Bonus Episode - Jennifer Keishin Armstrong (Full Interview)

This episode delves into the television show Sex and the City and its cultural impact, as well as the dynamics among its cast, particularly the well-known discord between Sarah Jessica Parker and Kim Cattrall.

1. Cultural Shift: Sex and the City played a pivotal role in changing how single women are portrayed in media, emphasizing independence and open discussions about sexuality.
2. Pop Culture Influence: The show not only impacted its viewers but also influenced broader economic and fashion trends, exemplifying the power of television in shaping societal trends.
3. Feud Dynamics: The interview sheds light on the real-life tensions between cast members, which echoes the show's themes of complex female relationships.
4. Armstrong's Approach: Jennifer Keishin Armstrong selects TV shows that have both a compelling origin story and a significant cultural impact for her books.
5. Evolution of TV: The discussion includes an overview of how the landscape of television has changed, with Sex and the City marking a shift towards more specialized, cable-based viewing.

1: Introduction

The episode opens with an introduction of Jennifer Keishin Armstrong and her credentials as a pop culture historian.

2: Deep Dive into Sex and the City

Discussion on the cultural significance and lasting impact of Sex and the City, including its influence on women's portrayal in media. Jennifer Keishin Armstrong: "It changed how women talked about sex with each other, probably changed how people had sex."

3: The Dynamics of Cast Feuds

Exploration of the known feud between Sarah Jessica Parker and Kim Cattrall, providing insights into how personal dynamics can affect a show's environment. Jennifer Keishin Armstrong: "There's this feud that was brewing during the time of the show."

4: Pop Culture's Role

Armstrong discusses the role of television in shaping and reflecting societal norms, using Sex and the City as a primary example. Jennifer Keishin Armstrong: "Sometimes you can't totally tell in the moment what's defining pop culture."

1. Engage with Classic TV Shows: Revisit shows like Sex and the City to understand their cultural context and impact.
2. Discussion Groups: Start or join groups to discuss themes of influential TV shows and their relevance today.
3. Critical Viewing: Watch television critically, observing how it reflects or influences societal norms.
4. Explore Behind-the-Scenes: Learn about the making of your favorite shows to gain insights into the television industry.
5. Read Widely: Explore books by pop culture historians like Jennifer Keishin Armstrong to gain a deeper understanding of television's role in society.

In our latest piece of bonus content, showrunner Pete Musto chats with pop culture historian Jennifer Keishin Armstrong about TV history, diverse representation in media, and how Sex and the City paved the way for countless other hit shows like HBO's Girls and Comedy Central's Broad City. Jennifer Keishin Armstrong is a former entertainment journalist and a New York Times bestselling author of several incredibly enlightening books on television history, including “Seinfeldia: How A Show About Nothing Changed Everything,” “Mary and Lou and Rhoda and Ted and All the Brilliant Minds who made The Mary Tyler Moore Show.” And her book “Sex and The City and US: How Four Single Women Changed the Way We Think, Live, and Love” details how the HBO series revolutionized TV for women. Grab a copy of her latest book "So Fetch: The Making of Mean Girls (And Why We're Still So Obsessed with It."

People

Jennifer Keishin Armstrong, Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall

Companies

HBO

Books

Seinfeldia, When Women Invented Television, Sex and the City and Us

Guest Name(s):

Jennifer Keishin Armstrong

Content Warnings:

None

Pete Musteau

Next chapter podcast.

Hi, everyone, and welcome to another awesome episode of bonus content for Beef with Bridget Todd. I'm Beef's showrunner, Pete Musteau, and I can't wait to talk today about the television phenomena sex and the City and the slow burning feud that lay just below the show's surface between two of its stars, Sarah Jessica Parker and Kim Cattrall. Joining me today is pop culture historian Jennifer Caishin Armstrong. Jennifer is a former entertainment journalist and a New York Times bestselling author of several incredibly enlightening books on television history, including Seinfeldia, how a Show about nothing changed everything. Mary and Lou and Rhoda and Ted and all the brilliant minds who made the Mary Tyler Moore show and her book Sex and the City and how four single women change the way we think, live and love details how the HBO series revolutionized tv for women.

Jennifer, thank you for joining me today. Thanks for having me. Really appreciate it. You know, this was a big hit for many years. I'm in my late thirties.

I remember when it was in its moment on tv. But before we get into Sex and the City, I want to ask you one question about yourself. How do you become a pop culture historian just by watching a lot of movies and tv. The credentialing is very intense. Mostly.

Jennifer Keishin Armstrong

I worked at Entertainment Weekly for ten years. I wrote about pop culture before that, too, but that was kind of my big break. And from there started writing books about mostly television history. I've done a little bit of pop music, and I have a book that is just out when this comes out, which is about mean girls, the movie. So, you know, it's something that has acquired over time, I suppose, that just, I have done a lot of work in research and both watching things, but also the actual research part of learning, really, especially television.

