Marie Claire UK - 09.2019

AsFriendsturns 25, andSex And The Citycreator Candace Bushnell publishes

a new tale of fiftysomething women,Marisa Batelooks back on the enduring appeal

of these cult shows and why new generations continue to fall in love with them

Here’ssomething to make you feel old: this year,
Friendsturns 25 and Carrie Bradshaw is 60.Well,
sort of. Candace Bushnell, her creator and the closest thing to
the real Carrie, is 60 and this month publishesIs There Still Sex
In The City?, the story of a (different) group of friends in New
York in their 50s and 60s, navigating modern dating. This
summer also sees FriendsFest return to various locations in
the UK. And recently, Jennifer Aniston sent the internet wild
hinting that a reunion was possible. On that note – brace
yourself – Rachel Green is 50.
In many ways, these characters, who we know by their first
names because they are as famous as Madonna and Oprah,
and whose storylines became our own personal manuals
fordating, dressing and daring to be bolder, are ageless,
generation-defying and timeless. People who weren’t even
born whenFriendswas on TV know every episode.Sex And
The Citywasn’t just a show that ran between 1998 and 2004;
it is a coming of age experience, a televised sexual revolution
that is still gulped down by women (and men) across the
globe. These shows and their characters became far bigger

than the moment they were created in; they become

references in our lives, like little weather vanes to hang

our own experiences off, years after they were first released

into the world. But why do these characters stay around long

after the credits have rolled? ‘Great fiction is fuelled by bad

decisions and human weakness,’ writes author Kristen Lamb.

We fall for characters who mess up but keep going anyway,

because that’s life. It’s what our grandmothers and mothers

did, and what we do daily, or at least that’s how it feels. And we

constantly see Carrie Bradshaw do it. She’s always saying the

wrong thing, upsetting a friend or a lover. Most famously, we

watched her run head first into the ultimate bad decision and

her biggest weakness – Mr Big. But we stuck by her because

we’re misled to think drama equals romance, and that’s the

way we’re wired. Anything we can’t have is a thousand times

sexier – men, Manolos, two-bed flats with a sea view. And we

need to make bad decisions because that’s how we learn, and

Carrie’s made sense of our own.

Will Storr, author ofThe Science Of Storytelling, puts it this

way, ‘I’ve found this somewhat paradoxical truth: the more

Old

friends

are the

best