But in this season’s first episode, “single” was suddenly rewritten as “lonely.” “Society views single people our age as sad and pathetic,” Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) lamented after attending an awkward engagement party where she and Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) were repeatedly confronted with the question, “Seeing anyone special?” A few lines could have been scripted by the Christian Coalition. “It felt really sad not to have a man in my life who cares about me,” Carrie later said on her 35th birthday. While other characters balanced Carrie’s blues-Samantha (Kim Cattrall) was up to her usual sexcapades (this time with a priest)-the shift in tone has left many wondering what’s in store for the singletons in season four. Does the ground-breaking show risk falling into old cliches? Or will the changes lead to new levels of poignancy and depth?
NEWSWEEK’s Jane Spencer presented these questions-and many, many more-to the show’s executive producer, Michael Patrick King. King has written numerous episodes of the series, including both of Sunday night’s back-to-back premiere episodes, which drew a record-breaking 4.4 million viewers to HBO.
NEWSWEEK: The show has received a lot of attention for presenting confident, self-assured single women-but last Sunday’s season opener took a different take.
Michael Patrick King: Daring to show something that is maybe lonely or sad for a brief moment is what we’ve always done on the show. We’ve always tried to show both the whipped cream and the sadness of being single. And we started the season opener on a darker or more somber note was because the girls are getting older. It was a gamble on our part, but we thought people would be bored if the show didn’t move in some direction. Every week you’re not going to see the girls sitting around saying “we’re depressed,” but we wanted to show that the girls are together in the good and the bad times.
What are the other challenges to keeping the show fresh?
Everybody tunes in and they want their Samantha hit. They want their Carrie hit. They’re almost like those crack monkeys. The trick is to find new ways for these girls to get cream-pied every week, to find out who they are emotionally and to keep it fresh…. You have to be willing to let each of the characters deepen or broaden or change but still maintain enough of the character that people feel like they’re getting the crack hit.
How do you approach the season? Do you know what’s going to happen to the characters from start to finish?
We talk for a long time about what would be great relationship stories-what happened to us [the writers], mostly what’s really embarrassing that happened to us sexually. The viewers know us very well-they just don’t know they know us. We say, “OK, here’s where the girls left off. Now what would happen if these girls were in life, not in television?” We try to figure out where Carrie is going from episode 1 to episode 18-and then we talk about Miranda, Charlotte, Samantha. We don’t want all four girls in a relationship at the same time. Within each episode we try to do a relatable story, we try to do an outrageous kind of sexual story, we try to do a couples story and then some random story. So it never becomes The Relationship Show. We also come up with 18 themes. Like so far, the first episode was “soul mates” and the second one was “narcissism.” I’m looking at the [story] board now and I see “forgiveness,” “supports,” “balls,” and “worth.”
HBO says it’s the channel that dares to take risks. You’ve written for both network comedy shows [“Murphy Brown,” “Cybill”] and HBO. What’s the difference?
It’s the difference between being a dog on a leash and dog in a big yard. I’m just able to run and run and run on “Sex and the City.” With the network, it was like run and pull, run and pull-a little bit more fear-based. [Instead,] HBO says things like “we don’t need to spell it out.” Take the voice-over away. Let the audience feel it…. Two people will look at the same moment, like that coffee shop scene [at the end of this year’s season premiere], and one will say “that’s tragic.” The other will say “this is so great, it’s so different, it’s the same characters but they’re growing and loving each other.”
On the one hand, you have these independent, happily single women. On the other, they also play into a lot of female stereotypes, from shoe fetishes to eating issues. How do you balance that? Do you consider this a feminist show?
The interesting thing about stereotypes is they’re true. They’re only a stereotype because they occur over and over and over again in certain groups. Feminist? I don’t know. Humanist? Yes. These women are incredibly flawed and also incredibly heroic. And as far as women and shoes? I look around and I see that. You know what I mean? As far as women and chocolate? We’re doing a whole episode where Miranda starts to get completely crazy about chocolate. It’s true. And it’s also not true. All woman don’t have Manolo Blahniks. But enough do that it seems resonant.
What about the element of fantasy in the show?
When people say “it’s not real,” I say “it’s reality plus a dash of imagination. I actually say that these women speak like real women if they had a writing staff.” We don’t do stories that are outrageously disconnected to life. There was this story going around on the Internet about plushies, people that have sex with stuffed animals. And so many people heard about this and called us up and said, “That’s a ‘Sex and the City’!” And we went, “No! It’s not real.” First of all, we don’t believe it, and secondly, I don’t think anyone at home would watch and go “yeah, I’m like that with my stuffed animal.”
While there are a lot of explicit scenes in the show, there’s never anything that approaches pornography.
They’re all for comedy. I dare you to find a sex scene on our show that doesn’t have a laugh attached. We have done maybe one purely titillating sex scene: when Carrie had the affair with Big. The rest of the time you’re just waiting for the other shoe to fall. Who’s going to be bad in bed? Who’s going to say something embarrassing? If it’s a romantic scene, there’s no sex. We “fade” like they used to do in the ’40s. The camera goes to the window. We’re not trying to make you watch a porno; we’re trying to make you laugh about how bizarre and vulnerable sex is. It’s mostly about how people feel incredibly naked when they’re naked. I don’t think people watch porno for the jokes. As a matter of fact, when I watch pornography and they’re going for laughs, I’m like “nooooooo, you’re spoiling it. I don’t want a comedy moment here.”
An article in Salon.com this week suggested the show has borrowed lessons from gay culture’s concept of the family, as one defined by close friendships. Do you think that’s an accurate assessment?