I have a book called when women invent television that literally starts at the beginning of television. So it's like, I have really done a lot of work, both of consuming and also reading and researching. I love your choice of topics, too, Seinfeldia. I'm a big Seinfeld fan. So what draws you to a particular show that you're like, you know what?

Pete Musteau

This is what I want to dig into and drill down into. Like, I try to actually be pretty selective. People love to, and it's very nice, but people love to say to me, you know, like, you should do whatever their favorite show is usually, you know? And a lot of times, like, I'm thinking in my head, like, of all the reasons why that wouldn't work already. I usually am like, yeah, maybe, but most shows, I think, don't live up to this treatment.

Jennifer Keishin Armstrong

I mean, you have 300 pages to fill. Like, that's how I always explain it, is that it can't just be like, I enjoy the show. There has to be something to say. And I'm usually looking for both an interesting origin story and also a real cultural and social impact to some extent. Like, I really want a show to be something that it's still living in people's lives.

There's a way that it's affecting their lives. And I think, like, with Sex and the City, there's no bigger one in terms of the ways that it actually affected its viewers and probably even other people who didn't watch it, their lives, you know, it has. I have a whole chapter on, just, like, the Sex and city economy. It changed how women talked about sex with each other, probably changed how people had sex. Like, it really did do a lot.

So that's usually what. That's the kind of thing that I'm looking for. Before we also go too deep into the show, there are one other thing about pop culture. Like, overall, I wanted to ask, what are the things that you feel like define pop culture in a given era? Is it just like there's, like, that one big hit, or is it kind of like a milieu of lots of different things?

This is what I think is so fun about what I do. This is why I do it is because sometimes you can't totally tell in the moment what's, you know, I mean, we can guess some things, right? Like this in 2023, you know, you can already kind of tell that the big stories would be things like Barbie, the era's tour, Beyonce. And you can see already how all those go together, for instance. And people have already been making that connection of, like, you know, kind of this ascendant power of women, the economic power of women, that kind of thing.

And, you know, so that I think that can happen sometimes. Sometimes we can't really see. I don't know if we were sitting around watching Seinfeld in the nineties and going like, you know, what this really shows us about our current era is, but if you look back on that, you can see how it fits into the nineties and how it's about these kind of, like, these single people forming a found family of sorts. It's not very warm, but, like, that is what's happening, right? So those that does go with friends in that way.

We hadn't seen a lot of that before. So on television, this idea of the friends as the main unit as opposed to the family as the main unit. So that was new. This kind of yuppie, upwardly mobile people, urban people, urban singles, pretty selfish, kind of terrible people, I always say. I think they paved the way for the antiheroes of the Tony soprano era.

So it's like, you can see how in retrospect, when you look back, you see how that was all happening, and you can see how that works with something like Sex and the City, where there were a bunch of shows that kind of redefined New York City and urban life. At that time, New York City was kind of not doing great in the eighties. Like, this was. It did not have a great reputation with the rest of the country. And then you had Seinfeld friends, Sex and the city come in and just make it look like this funny wonderland full of people you would want to hang out with.

And that actually did make a change in patterns of young people moving into New York City. Pretty much like me and a bunch of people like me all moved to New York City around the same time in the early two thousands, probably with visions of one or all three of these shows in our heads. You know, that's a great point, because I wanted to ask as well, you know, what does pop culture mean for our society in terms of, like, either defining or reflecting it? Because there is obviously going to be some reflection, but at the same time, in terms of defining it. Like you said, not everybody lives in New York City.

Pete Musteau

So why are these shows where, like, everybody's living in New York City so popular? Like, to what extent is it art mirroring life, or is life mirroring art? It's really like, I think both things are happening at all times, and we've become way more aware, I think, in more recent years, of the importance of things like, representation is one big example, right? So it's like, a lot of the time, our pop culture is a little bit ahead of us, essentially, you know, trying to be a better example, essentially, than what we're currently doing. And so it does kind of push us forward.

Jennifer Keishin Armstrong

Right. Sex and the city is a totally different example. We know it's not an example of amazing representation, but at that time, you know, you didn't have shows about single women being glamorous and talking about sex in this way. And so this was kind of, you know, it's like, that's sort of a, quote, fantasy idea, right? It's like some one person or a group of people's idea of, like, maybe the world could be a little more like this.

And there's tons of studies that have been done about things like representation, that show that, for instance, if you see a group that's different from your own on television and you keep watching, you know, and you grow to love them and you're watching the show, it really actually does increase people's tolerance for other kinds of people, which is why representation is important. Besides which, people like to see themselves represented on television, too. So there's very much a, like, you know, back and forth, I think, between, there's a conversation between the culture and what is going on in actual life. I want to come back to that topic of representation in a minute. But now, getting specifically into the show, especially because you said, you mentioned you wrote that book about the history of women in television, I think that suits this question well.

Pete Musteau

In what ways had women been depicted in pop culture in the decades prior to Sex and the City? And how did the show redefine how we view female characters? I feel like that's something that I'm always trying to explain to the kids. It looks so cliche. It became a self cliche because it was so popular, which often happens.

