie dates Mikhail Barishnykov, and morphs into a teenage girl—you know, the kind who has no need for her friends anymore because she just “wuvs” spending all of her time with her boo. Also, does anyone else remember when Carrie called Miranda to whine about the eternal Aidan/Mr. Big dilemma while Miranda’s mother was dying in the hospital?

4. She has a flagrant disdain for physical and mental health.

            Aside from the fact that Carrie clearly believes that it is both chic and acceptable to have a smoking problem, she doesn’t even think about quitting until a cute, lovely man named Aidan inadvertently makes her feel all guilty about. Because why would someone so self-unaware as Carrie decide to give up a disgusting, fatal habit unless it was for the sake of impressing a guy? Similarly, Carrie (unlike her friends) seems to have no desire to seek any form of physical fitness. Miranda and Samantha both work out regularly. Even Charlotte, who makes me itch, is an avid runner. Carrie, on the other hand, makes a flippant remark about how a man dropping dead at the gym is a good reason why she doesn’t work out. Good for you, Carrie. You are naturally thin and somehow have the lean musculature of a prepubescent gymnast, even though you seem to subsist on alcohol and takeout. Here, have a medal. As if all that wasn’t bad enough, Carrie also turns her nose up at seeing a therapist when her friends finally join forces to point out how her absurd self-centeredness is pathological and worthy of professional attention. She claims to “not believe in” therapy. Carrie, therapy isn’t like the Tooth Fairy. No one cares if you believe in it or not. And by the way, you’re a narcissistic bitch.

3. She is a drama queen.

            I generally try to ignore the existence of the Sex and the City movies, but I simply must cite the infamous wedding fiasco from the first (and marginally better) film adaptation. Carrie, after planning a ridiculously extravagant wedding to Mr. Big (a mistake on many levels), is publicly jilted, to nobody’s surprise but her own, and the stink that she raises is Biblical. Which isn’t to say that it’s not perfectly acceptable to raise a giant stink when stood up at the altar, but Carrie goes so far as to become mute for several days, ignore her friends to the point that they’re actually afraid of her, throw her cell phone in the ocean, and dye her hair brown. Also, as an aside, the only thing that makes her laugh weeks after being jilted is the sight of Charlotte shitting her pants, which shows you how odious Carrie really is.

            Years before the wedding and pants-shitting incidents, in Season 2 of the TV series, Carrie is flummoxed by then-boyfriend Mr. Big’s decision to move to Paris for seven months without consulting her first. Never mind the fact that Mr. Big has made it abundantly clear that he is averse to commitment and delights in stringing her along. She pitches an enormous fit in his apartment and flings a Big Mac at his head. Then she drunk dials him in the wee hours of the morning, ranting and spilling booze all over herself. Soon after that, she starts dating the lovely and adorable Aidan, who—oh, the horror!—engenders no drama whatsoever.  He is respectful, dedicated, loyal, romantic, and pleasant. Carrie is profoundly disturbed and demands to know what’s wrong with him. Without drama, Carrie is as out of place as Big Bird in a brothel.

2. She has no discernible talents (or, in the absence of talents, interests).

            Yes, Carrie is a “writer” by trade. She writes a wildly popular weekly column about sex and dating. She eventually does some freelance work for Vogue and, around that same time, publishes a compilation of her columns. I suppose one could argue that writing is her talent, but come on now. I can’t buy that writing is some all-consuming passion of hers, just because we know that she’s able to make a living out of it. We never even see her write a single thing aside from her inane column—no blogs or poetry or novels or anything. Just trite observations from her daily life of shallowness. And what does her life even consist of, either than sex, dating, and fashion? We hardly ever see her reading. Her definition of “hard news” is the Sunday Times wedding announcement section. We know her knowledge of local politics is pitiful, based on the events of the Season 3 episode “Politically Erect”, in which she dates a politician with a penchant for urolagnia. She has a documented aversion to cooking (she admits to using her oven for storage), and she hates dogs.

            We do know that she used to like Styx and occasionally does the crossword puzzle, but that’s all pretty dismal, as far as interests go.

