The most idiotic comment I’ve heard in reference to Sex and the City is, “Who wants to watch a bunch of old ladies having sex? Yuck.” (uttered by a 23 year old co-worker who looked like Wally Cleaver). The second most idiotic comment I’ve heard in reference to Sex and the City is, “That show’s just for rich white chicks.” What rot! There are armies of black women who adore the show and were doing cartwheels in anticipation of the movie. But there is some ambivalence, some trouble among the ranks…

Susan Lyerly (comedian, 36)
I’m very protective of the show because I was one of the first to really get into it. Most people got in on the second season. Back then, everybody was going for Ally McBeal. That was the hit at the time.

The show completely changed the way I dress. Best I’ve ever looked in my life. Rich white people knew about stuff like Manolo Blahniks but I didn’t know about it ’til Sex and the City. Inside I feel like that hot, skinny blonde chick. Inside I’m Carrie, but the world doesn’t see that.

Before, when you were over 30, you were supposed to dress like an old lady. Even those white Manhattan women dressed all drab like in a Woody Allen movie, khakis and bland colors. Style-wise, this show pushed everybody, I think, to take chances. It wasn’t just for young girls. Even the preppy chick on the show, they dressed her in interesting ways you wouldn’t expect from that kind of woman. Even the lawyer, Miranda, after they stopped dressing her so horribly, didn’t wear the typical stuff. It definitely made everybody think more about their wardrobe. You can still be fun even if you’re over 30. Back then on TV if you were 30, you were in the grave– but in the show they’re just beginning, which I think is how it really is in life. In our 20’s you’re all over the place. In your 30’s you’re just getting to know what you’re really about, want, will or won’t put up with.

What about the, um… whiteness of the show?
How many white friends do you have that are writers, curators, executives, whatever…? Not acquaintances, but real, true friends? It ’s just the way it is. New York is still pretty much segregated. Still, if the show were premiering now, there’d be more blacks in it.

Why?

Because people have started to realize now that black people have money. On TV you see P. Diddy, entrepreneurs. Not just the people who open the door for you. It’s not that kind of party anymore. Somebody must have complained.

What do you mean, “complained”? And do you think putting Jennifer Hudson in the movie was a demographics thing?

Well, I guess they never realized how many black people supported the show and when they did, they said, “Who’s the popular black of the moment? Jennifer Hudson!” If Halle Berry were the hot black right now, she’d be the secretary. It’s like when Salt and Pepa sang at that Frank Sinatra tribute, or when Jusin Timberlake presented an award to the O’Jays. As if he even knows their music–and the O’Jay’s were pissed!

I appreciate the show or what it was and don’t try to make it more than it was. In a way, the people behind he show were being small-minded. But what about other minorities? I don’t know why black people would complain so much, because at least Miranda had a black boyfriend at one point.

Blair Underwood.

And Samantha had sex with one in one episode. That’s about as far as it would go in real life. New York City, for all its gays and liberation, is still segregated. What bothers me more is how we’re portrayed sometimes in these shows. There was one episode where the girls were waiting on line at a club and a black woman was there, all loud and cursing. The producers must have been, like, “Be black, be loud and curse.” But there should be a Sex and the City about black women in New York.

What about that show with the bug-eyed daughter of Diana Ross?

Girlfriends? That was LA. And it was a terrible show. Sex and the City is a great show. Girlfriends was, on some level, the black Sex and the City, but it was fake, a sitcom with a laugh track, where Sex and the City was real. The girls on Girlfriends didn’t even act like real black women. They were white women dipped in chocolate. The question isn’t, “Why not more black shows?” The question is, “Why not more real?”

Janelle McNeil (Department of Health administrator, 19)
My mother introduced me to the show, and that’s basically why I watch it now and why I want to see the movie. To me, they should show African-American women like that also. Why can’t it be us also? African-American women have that style, too. They should have given Jennifer Hudson a role as a professional woman, same as them, instead of being a secretary for Carrie.

How have the show’s fashions influenced you? Shopaholism…?

I’m not a shopaholic, I just like to shop. If I feel like treating myself, I will treat myself, but I don’t shop every day all day like the women on the show.

But, still, don’t all the nice shoes and dreses take your breath away?
It does take my breath away because I’m a female. I do love clothes. But I know I can’t live that lifestyle right now because I am young. But that’s what I’m working toward, that lifestyle.

The problem I have is that they always portray white people to be like that and always portray young black people to be hood and like we’ll never amount to anything, never go far in life, but that’s not true. Even though my generation seems like it’s not going far, there are a lot of people around my age who really are trying to get into the same positions as those white people. I feel that America as a society, as a whole, shouldn’t just down black people because there are very intelligent black people out there, and the images that they show to these little kids is that white people are always the ones who are going to amount to something, they’re the ones who will make all the money. It’s not fair to our children. We’re in a very competitive world, and it’s not fair to them if we don’t show them something different.

Annette Lathan (Teacher, 40)
I watched Sex and the City once or twice, and it was diverting, entertaining. But as far as making unusual strides for black women, The L Word was the show to watch.