Jennifer Keishin Armstrong

But before that, there wasn't anything like this, right? I mean, I'm sure we had spurts of glamorous single women, but overall, there was this single woman idea of, think of Bridget Jones that was, like, right around that same time. And we love her. I loved her. I loved all the Bridget Jones books and movies, but she was definitely not depicted as like, oh, it's so cool and glamorous to be single.

Right. It was still this very sort of, like, sad, oh, my God, I have to get out of this idea, which was very common throughout cultural history, really is the sort of sad single woman. And Mary Tyler Moorshow is an exception. And we have had exceptions. But overall, there was this idea of like, oh, my God, I have to get married and like, all of this stuff.

Whereas this show came in and was like, here are four women who from go have each other have full lives, look really glamorous. This is how it was described at the time, which was they talk about men. The way men talk about women was kind of like, oh, wow. But they talk about sex. And men in this sort of objectifying way, I guess, is the best way to say it, in this detached way.

They aren't like, oh, my God, I hope we get married because we just had sex. You know, it isn't that kind of thing. And so that was what was so different and it was really interesting to read the early reviews of Sex and the City because the shocked early reviews, mostly men, but some women, too, even, were really just very upset by the entire thing. And it's so funny because now we're so used to kind of all of this that doesn't really make a difference. But, you know, at the time, they were just like, I can't believe they're talking about men this way.

The men definitely were really upset. And, you know, because there was one particular reference to, like, a man's male parts as being particularly underwhelming and comparing them to a gherkin. And that was just that one, like, showed up in all the reviews. And people were just shocked and appalled that women wouldn't even talk like this. And, like, a lot of that kind of, you know, very defensive stuff.

And there was a lot of debate over whether, quote, women would really talk this way. There was all of this stuff. And it's like, the only reason to even to have that debate is because you're very upset by what they're saying. And I think probably the answer is some women talk that way and some don't. It might be a slight exaggeration for the most part, but it was showing this whole new idea of how single women could be.

And I just think of it as this instant change from, oh, isn't it sad when women are single to, oh, that looks fun and glamorous. And it became this, like, that became the ideal of the single woman. Right. You think of it now, it's like the shoes, the shopping, and that's, we can debate whether those are good hallmarks to have. But I think that the rampant consumerism that was on display here is definitely rampant consumerism, but also did serve this purpose of.

Unfortunately, in America, that's what we see as glamorous, right? Is having your own money to spend. And that's what they were showing these women able to do, is that this was not men buying them stuff. For the most part, there's exceptions to that role, but this was mostly about that they had jobs, were raising her up as this kind of ideal of single womanhood, even though they are not. Perfect people looking outside of Sex and the City for a second to its peers of the time, what was the pop culture landscape like when the show premiered, especially with regards to television, but including whatever else is telling about the time?

Pete Musteau

What was it like at that point? Yeah, I mean, so you're coming out of like, you actually, weirdly, it wasn't something I realized until I wrote this book right after I wrote a book about Seinfeld. But, like, you're just coming of Seinfeld. Seinfeld just ended. This is beginning.

Jennifer Keishin Armstrong

And I actually think you can see a through line there. And so that, you know, coming out of like, this time, we didn't know it then, but out of this time of like 40 million people watching, you know, Seinfeld together, it's like that monoculture time of the nineties friends is still on. So we've still got some vestiges of that, of like, we will all do one thing, but we're really coming into that cable era of more and more fractured audiences. The Internet is coming up. We're still coming out of like, I mean, in coming out of the Clinton era, you know, it's a very different time because this is before 2000, right?

This is like 98. We're still like at the tail end of that nineties kind of feeling of like, I think, you know, kind of the last innocence to some extent right before 911. So that's what's important is like, you know, New York City is coming up. Everybody's into it now. It looks fun and glamorous.

Friends in Seinfeld have been there. Were going into this more fractured viewing time of cables sort of inching in. HBO was nothing when sex and the city started. And that was a huge thing for them. It was an advantage to a large degree, partly because you could not show these kinds of conversations on network television.

So thats a huge reason that this is so different. I always like to point out, actually predates the Sopranos. So this show is actually what first built HBO before the Sopranos come in. And then thats just like the two of them together are unstoppable force and HBO becomes a thing. But all the people involved with the show had to kind of be convinced because they were like, isn't HBO like weird movies and boxing and comedy specials?

There was not a lot of precedent for the way it is now that it's the gold standard of programming. There was very little programming. So this was both a selling point for people because they thought like, oh, this won't last long. Maybe I can just do one season of this. I know Sarah Jessica was really worried about signing onto tv, but partly was like, oh, this probably won't even works, though.

Sure. You know, so it was just, it was a very, very different time in both culture and television. And I think, you know, there was also a lot of discussion about just kind of coming out of that Clinton era, which made sex talk primetime news. So that, too, you know, who knows how much that was part of this. But certainly all of these forces kind of come together.

