Sex and the City

We can all agree that the best part of Sex and the City is all of the other girls that aren’t Carrie. My personal favorite is Samantha (also the top of the list through a fully objective analysis) and so we are going to talk about all the reasons why she is the best of the group. Not just the best woman but the best friend. She is strong, confident and she owns her own PR firm, that is badass.

In an attempt to establish the character types we were dealing with in this group they made season 1 Samantha overly sexual. Not that she isn’t that way the entire series but it does ease up a bit. I feel like that is partially because she has more overall screentime in season 1 than she does in season 2. But as the seasons go on the writing get’s evened out. I would also like to point out that this entire show takes place from Carrie’s point of view so pretty much everything we see as the audience is skewed in some way. That said Samantha is Carrie’s older friend, her sexually promiscuous friend. And she makes that clear over and over again. Even in the moments where we get to see how kind and smart Samantha is, it's always framed by a different sexual conquest.

When Carrie tells her that she slept with Big while still with Aiden and Sam doesn’t judge her, she just offers her a safe place to exist. Carrie does not deserve a friend like Samantha. Sam even keeps it from the other women at Carrie’s request. Now I do think that that might be coddling Carrie’s bad habits a little bit. But Samantha never acted like she was better than anyone else. I would say that all of the other women had moments of moral superiority but Sam never did. She was always very raw and herself and she never felt the need to be anything more.

All of that said, sometimes Samantha doesn’t know when to keep it zipped. She sleeps with a college student which is super icky (and may or may not be illegal, his age was not clarified) I genuinely don’t think she knows that she doesn’t have to sleep with every person that wants to sleep with her. There was also that creepy old guy in her building and the gay couple. Just because someone propositions you does not mean that you need to spread your legs. Saying the word no is actually super easy, and so are men go find someone that you actually want to sleep with. I have no problem with casual sex, no problem with sex partners you fuck with once and never see again, but sleeping with every person that comes near you is definitely a problem. I mean all the girls need therapy to the extent but being hypersexual definitely needs to be looked into. The other side of that is that she is very open with her sexuality. One of the only real relationships she actually has all series is with a woman and she never defines herself as straight, or bisexual. She just seems to care about the person that she sleeps with.

One of my favorite Samantha moments is when she tells off Big. They are out to dinner and when Carrie walks away she basically tells Big that he needs to get his shit together. That Carrie is fragile and if he is actually her friend he would leave her alone. I really wish all of the women had a moment like this with him but it really was perfect that it was Samantha.

Samantha is one of the best TV characters ever and I think she was the blueprint for a lot of characters that came after her. Her character was a gateway for talking about sex and sexuality and that opened up a lot of important conversations that really weren’t had on television up to this point. Samantha is an incredible friend and a badass woman and we should all aspire to be her.