The show was part fantasy, part cold hard reality. Charlotte's fertility problem and Samantha's breast cancer were very real things that people face...not to mention the horrible dates and crazy men! Even though Carrie got bailed out of her problem, the episode where she realizes she spent enough on shoes to buy her apartment is a realization that I'm sure many young women come across. Maybe not specifically shoes, but we all have our weak spots when it comes to money.

I enjoyed the show, but I've never once been tempted to emulate their lives. I always took it as pure fiction with the occasional dose of real life issues.

i enjoyed watching the show, but never did i think, i wanted to emulate them. it's just for enjoyment.

its a fictional show. its not a reality show. they are not telling people to aspire to be them, they are trying to entertain. yes they address some real life issues but they aren't trying to solve the world's problems. they are trying to distract you for a half hour! people should be more worried about the reality shows such as the real housewives of new york- which gives snobby gold digging women a whole new name.
yes i'd love to live some of the satc girl's lifestyles, but its not like i'm emulating their every move! i just really want their waredrobes and or apartments lol

It's TV!! And I agree with MarinerMandy it was part fantasy and part reality. I enjoyed the show to it's fullest and enjoy the reruns as well and I have never tried to emulate any of the lifestyles portrayed. Well, maybe follow some of the fashion trends but at an affordable and realistic manner.

While I hate when shows for teenagres are a bad influence, it doesn't bother me as much about "grown-up" shows. Adults are responsible for themselves and not that easily influenced.

On one hand I love when shows are really believable, but on the other, why not have a bit of fantasy sometimes? Why not watch a woman have great clothes/shoes/stuff and daydream for a while?

i live in new york city, and while it is absolutely ludicrous for anyone these days to be able to find carrie's apartment in that location and at that price, it's just a show. it's mostly just fantasy and a nice 'oh imagine if!' for people to watch.

I mean to live THAT kind of life people had to know this isn't even close to reality. I mean you rarely saw their characters at work.

The fact of the matter is they do talk about real issues such when Carrie couldn't afford to buy her Apartment from Aiden... She had to look at her finances and see that she spends a lot on pointless clothing and she is a 30 something woman with no assets and can't get a loan from the bank. Plus too this isn't a documentary its a television show! Mindless entertainment that does allow people to live in the fantasy of a NY life... so get over it... People are too critical of stupid things when there is a million more important things on earth that deserve a critical eye!

This show was pure fantasy for myself and many of its viewers. It was over-the-top because it was NYC and they knew people would want to have that show where anything was possible and it happened!

People who would take this show (or any other TV show) so seriously that it would influence them to a damaging extent have bigger problems than what TV shows they watch.

I worked for Gucci and there were so many women that came in wanting that Gucci Belt Bag that Carrie wore, it was crazy. There was a waiting list pages long for the thing. If anything I think the show brought designer clothing back into the limelight.

there were so many people i went to college with who were trying to emulate the characters from this show, it was kind of sad . my freshman year, they filmed SATC outside of my dorm, and it was a frenzy. i think it's a lame thing to want to mimic, and i saw plenty of girls trying to do so. i find the show entertaining, but don't find it to be empowering.

It's fiction! It's not a documentary

Well, a friend wishes she was Carrie or lived like her so bad it is sad, so yes it has been bad influence for her in every aspect: financially, emotionally. I find the show entertaining but I guess there are different kinds of people that react differently to what they see on tv.

Why do people think women are stupid? Surprise, women can tell the difference between fiction and reality

People need to not take television so seriously. gimme a break. Overthinking entertainment much?

Fundamentally SATC was less about sex and more about women, single women especially, and how they live together. The friendships were the nucleus, while the man-woman relations was just on thr fringes. If I have one compliant about SATC it is the way it ended...with all four of them in committed, loving relationships...to me there is a large part of the viewing audience who will never be married...and so it seemed to not just tip it's hand to the fairytale BUT pretty much sell the whole farm to it...which maybe just maybe the movie will correct. It's not that I am against marriage or the 'happily ever after' gig BUT the facts are alot of American women will never marry AND that would have been nice to have seen in the last stage of the show. Yes, I know Samantha did not get married BUT it did leave you with the vibe that that was in the cards if Sam had wanted it...same with Carrie & Mr. Big. Just my humblest $1.09 [not $.02 due to inflation adjustments].