Maybe people were a little more ready for this kind of thing. And then it was kind of this fun, exciting. This is what you can do on HBO. Is it really just that basically, the show was kind of crass? Was that why it was so groundbreaking?

Pete Musteau

Or is there more to it than that? And also, can you kind of give some context for how big of an impact it had? You know, you mentioned in your book a chapter about the sex and city economy that came so, like, why was it so groundbreaking? And, like, how much ground did it really break? You know, I think the way it's like, it could be seen as crass.

Jennifer Keishin Armstrong

And certainly many people have. I've even given talks where, like, I talked about the history of women on television or, you know, comedy on television, and I had one in there and I forgot it was like a slightly older audience. And afterwards, they saw it completely differently from how I saw it, as this evolution toward women being able to talk this way and act this way on television. They were like, this just shows all of the comments, they weren't mad at me, but they would say things like, this just shows how we've just gone into the toilet. I see how they saw it, which was like, we start with Dick Van Dyke and the very Tyler Moore show and end with Sex and the City.

And to them, it looks like this downward trajectory. And I was like, oh, I wasn't even saying that. How interesting that that's how they see it. They certainly said things that especially then, I think now if you go, like, watch them, we've since far past that kind of standards, so it doesn't seem that dirty. But, yeah, like, at that time, I mean, there is a pretty early episode about, with a discussion about anal sex.

To me, I grew up in a sex positive household, and so, you know, and I am a sex positive feminist. So to me, this is great because women were taught not to talk about this stuff. And the only way thing you can get information about sex is to talk to other people. It's one of the few things. It's like, unless you watch porn, you don't see other people having sex, right?

That's like, kind of the joke of sex. And so you have to talk to other people. And talking to women, other women about it is great because if you're a woman, that's the only way you can kind of, like, be like, hey, I do this, or this guy wants to do this? I don't know. You know, how else are you going to figure out things like consent, right?

If you have to figure it out all alone or in the moment, it's like kind of this nice idea of going to the brunch table and being like, hey, this guy wants to do this thing. Like, have you done it? What's your experience? I'm trying to figure out my own feelings about it. And what I always enjoyed about sex and the city is, I call them, like, their socratic dialogues, where it's like somebody brings a topic to the table.

These four women are also different, which just is the construction of the show, that, of course, they each have a slightly different, strong opinion about something like oral sex or anal sex. And so that, to me, is what's groundbreaking. And they changed it, at least in my experience, almost overnight. They changed how we would talk about it. They're modeling something for us, right?

And so all of a sudden, out of nowhere, it's like one day you were going about your business, and the next day the thing to do is to go to brunch. And you know that when you go to brunch with your girlfriends, what you're supposed to do is be like, hey, you know, here's this question I have. It was like adult sex ed, right? But real, like, good sex ed, as opposed to what mostly goes on in schools. And so to me, that was great.

If you want, you can go to brunch and be like, hey, I watched that episode of Sex and the City where they talked about anal sex. What do you guys think about that? It's like a conversation starter. And women started going to brunch and talking about the show. And by definition, then being able to open up these conversations with each other about these topics that no one, you know, before, it was just like, you don't do that.

And then suddenly, it was now, like, the actual sex scenes, which are mostly funny, they're almost never sexy. If you go back and watch, they are not objectifying the women. They are very. They're almost always played for comedy. They called Kim Cattrall the Lucille ball of bedroom.

And, you know, like, that. That, too, is really important to me. Like, I. You know, I'm not super into reverse sexism, but, like, it's like this moment when women can actually start to objectify men, you know, a little bit. And I think there's.

There's not. It's not a huge problem if it's just for a little bit of fun. And men have been dominant for a long time, so they'll probably be okay. All of that reversal really was freeing for women. And the economic part of it, of course, is its own thing.

And I already said what I have to say about that part being empowering. It also just became this. I don't know. I mean, it's possible there were other pop cultural forces that were this big in terms of economy, but it's really far up there. Let's introduce brands that Manolo Blahnik being the best example.

The shoes. They introduced brands that no one in middle America had heard of before, and then all a sudden, you had to have a Manolo Blahnik store in Iowa because of the show, and they introduced this avant garde fashion. This was not about looking cute for men. That's another thing that I think is so interesting. It's like they were dressing high fashion.

This was not about being hot for men, necessarily. Sometimes it was, but not always the clothing, the shoes, the specific, you know, she had her nameplate necklace, you know, all of that stuff. Every single thing they would do on that show would become a trend, you know, and especially the things like the nameplate necklace that were more affordable. Right. That's an accessible thing.

And so the Manolo Blahniks are hundreds of dollars, whereas, like, wear a nameplate necklace, eat a cupcake, like, go to this one place. I moved to New York City during the time of Sex and the City. And I remember this, that, like, the minute whatever this sushi restaurant was on Sex and City, you knew everybody there was going to be, like, this rush to go there. Not the cool New Yorkers. I understand that.

