The Carrie Bradshaw Effect

I started watching Sex and the City, and I immediately wanted a cigarette. If Carrie Bradshaw can make it look so sexy, why can’t I? With the flip of a zippo and pair of Manolo Blahniks, there is really no difference between me and Miss Bradshaw. 

It’s that exact kind of delusional thinking that made me wonder: why do we attach ourselves to our favorite TV characters so much? 

As a journalist, Carrie Bradshaw is the end-all-be-all. She’s fun, flirty, fashionable, and f*cking fabulous (as Samantha Jones would say). On top of it all, she has a weekly column in the New York Star, a book, and she’s on the side of a NYC bus. What more could you want?! 

As I found myself diving deeper and deeper into the world of SATC, I saw my friends doing the same with other TV shows… Gossip Girl, The Lioness, Grey’s Anatomy… it was like we were slowly morphing into whoever our favorite show character we were watching was. 

I relate to Carrie in so many ways; she is a journalist, has a good group of girlfriends, and she even has daddy issues, yet she always has the upper hand. She has what I never did: a cool boyfriend, a rent-controlled apartment in New York City, a great job, and an even better wardrobe. She has it all. If I start smoking cigarettes and running around the city in my heels, the rest will come eventually…right? 

Unfortunately, Carrie Bradshaw is a fictional character living in a fictional New York. I eventually had to wake up and realize I didn’t need to pick up another bad habit to try and “have it all.” I think that’s what all the other women identifying with their favorite TV show stars are also trying to do. We have been sold a bad bill of rights: we can have it all, and it will be easy. We identify with these women who seem to “have it all” because we can’t have it all… that's just not how reality works. Our lives are not a movie or a TV series. We can’t have a perfect hair day all the time or romantically meet our future husband on the subway, but channeling those feelings into a fictional world is something that we can do. We have every right to feel upset when Carrie goes back to Mr. Big, or when Merideth Gray and Christina Yang are fighting, or even when Blaire Waldorf cries on the steps of the MET because we are living vicariously through these characters. Maybe we're having problems in our personal lives, and the show provides an escape or a distraction. TV shows and movies give us a false sense of reality that feeds our delusions of “the perfect life.”

It has created a sense of impending doom when our lives are not perfectly aligned or planned. What we have simply can never be enough. We always want more: a better job, a new pair of shoes, a bigger apartment, a boyfriend, anything but what we have. The girls on the TV screens tell us that we can have it all, but I think we’re starting to forget there’s a difference between reality TV and reality. 

So next time you flip on your favorite show to watch your idol navigate their way (somehow making it look sexy) through the newest obstacle the writers have thrown at them, remember that not everything is perfect, and you're doing just fine. 

Strike out,

Haley Dockendorff 

Boca Raton 

Haley Dockendorff is a Content Writer for Strike Magazine Boca. Loud and proud, this Virgo loves writing just about anything that will cause a bit of commotion. If you can’t find her, she’s probably somewhere on a beach with a camera in hand. You can reach her at haleydockendorff143@gmail.com