Think there is a point to it, but the show isn't evil incarnate.

Sure, I love makeup and clothes and would love to be a writer in a cute apt like Carrie's, but even I roll my eyes at the show and the girls sometimes.

I wouldn't want to emulate the lifestyles portrayed on this show at all, but that's not the reason why I watched it. Television is meant to be an escape from reality, so why would we want to watch a show about something we can see in our every day lives?
Ultimately I loved the friendship between the four girls, Carrie's tumultuous relationship with Mr. Big, and seeing the outrageous fashion choices.

I can see the point of the article but I think it's just taking SATC too seriously. The show really focused very little on the women's careers, when you think about it. It was more about their friendships and relationships than anything.

It's about women and the friendships.

SATC is fantasy. Carrie and the girls do things that we would love to do our selves but can't. This is an adult show, that's why it came on late so impressionable mines where not watching.

Oh, honestly. I loved SATC, but never kidded myself that it was anything but entertainment, in the same vein that Allie McBeal never represented a real law office (actually, none of the law office shows do, trust me), and M*A*S*H* didn't represent a real battlefield hospital. People need to seriously take a handful of chill pills.

I think I was bugged a little about the clothes and shoes. Like, can you imagine how much $$$ it would take to dress like the Carrie? Toward the end it got a bit ridiculous with how designer-driven the wardrobe was. But they had fun w/ the clothes and I can see that side.
(I like the ep where Carrie's shoes were stolen and her friend scolded her for buying such expensive shoes. Carrie was "shoe-shamed!")

It's great that so many people here are levelheaded enough to see SATC as fantasy, but no entertainment is really mindless--things you consume do end up affecting your perspective, no matter what (whether you unconsciously act a certain way or consciously decide to act the opposite way).

We all know women who, though they don't say it out loud, want to live the SATC lifestyle. Maybe they don't want to live their lives exactly, but face it, many of us feel justified now spending hundreds of dollars on one pair of shoes! How many of us moved to cities because it seemed a little more glam? Do you know how many girls refer to some jerk in their life as "their Mr. Big", when w/o SATC, those relationships wouldn't be romanticized at all? My point is only that if you were a fan of the show, some things got under your skin, whether you realize it or not.

That's not to say I think it's necessarily a bad influence, because it did a lot of good too--for instance, it opened up dialogues between women about sexuality and redefined what was "normal".

People need to learn to separate truth from fiction, fact from fantasy.

SATC taught me to be a better friend....sounds dumb, but it did. You see all the weak and stupid traits they possess, but they always rallied around each other.

The one episode I felt sent a bad message was when Miranda found out she was pregnant and they were talking about abortion extremely nonchalantly. Samantha said something like, "We've all been there. I've had two." We have all NOT been there.

Sure, it may be fantasy, but don't we all need a little fantasy and hope to motivate us to work hard to get as good a life as we hope for? Is it wrong for women to strive for a good job, nice place, nice things, good friends, and have whatever they consider to be fun outside of work all at the same time? Maybe having all that seems impossible, but you never know, it could happen and at least if you try, you'll know you tried and isn't it a good thing for people to be motivated?

Oh lord...give me a break.

It's ENTERTAINMENT.

Who *are* these women that are so easily influenced by a stup!d television show? Where do they find them? Do they all live together -- confused, stumbling about, incapable of locating a modicum of common sense.

(I admit my own exaggeration here, but SERIOUSLY? Is SATC a bad influence? Only to those that don't know any better -- but what can ya do for someone unable to resist the absurd glamorization of a TV show? Not much.)

(By the by, I've never watched this show, so I speak in generalizations.)

Just for the record, I wasn't insulting the women that enjoy this show but have the good sense to accept it as fiction.

This show is entertainment. I'm sure that most people can see that it is not meant to be 100% real.

Unfortunately, SATC opened its closet doors and showed a whole lot of women designer pieces and the art of material desire. I have to agree with Geek Sugar, why do we now feel like $500 shoes are something we should own? Why do we lust after thousand dollar bags, and then buy them!? I enjoy SATC as a fantasy, enjoyable and light, but in some ways it has influenced me as well. I hate to wear heels, but I always feel like I need to pinch and prod my feet so I'll look dainty, sexy, etc. because Carrie running down the street in her shoes is there in my head.

