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Most weeks, hundreds of people board a \u201cSex and the City\u201d themed bus in Manhattan that takes them to the show\u2019s most recognizable sites: Carrie Bradshaw\u2019s apartment, her favorite brunch spot, a sex shop in the West Village. The tour usually ends with \u2014 what else? \u2014 a Cosmopolitan.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt never gets old,\u201d said Georgette Blau, the owner of On Location Tours. It\u2019s a three-and-a-half-hour entry into an aspirational world many of the riders had been watching for decades, she said.<\/p>\n
Twenty years since the series finale of \u201cSex and the City\u201d aired, a new generation of television watchers has grown into adulthood. After all of the episodes were released on Netflix this month, media watchers wondered how the show \u2014 and Carrie\u2019s behavior \u2014 might hold up for Gen Z.<\/p>\n
Would they be able to handle the occasional raunchiness of the show, the sometimes toxic relationships? Were the references outdated? \u201cCan Gen Z Even Handle Sex and the City<\/a>?\u201d Vanity Fair asked. (For its part, Gen Z seems to vacillate between being uninterested<\/a> and lightly appalled<\/a> about what they consider to be a period piece<\/a>.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The show had a very different effect on its longtime fans, many of them a generation or two older. When it aired, \u201cSex and the City\u201d changed the conversation around how women dated, developed friendships and moved about the world in their 30s and 40s.<\/p>\n Even if some of the show\u2019s character arcs aged poorly, many of its original fans still relate to Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda, no matter how unrealistic it may have been to live on the Upper East Side with a walk-in closet full of Manolo Blahniks on the salary of a weekly newspaper columnist.<\/p>\n \u201cIf Carrie got into therapy, there\u2019d be no show,\u201d said Anna Roisman, a comedian and superfan. \u201cShe\u2019d be like, \u2018Guys, I am healed.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n In the ensuing two decades, the show\u2019s super fans haven\u2019t stopped analyzing and discussing it. A genre of TikTok videos dissects why Carrie was a bad friend, and why Samantha was a good one<\/a>. The show has inspired dozens of podcasts<\/a>. And in 2021, HBO launched \u201cAnd Just Like That \u2026\u201d in which the friends \u2014 minus Samantha \u2014 navigate their 50s. Many fans said that the show had even inspired their decisions to move to a big city like London or New York.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n In the first week of the show\u2019s debut on Netflix<\/a>, people spent 12.3 million hours watching \u201cSex and the City,\u201d and it was in the platform\u2019s Top 10 television shows in 42 countries, including the United States, according to Netflix.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n For Candace Bushnell<\/a>, the creative force behind \u201cSex and the City,\u201d the show\u2019s appeal comes from still being relatable while serving up nostalgia.<\/p>\n \u201cThere was a romance to dating that younger women tell me doesn\u2019t really exist anymore,\u201d Bushnell said in a phone interview. \u201cNow internet dating and using dating apps \u2014 it feels more like a job.\u201d<\/p>\n For Carrie and her friends, dating is more of a pastime: They meet men at gallery openings, cocktail parties, book launches, a Yankees game, the gym, and more. The four of them also have weekly brunches and endless cocktails where they dish about their latest exploits.<\/p>\n Bushnell, who is touring her one-woman show \u201cTrue Tales of Sex, Success and Sex and the City,\u201d said that the show gave people a new way of looking at their romantic lives.<\/p>\n The test of time is a hard one to pass, and the show\u2019s record is far from perfect. But its frank discussions of sex and gendered expectations seemed to open doors for other shows after it, including \u201cGirls\u201d and \u201cInsecure,\u201d and helped change the image of single women in their 30s.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cSuddenly, single womanhood was glamorous,\u201d said Jennifer Armstrong, the author of \u201cSex and the City and Us.\u201d \u201cThis was no small thing, and I think it remains resonant.\u201d<\/p>\n Before \u201cSex and the City,\u201d being a single woman was perceived very differently, Bushnell said. \u201cPeople really felt like there was something wrong with you.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n For longtime fans who are now Carrie\u2019s age or older, the show has gone from aspirational to relatable to recognizable \u2014 again, minus those hundreds of pairs of stilettos. <\/p>\n Watching the show now, Marta Barberini, 37, said, \u201cyou\u2019re not talking about your future self; you\u2019re talking about your present self.\u201d<\/p>\n Barberini was such a fan that, in 2008, she took the \u201cSex and the City\u201d hot spots tour. On that bus, she met a friend who would later introduce her to her life partner. The show, Barberini said, was \u201ca turning point in my life.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The show\u2019s role similarly changed over time for Roisman, the longtime fan and comedian in New York City whose impression of Steve<\/a> (Miranda\u2019s boyfriend, then not boyfriend, then father of her child and eventually husband) has been widely shared.<\/p>\n Roisman, a self-described proud millennial, said she first watched \u201cSex and the City\u201d as a child with her parents (\u201cso inappropriate!\u201d). As she grew older, she increasingly related to the characters and felt less alone in the challenges that work and dating brought. <\/p>\n By now, most fans in their 30s and 40s have been through at least some of the heartbreak, fertility issues or professional challenges depicted on the show.<\/p>\n Tanya Bailey, 48, who recently watched Sarah Jessica Parker perform onstage<\/a> in \u201cPlaza Suite\u201d in London, said she rewatched \u201cSex and the City\u201d often and related mostly to Carrie\u2019s quest for romantic love.<\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s had failed relationships, so have I,\u201d Bailey said. \u201cIt makes you think that it\u2019s not only you.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n