I would say no, because the first thing I think of are my female friends, who have decided [on their own] that you make your own families. I have a lot of women friends, mid-thirties to forty, and they’re there for each other. Now in terms of gay culture, the fact that there is no legal marriage in a gay culture-we’re actually doing an episode about this-makes the people of that social more make up their own rules. So that’s the aspect that overlaps-that these women are looking at stuff from a different point of view. Maybe it’s a new point of view, rather than a gay point of view or a straight point of view. Your life isn’t about meeting a woman or a man, falling in love and da-da da-da-ta-da forever and ever. Maybe these women are little rebellious. Maybe they’re not gay, maybe they’re rebels.
There’s a lot of social criticism in the show itself. Are you mocking the idea of marriage a bit with Charlotte and Trey’s relationship? Do you think about the kinds of messages you’re delivering?
I would agree. The show is told from the point of view of single women. End of story. And I believe, over the year and this season, we have incorporated a very balanced view of some of the men in their lives. And also, the difficulty of marriage. But in order for us to mock marriage, you’d have to just turn that around and say that we’re mocking single first. You could say Charlotte and Trey are mocking people who are married, but Carrie and Big are mocking people who are having affairs. Miranda’s mocking lawyers who can’t commit. Samantha’s mocking women who don’t think they need men. There’s a target everywhere. It’s not like anyone on the show is saying we’ve got it right. If you look at the arrows on the show, they’re usually pointed straight at the four girls. And in the Charlotte and Trey’s marriage, you’ll see Charlotte messing up. We actually thought, “lets not throw marriage away,” because I thought she was very sweet to him. You’ll see-she’s going to give that marriage a run.
NEWSWEEK just did a cover story on “The New Single Mom.” Have you considered exploring motherhood on the show?
Hmmm. The motherhood story is very interesting to us. We try to look at these women as if they weren’t characters on a TV show that has a formula. Last year we thought Charlotte would marry somebody no matter what because [she decided] it was time for her to get married in life…. Four women. Children. 35, 35, [louder] 35. It’s certainly going to be an idea or a thought. How could it not be? Now how we would address that subject, or who would do it is our little crap shoot.
A guy in our office said he has a friend who claims “Sex and the City” was the best thing to ever happen to the women he dates in New York. Do you think the show has actually impacted sexual behavior?
That guy must be good in bed, because I would say that someone who wasn’t good in bed would probably say that “Sex and the City” was the worst thing that ever happened to the women he dated, because they would point out the flaws maybe, or not settle. These women are having a lot of sex and failing, and it looks like fun, and they survive it–maybe that makes other women a little bit more brave.
Do you hear people criticizing the show?
The only thing I get tired of is that people think it’s about shoes. You know? It’s a fun element, but I really don’t think people would be tuning in every night for a fashion show. Fashion shows are boring. I really have rarely laughed at an outfit. I’ve never seen an outfit and gone “that’s just like me.” I really don’t think people would be tuning in every night to see a bunch of shoes lined up in a closet.
The characters have evolved. How about the drinks? Is there a new trendy drink that will replace cosmos on the show?
Yes-a ruby. We have been looking and looking and looking. If you’ll notice, no one is drinking cosmopolitans on the show anymore. They’re done. So we looked around and we finally found a drink that we thought was great. It’s called a ruby. It’s Absolut Citron, I guess. I don’t drink. But it’s beautiful. It’s fresh-squeezed ruby red grapefruit juice. We’ve put it in a couple scenes. Samantha and Carrie order rubies. The drinks have a lightness to them, and a celebratory feel, and they have to be pretty. So we thought a ruby was a fun thing to order. Plus you could say “I rubied out last night. I completely lost my rubies.”
It’s been said that New York City is a character in “Sex and the City.”
It’s the best character. When you live in this city and you’re writing this show, it affects you entirely. I get out of cabs and walk 40 blocks when I’m not too tired because you never know what you’ll see. I was the guy who had the transsexuals out in front of my apartment last year at 3 o’clock in the morning. I live in the meat-packing district, where the trannies chase the trendies. And I thought now that’s a story for Samantha-her getting into a war with transsexuals outside her apartment. So it affects everything. Cindy Chupack, one of our writers, went to an Indian cooking class at somebody’s Upper West Side apartment-which was just so ridiculous, and she said “that’s funny for Charlotte.” Rather than just walking down Elm Street, Samantha and Carrie walk by the Plaza, and that evokes something in the viewer. A memory, or an idea. New York is an idea, just like the idea of the perfect man is an idea.
What about the timing of the show, the fact that it’s a summer series? How was that decision made?
It just happened. And that’s how we write it. We write eternal spring. There’s a nice element of the freshness, the brightness, the idea of walking to Chinatown on a summer night is fantastic. The idea of walking to Chinatown on a winter night? Not so fantastic. It’s become this fun summer treat for people. HBO is going to try to move some of it to the winter and see what happens. They’re going to move like six episodes of it and see what people feel about it.
When the cast was on “Oprah,” we heard hints that Kim Cattrall’s character, Samantha, may wind up in a serious relationship this season. Any hints on that?
Yeah. Samantha will be in two relationships this year. The first one shorter, and the second one will be a roller coaster. We decided it was time for Samantha to fall in love because we don’t know how well she does it. So we are planning a man for her that lasts as long as it lasts.
Do you think “Sex and the City” has a limited lifespan? Sarah Jessica Parker made a joke on “Oprah” about “Seniors in the City” if this goes on too long.
Or, “Please Have Sex With Us in the City.” I don’t know. As long as something keeps moving through it to keep it fresh, it could go on a very long time. I know that it would go on for a more finite amount of time if we didn’t gamble and risk letting these women grow older. It would be a little bit tragic if they weren’t changing and shaping their lives.
