Last week I brought together the attachment styles of Samantha and Miranda as I had concluded that they were much the same. This week it’s the turn of the main character - Carrie Bradshaw, an altogether more complicated individual who can’t manage her finances, has an unhealthy shoe obsession and doesn’t seem to be able to communicate what she wants for fear of upsetting the man she is with.
And that’s where I’m going to begin, her inability to step up for herself, which could be construed as a trait of anxious attachment. We see it time and time again with Big where she goes along with his wants and needs continually. She is afraid to be clear with him about what she wants from the relationship. It’s a clear and consistent pattern in that 'situationship' which culminates in him moving to Paris without consulting her at all.
We see her do it all over again with Aiden when she doesn’t know what she wants again, is nervous about meeting his parents, and is unable to break it off with him and lets him do the deed instead…twice.
With Burger, things get a bit better, and we see her be more assertive and ultimately it is his insecurities that end that relationship.
Then when she meets ‘the Russian’, Aleksander Petrovxky, she ends up giving up her while life to be with him, after only being in a relationship with him, for perhaps, six months (she meets him in episode 12 and he asks her in episode 18). There are signs that he is selfish and self-centred and they are not on the same wavelength. She has to communicate questions to him about moving to Paris under the guise of, “her friends having a few questions.” It’s emotionally immature and an indication that she doesn’t know who she is. At brunch, Charlotte asks her, “what is he promising you?”, whilst Miranda enquiries about her job, her column. Carrie gets defensive, rejecting her friend’s questions and just wants her friends to be happy for her.
It’s a concern that her friends even have to ask her all of these questions at her age. Surely Carrie, in her early 40’s, should be at a point where she is in control of where her romantic life and where it is headed without a spotlight being shone on her?
The Paris move doesn’t work out, and when she gets back together with Big, she is still happy to go along with his whims - moving in together, their awkward conversation about getting married, spending time apart in her old apartment, and then his intolerance towards and inability to discuss the escalation of the size of their wedding. And we know how that ends.
Carrie’s anxious attachment can be seen time and time again throughout her life. As I type this, it occurred to me that there is a prequel to her life as we see it through Sex and the City, in the shape of The Carrie Diaries. I can see from Wikipedia that, ‘Carrie's mother recently died from cancer and as a result, Carrie's younger sister, Dorrit, is more rebellious than ever, and their father, Tom, is overwhelmed with the responsibility of suddenly having to care for two teenage girls on his own.”
I may need to do some research and tune in.
Next week, I’m starting a little series illustrating parenting styles using characters from film and TV. With the death of Matthew Perry, I’ll kick off with the parenting styles we see in Friends and how they might have affected the main characters.
To peace and prosperity,
jaxx
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