But, like, the tourists and the new ones, like me, and, you know, they literally made cupcakes, like, a thing, which I think is so bizarre. That's my favorite example of this. I have a lot of cupcake in my chapter about the economy, because they really made, you know, how cupcakes became a thing, you know, and it's only one episode in which they went to Magnolia Bakery and sat in front of it and ate one cupcake. And that place had to get a bouncer at the time to control the crowd that would be there all the time. Then it became a chain that was national and international.

The guy who bought it said he bought it because he saw it on Sex and the City and was like, this is going to be huge. There's another spin off chain that the two women who'd started it had a fight about how big they wanted to go. And so the other one started a different bakery, and then all these bakeries proliferated. And to this day, Magnolia is a thing and cupcakes are a thing basically because of sex in the city. So that's just one example of many things that the minute something was on that show, you had to just be like, watch out because everybody's gonna be here now.

Pete Musteau

You know, you mentioned earlier that HBO was like a fledgling kind of obscure thing at this time. Then you're talking about this huge impact. I know you mentioned that there were, like, some negative reviews initially, but, like, how did it go from, like, this, like, sudden thing, like, out of nowhere into, like, the biggest cultural force for America, at least of the time? I feel like we all feel differently about this now, but this was a pay cable thing. So now we all feel the pressure to get all the different streaming services, but we kind of go like, eh, this is what we do.

Jennifer Keishin Armstrong

Okay, fine, I'm getting Max or whatever. Whereas at the time, really, there was this huge barrier, right, of like, no, I have basic cable. Like, why would I need a different channel? They have to pay extra specifically for HBO. So you have to get people to get over that barrier, essentially, to pay the money.

So they did have to get people to watch. And so it really shows the power, I think, with the show in particular, of that sort of water cooler thing that can happen, which is people talk, saying, oh, my God, you won't believe what happened on this show. And I think that's what they were sort of going for. And, of course, using their. What they had, which is that you could show nudity and sex and talk about sex and do whatever because there were not network standards and practices.

So that is a huge part of this. And that it just comes kind of at the right time. And, you know, it was pretty instantly a hit. A funny thing about it, too, is, again, this is something that is very normal in the streaming area and wasn't at that time, which is that they shot the entire first season having not aired. And so they had no idea.

So the first season, they were just like, we have no idea if anyone's gonna watch this. And they made, like, whatever that is, ten episodes. And so that was very strange at the time. And then they put it on and it pretty quickly did become this phenomenon. And I do think a huge part of that at that time was being able to make this huge splash with a pretty good budget.

They wanted it to look like film. That was what they were aiming for because they were known for their films previously. And so, like, the idea was to be kind of a movie on television in installments. And so they made it look good. It looked great.

It was shot on location in New York City, which, again, the other two big shows, New York shows, Seinfeld and friends, did not do. And you could feel that difference. That was huge just in terms of the quality and how it felt to people. And then you've got this beautiful fashion and then you've got all of this dirty talk that's kind of sensational. Beautiful women.

I think that it just was all of these forces coming together in a way that they couldn't totally known at the time. That really started to take off pretty quickly. It was getting a lot of press because of its sexiness and all that. And then pretty soon after the soprano starts and has the same kind of cultural impact and effect for related but different reasons. Right.

It's more like about the violence. And again, it looks like film and it's this beautiful novelistic thing and it kind of feels like the gangster movies. And so those two things together really made HBO essentially. What I think might be hard for some people to understand nowadays who are only kind of aware of the television landscape in the current moment is that this doesn't happen nowadays. You don't have the same numbers of people watching a television show, like one single show the way that they used to.

Pete Musteau

Can you contextualize that a little bit, how this compares to a modern tv show? There's no real comparison. It really is very different. Like I was saying, it's like the nineties and then a little bit into the two thousands. To some extent, we had this still idea of a monoculture where, you know, it goes back.

Jennifer Keishin Armstrong

I always think of the eighties as the heyday of this, which is just like if everyone owned the Madonna record everyone owned the, you know, Michael Jackson thriller record. Like, it just would be like everyone was into this one thing at this one time. I know that's not technically true, but it's basically what it felt like. Whereas. And certainly on television because at first you literally had something like four choices.

You know, you, like, if you turn the tv on, here's what you're watching. You have four choices. Pick one. So that meant even flop had 20 million viewers. Whereas now if you could get, I don't know, 4 million people to watch your show, it's like a huge victory.

So these shows, even though it was HBO, so there were smaller audiences than, say, like a Seinfeld because people had to pay to see it. They were paying to see it too. So that made it feel like more important, everyone was talking about these shows, certainly, like, the media was, like, obsessed with these shows, right? So this is, like, all, you'd see it on the COVID of, like, Time magazine or whatever, which, by the way, also would be a big, at the time. Now, it would not be that big a deal to be on the COVID of time, but there was this big time cover with the women from Sex and the City on it that was all about the ascension of the single woman and what does this all mean and all of that stuff.

And at the time, that was how you knew you were a cultural phenomenon. There was just all of these forces that were still working in this way to make it feel like we were all talking about the same thing at the same time, whereas it's not quite that way now. Maybe something like Game of Thrones was sort of the last time it felt maybe that way. But there's just so many. I wish I had the statistics in front of me, but I don't.