1. She is a remorseless liar.

            As if sabotaging a relationship with a lovely man because he’s too sweet to satisfy her maudlin lust for drama wasn’t bad enough, Carrie takes it a step further and humiliates Aidan by having a full-blown affair with Mr. Big, who’s married to Tom Brady’s much hotter ex-wife. Let me paint you a picture. Aidan, in all his infinite loveliness, volunteers to do some home repairs for Carrie, free of charge. Instead of being grateful, Carrie whines about how noisy the project is and how it’s disrupting her “work” (excuse me while I laugh myself silly). In a huff, she goes off to a nearby hotel…where she runs into a very angsty Mr. Big, who is out of sorts and desirous of therapeutic boning in order to take his mind off his failing marriage. One thing leads to another, and soon we have your standard Carrie Bradshaw melodrama: Carrie thinks that she and Mr. Big are in twue wuv, Mr. Big is a giant ass hat, Carrie post-coitally pokes around Mr. Big’s marital home in just a bra and gets caught by his wife, Mr. Big’s wife falls down some stairs and cracks a tooth, Carrie screams and cries and finally…Carrie gets away with everything.

            Until much later, when she tells Aidan the truth (to alleviate her own guilt, not because of any sense of personal integrity), gets dumped, has a giant pity party, and never actually reflects on what a lying jerk she really is. But that’s not even the worst part. The worst part is this: a few years later, Carrie and Aidan get back together. Carrie should be thanking her lucky stars and sacrificing a virgin on the altar of good fortune. Instead, she whines and cries and repeats “You have to forgive me” over and over and over until Aidan, being the lovely man that he is, feels sorry for her and lets it all go. Just like that. You would think that, with all her good fortune, Carrie would have the sense to cease all communication with Mr. Big out of respect for Aidan. Nope! Mr. Big constantly calls Carrie at home when Aidan is literally sitting right there next to her, Carrie continues to have dinner with Mr. Big on the sly, and—get this—she even has the gall to invite Mr. Big to Aidan’s country home and demand that Aidan and Mr. Big make friends. Sure, Carrie. Aidan should totally get chummy with the guy who smashed his girlfriend.

            Carrie has zero remorse about her awful treatment of Aidan. I can deal with flawed characters. I like flawed characters. But, if we’re supposed to root for Carrie and Mr. Big’s ultimate “twue wuv”, shouldn’t Carrie try and win us over with a little remorse and compassion? It’s fine that she made a mistake, but rubbing Aidan’s face in it by continuing to hang with Mr. Big like there’s no Big Elephant in the room is just not right.

            The problem with Carrie isn’t really that she’s shrill, self-centered, shallow, and sneaky. The problem is, she’s yet another in a long list of unflattering female characters in TV, movies, and literature—and yet, she was perfectly positioned not to be. The premise of this show is the struggle of modern femininity, how Western society continues to evolve to evolve in order to allow women to approach equal footing with men in terms of sexual freedom, career opportunities, and flexibility of gender roles. While the show often fails to hit the correct notes, its most egregious failure is Carrie. She’s not just a representative of modern women, she’s a representative of modern, icky people. Rather than applauding her successes and empathizing with her failures, I find myself rolling my eyes at her idiocy and sense of entitlement. I can’t appreciate her as a strong, self-assured woman: I dismiss her as a hypocritical, lazy brat. While it’s refreshing that many of her flaws are gender neutral, it’s still a crime against feminism, because the show-runners had the perfect opportunity to make Carrie Bradshaw marvelous—which would have been huge at a time when prominent female role models in the media were rather scarce.

            Nowadays, our pantheon of exciting female characters in television is much more robust, although we are still afflicted with self-impressed Carrie-types (Jess from New Girl comes to mind). However, Sex and the City was always supposed to be a celebration of modern women, and they ruined the party with Carrie. Daenerys from HBO’s Game of Thrones would have been a much better protagonist. Once she realized that Mr. Big was a sleazy commitment-phobe, she would have flown off on her dragon and conquered a continent instead of wasting her time pining over him. (The problem is, she’s at least twenty years younger than all the other women on the show, which could have made for some awkward non-sequiturs at brunch, [i.e. DANY: OMG GUYS I JUST GOT MY PERIOD! WHAT’S HAPPENING???? SAMANTHA, MIRANDA, AND CHARLOTTE: … ]).

            Whatever. Literally anyone is better than Carrie Bradshaw.