But, like, the statistics are hilarious when you look at, like, how many original shows we've been making in the last five years or so on the streaming services. And the reason for this is just that it's like an actual, almost physical reality. It's like streaming is infinite. You can put as many shows as you want on streaming, and you just literally couldn't. Even in this time, you were still on tv scheduling.

And so these shows aired on Sunday nights at a specific time. And so because it had to go at a specific time, we only have 24 hours in a day. And really, you're not going to program 24 hours. You're just mostly worrying about the day and evening and something like HBO didn't worry about the day. They just worried about the evening.

So evening shows were like the prime time, as they say, you know, like that. That's what was happening. Like, we had a certain number of choices in prime time, and that's what you were doing. You have to realize, like, when this show first started, we didn't have dvrs even yet. You know, you had to watch it at the appointed time or figure out how to record your VCR, which was, you know, remarkably hard.

So, you know, if it's on at 09:00 p.m. On Sunday, that's when everyone's talking about it. So you would watch Sex and the City on Sunday night so that you could talk to other people on Monday. That's the Sopranos, for that matter. That was how it worked.

Everyone was going to be talking about this the next day. So you had this compulsion to watch for this specific reason, too, moving into. The rivalry, specifically itself. I want to talk a little bit more about Sarah and Kim. How much do you think their real world careers and personalities affected the success of the show?

Pete Musteau

Kim was kind of an established movie star. Not movie. Maybe not movie star, but she had been in some hit movies and had a career up to this point. Sarah had been in a few movies as well, but mainly had been a hit on Broadway. I think it was.

But they became so central to the identity of the show. Yeah, exactly. And I think this is a lot. It's like we've been talking so much about how the culture was at the time. And I think this is part of it, too, is you actually would see this a lot.

Jennifer Keishin Armstrong

People would get hired on shows. I'm going to just keep going back to friends in Seinfeld as my example, since they were sort of contemporaneous. But if you think of friends, we barely knew who any of those people were one day. And then friends came on and they were huge stars. Tv was sort of known for being able to do this and that.

It would almost be better because a person would come with less other stuff attached to them, to the role, and they would just sort of embody the role. And then they were this person to you. They were Carrie Bradshaw to you. Instead of being like, I watch shows now. I think of something like the morning show.

I don't know if people are familiar with that. But on Apple, it has these huge stars like Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston. And so I just literally, when I talk about the show, I refer to them as Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston. You know what I mean? I never say their character, even though I'm talking about their character.

Whereas the nice thing about coming with some star power but not huge associations is that they become those characters. And I think any giant hit show with lasting power, there's some kind of magic in the casting. And that is absolutely true here. And these four women became these characters for us. You know, I think it's so interesting to see now, for instance, how Sarah at some point clearly figured out, like, I gotta just lean into this, right?

She still does other stuff. She still does, you know, real acting y stuff. But also is like, I have a shoe line because my character was into shoes. And that's just what we're doing now. I think there's a point in everybody's careers in which they're like, this is the character this is the thing, isn't it?

This is it. This is what I'm gonna be. This is the first line of my obituary, you know, this is what I'm gonna be known for. And this was just magic. Those two in particular, I think, were so perfect for their roles.

And Sarah was, you know, kind of. I was. I read profiles of her at the time, and, like, she was in that mode of, like, on the rise, essentially. Like, she was getting these profiles written about her. Like, maybe she's the next big thing.

Mostly in movies at that time, she was actually really averse to television, like I said, like, she actually was scared of signing on for something that was gonna lock her up indefinitely, which is pretty ironic now because she's even on a reboot of the show many, many years later. Even though this character is really flawed, I think she brings this real sweetness to that, a real likability to it that just worked. People just love her, and everyone who worked with her loved her, too, you know? Well, we'll get into that. But a lot of the people who worked with her really went out of their way to tell me, like, oh, she was.

Went out of her way to be sweet to the crew and that kind of thing. And I think she brings that to this character who's kind of awful otherwise. And I've seen this a lot, that people who play terrible people on television are often quite sweet, and I think they have to bring that. Like, that's the only way it works. Julia Louis Dreyfus is my prime example that she is just the nicest person.

And if you look at all the characters she's played, they're absolutely terrible, but we love them anyway because she's her. And, I mean, Kim Cattrall, like, my God, I think that I feel like that might be the most magical of all of these. Right? That character had to be so specific, and she just is that. She just is it.

And, I mean, she played the mannequin and mannequin before, but this just was so perfect for her. And I think, and that one really, I think, exploded in a way that possibly the people who ran the show maybe didn't even see coming. And I think it's because that character most embodies the spirit that we were talking about. Right. She's the most outrageous.

She says, like, the dirtiest stuff. She's the one that kind of is always at the outer edge of those conversations that they have in terms of sex. And she's also just got, you know, it's like she does it in this way that's so natural and funny. Like, they all acknowledge that she was kind of had this special talent of physical comedy in the bedroom. Just all kind of worked together for her, and I think made her a real phenomenon.

Pete Musteau

Yeah. So I know that's interesting that you say that's what she kind of embodied the ethos of the show. But out of character, on the set or behind the scenes or just in their real life, from your research or what you may know of them, what is the nature of their relationship as you see it? Kim and Sarah? To me, it just seemed like it was really professional.

Jennifer Keishin Armstrong

There's an understanding pretty quickly, I think, of how important both are to the success of the show, and that it just became this, like, well, we work together and this is what we need to do. And that was kind of what I took from everything I read. And what people said to me is just more like, this feud was brewing, like, during the time of the show, so this was not, you know, by the time I did the book, it was something that I was going to ask about, because you have to. And everybody kind of just had this attitude of, like, look, we work together. You figure out how to do that and didn't say, like, we were best friends.

I mean, she was. I think, in fact, Sarah was fairly clear about, like, yes, I, you know, we were not best friends. We didn't hang out outside of work, but we were fine on the set. One of the things I've heard is that, in a way, Kim kind of saw herself as maybe a little bit better than the rest of them, or that she had already had the career and was kind of the movie star of the group, whereas the others were not as big hits. So is there anything to that, or do you think that's just sort of circumspect from people who were looking for a good story?

I think there's an age difference, and I kind of get that. Do you know what I mean? Like, I think of myself now, and if I was with she's something I can't remember exactly, somewhere in the neighborhood of ten years older, which they acknowledge on the show. Right? Like, that's part of the show is, like.

And into the movies, she goes through menopause before the rest of them and all of that, and I can see how that would be part of it is just, like, she's just literally had more experience than them, and, you know, so it was my impression that, like, there were the three that were friends, and then there was her. And I think you know, I honestly believe a huge part of this just all comes from, and I totally understand this, the realization that Sarah Jessica Parker was making more money than everyone else, clearly a root of some problems. So this does not really relate directly to the show per se, but more to their relationship. There was an incident a few years back where Kim's brother was found dead and Sarah Jessica Parker comments, makes a post about it on instagram. And Kim Cattrall's response was, my mom asked me today, when will that?

Pete Musteau

And she tags her at Sarah Jessica Parker, that hypocrite leave you alone. Your continuous reaching out is a painful reminder of how cruel you really were then and now. Let me make this all caps very clear. If I hadn't already, you are not my family. You are not my friend.

So I'm writing to tell you one last time to stop exploiting our tragedy in order to restore your quote unquote nice girl Persona. So I'm just curious, like, that kind of reaction. Obviously, there's a lot of emotion involved around the death of her sibling, but something there tells me it was more than just, you got paid more money. Than I did, clearly. And it's also, I remember when this happened, and I was super careful about writing about this, not about this incident, but, like, writing about the feud in my book, because I wanted to be very like, you know, people always want to have women being in feuds, do you know what I mean?

Jennifer Keishin Armstrong

Like, I didn't want to necessarily buy into this wholesale, and since I could only go with what she was saying because Kim didn't want to be interviewed, which also, incidentally, is slightly telling, you know, she did not want to keep getting involved in sex in the City then. She clearly doesn't now. And I remember when this happened being like, okay, you know what? There's clearly something here. And it was the time when I was like, okay, we can stop saying, like, the so called feud or whatever, you know what I mean?

Or maybe it's one way. It might be a one way feud. Clearly we know what her feelings were, and it was so unfortunate that it happened in that context. In particular, it's interesting that happened. And she's never taken anything back.

She has been clear. And I think if you look at going forward into the reboot, she's been clear. Whenever she's asked about this stuff, she's like, I don't want to be involved. She ended up doing the one phone call scene this season, but she's not changed her position on anything with regard to this, both in terms of probably not wanting to work with these same people and also just not wanting to keep playing this character, which is totally reasonable. And I always also say to people, like, can you imagine if the best job of your life or most successful job of your life was the better part of a decade and you got through it and you worked with these people you didn't necessarily love, and we've all been there, and then it's over.

And you're like, it's over, it's great. I'm done. And then people just keep hounding you. When are you going to go back and work with those people again? And she did two movies and then was like, thanks, I'm good.

I can understand how, essentially, your antipathy with another person, which is totally normal to have, becomes this other thing when it's public and it's constant. You do some beautiful movie that you're so proud of, and you go out to promote it, and all anyone wants to ask you is, cool, but when are you going to work with that person you don't like that much anymore? You know what I mean? And so I have no idea what actually happened between the two of them, but I can definitely see how all of some total normal level of not getting along with somebody on a basic level becomes this whole monster when it's just in this incredibly weirdly public way and in this constant way. I never knew people would be talking to me about this 25 years later.

I just keep thinking. Thinking about, like, if you can pick out a person that you used to work with that you didn't really like, and then think of somebody, just people just constantly bringing it back up and trying to pull you back in. On the other hand, I don't know this for a fact, but I would be very surprised if they were not backing up the money truck to try to get her on more than just one scene and. Cause people want that so badly. And her absence is notable on the show, and it's not been a perfect situation, that reboot.

And so I think a way to save it would absolutely be her return. But I think you've got a lot of work to do. I'm not saying it couldn't happen. Cause clearly she at least did the one scene which was very distant, like, she was not on screen with anyone, but. And my understanding was that she didn't even shoot it with, even though it was a conversation with Sarah Jessica Parker, I believe, had somebody else doing the other side of the conversation.

So, like, I think that was the moment that this went from sort of the private theoretical feud to, like, clearly this was not an okay relationship. Well, I only have one more question for you, and it kind of of touches back on a few things we've talked about earlier on. We were mentioning representation, and now you just kind of touched on, I won't go as far to say, cringe, but debated quality of the reboots, the hotly contested reboot. What is the legacy of the show? Because touching on what I just said about representation, you have this show that in the early two thousands, it's about four straight white women who have a lot of money.

Pete Musteau

They've tried to, I think, at least with the reboots, tried to bring in some more diversity into the show, but it's still kind of getting an audience to associate with wealthy white women in New York is, at least at this time, kind of difficult to hit home and be as successful as it was. So given all of this and even the feud, the interpersonal problems on the set, when it's a show about female friendship, what is the legacy of the show now? Yeah, it really bums me out because, I mean, I won't go on a whole screen, but, like, I do think this is such a great example of, like, why I get mad about reboots. I understand it's just too hard to leave money on the table and that it's a hard landscape and that reboots get people, you know, they're familiar so people will watch. And, you know, I get all of that, but it's such a bummer because I think it dredges up all this stuff too, right?

Jennifer Keishin Armstrong

Like, a lot of times these reboots, like, things were fine. We were all rewatching the show and loving it, and it's great and we have a great memory. And then it's only when we bring them back that we, like, reignite things, like a bad relationship among cast members and things like that. We could have just let it go. We might not even know that it was ever that bad if it weren't for all the sequels and reboots and all of that stuff, you know what I mean?

So I just wish that we could leave our nice work alone. I think this reboot was really tough because a show like this had something very important to say in its time, and it doesn't now. So it is not being driven by a real. This is something that needs to be talked about feeling now they're just obscenely wealthy on the show, right? They've gone from kind of doing okay to just.

It's about a group of outrageously wealthy people at a maybe not opportune time for that. I'm glad they've all been on the come up all this time, but. But it's really quite like, if you watch that and just like that, it's just about, like, a mind boggling level of wealth. And they are more diverse, so more diverse people are also mind bogglingly wealthy with them. So that's cool.

But, yeah, it just doesn't have something vital to say. Whereas, like, the original did. And while it was imperfect in its execution, as we were talking about, like, you know, in terms of the diversity question, it did have something important to say at that time, and it felt crucial to women like me, many, many women and men, too, watching that show and feeling like, oh, my God, this is, you know, doing and saying something that I haven't seen before and that I've wanted. And we haven't talked about this very much, but it really did become this, like, quite well done show with quite a bit of depth. If you actually watch the original, you know, it wasn't just about shoes, which many people think.

This really was about the friendships and relationships. And now we've got another thing. But it's like, I hope that in the grand scheme of things, we can remember this show for just what it was in its prime, original container. I think even leaving the movies out to some extent, this is the problem with our reboot culture. I mean, we do this with so many things, and it's only the people who show incredible restraint, like Seinfeld, you know, that don't go back for more millions of dollars.

I get it. It's hard. And I think of. I would also say in their defense, because I've thought about this a lot, that they've probably found that it's really, you know, it's not easy to find great roles for women in their fifties. And so I can understand going back to the best roles that you ever had, you know, because it's, even in this form, it's still better than probably most of what's out there for them.

And I get all of that, but it is too bad in terms of the legacy, because I think, I hope we can remember just, like, what this did. And, you know, you can't take it away to it to some extent because it had an effect. Right. We have all the shows that came after it that looked to it for the parts of it that they liked that were good to model. And so you get girls and broad city and insecure and all these other things.

And it did change the way we see single women. I think it does have an important legacy, and that's all we can do is remember that. And, I mean, I'm as guilty as anyone I've watched every single episode of. And just like that. And there's something weird about it where, like, I like to watch it and then get really mad.

So there's something, you know and I know, like, this is my girlfriends, and I basically just watch it to, like, complain on a text chain the next day. So that's what we have now. Well, thank you so much, really. Jennifer, Caish and Armstrong, everyone, really go out there, get her book, Sex and the City and us and her new book, so fetch. Yes.

Which is about mean girls. Yeah. Another important cultural touchstone for young women. Absolutely. Thank you again.

Pete Musteau

I've been Pete musto, beef with Bridget Todds showrunner. We really appreciate you, Jennifer, for coming on. Everyone, please go, like, subscribe, rate, and review beef wherever you get your podcasts and tune in next time for another incredible episode about these very interesting, bitter, petty, and just fun feuds that we find. Thank you all. Take care.

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