Remember that episode where Carrie realizes she's got a downpayment on a house ($40,000) in shoes!??! And then she gets to keep them and Charlotte gives her the diamond? Come on...its so frivolous and ridiculous. In real life, she'd have had to sell them on ebay and most of those designer dresses too.

Oh Please!
It's just a fun, sassy, sexy & funny show!

Honestly, if this show makes me feel bad about the state of my life in anyway, it's by pointing out how alone I am in comparison to them, with their intense fourway friendship. Nobody I've met in real life has ever had that, at least not with me.
It's so much fun to watch, but only as long as you appreciate that no writer can afford that many pairs of Manolos. And that Big is the biggest jerk ever.

I don't remember the SATC girls working much, so I don't know why anyone would think the show is "bad for career women." I can, however, see how shows like SATC are bad for women in general, because they propegate the idea that it is okay for women to live outside their means (even if said women don't realize it).

At least with shows like Gossip Girl the characters are supposed to be rich and spoiled and dressed to the nines... the same can't be said for SATC. Why can't the wardrobe people dress these women in their proper income level? And don't tell me it's supposed to be "fantasy," because it's set in the real world.

Oh, definitely it's a bad influence. I mean, I can't just blame Sex & the City, but without that show, most women wouldn't have even known the names of some of these overpriced clothes and accessories. I know lots of girls in high school and college spending all the money they make at their minimum wage part-time job on Chanel just because they think it's okay to manage their money that way...I mean, all those girls on the show do it and live fabulous lives...Why can't we? Just one show has managed to introduce brands only known by people bringing in six-figure salaries a week as a household name.

Yea it's fictional but not everybody knows that the power of media, especially TV shows and movies are aim to "suspend you from reality". Which means it certainly can exert influence on your opinions, values, sentiments, emotions and even decisions.
Sex and the City is way too "liberated". Even men I know who had watched that show said that is should be entitled "Sluts in the City".

These shows are fictional. Don't you remember Carrie talking about how she couldn't afford things? If they didn't have the clothes and the shoes it wouldn't be SATC. Come on people.

Yes it is fictional, but some people get lost in fantasy. Like Silverlining10 said, adolescent and college women spend way too much money on designer clothes and shoes when they can barely afford it. While older women would take this show as only entertainment, young girls take this as meaning that it's okay not to spend and save money wisely.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who wonders how Carrie can afford all those designer clothes, shoes, and that apartment of hers when in reality, she's a freelance column writer, not a hotshot stock broker who makes $500,000 a year.

I thought there was an episode where Carrie couldn't get a credit card (or something) because she had maxed out her others on shoes and that it was mentioned that she was living outside of her means.

But for those of you saying that girls wouldn't know designers like household names because of SATC...I guess you've never read Vogue, Elle, or other super-glamorized magazines that were out years (some even decades, before SATC. Sadly, there are girls that are fascinated by glamorous lifestyles, and before SATC, they only felt that they could achieve this by being anorexic and 6 foot tall (or an actress). SATC at least showed that real women could be fabulous as well.

Also, Miranda was a lawyer, who bought her own apartment on the show. Take that bad influence!

I believe Carrie was the only one living outside her means and I appreciated how the writers depicted that. On more than one occasion, her bad finances were discussed. Miranda and Samantha both had good money sense as well as successful careers so I never felt they couldn't afford the life they were depicted as having. Charlotte seemed to live modestly until she married money. So only Carrie was totally ridiculous with the designer clothing.

I think SATC was a bad influence because of the highly inaccurate way it depicted New York City. NYC is one of the most racially, ethnically, and economically diverse cities in the WORLD!!! And even though the population is huge, the land area is small, being a network of islands and peninsulas. That said, it is IMPOSSIBLE for whites of any socioeconomic class to continuously avoid contact with people of color. I found it highly irritating that those characters didn't seem to know any minorities and that definitely influenced my decision to NOT watch the show.

This is just crazy. While every knows this is a tv show, I love this show because it proves that women can be just as successful and as sexual as a man can be. That's what I took out of this show when I started watching it at the age of 17. I went to college knowing that I wasn't going for my MRS. I was going for my MS. I was a sexually satisfied woman and still am. I have wonderful friendships and have learned that you don't need a man to make you content. That's why I love this show. I don't live for the clothes. I live for the relationships and strong willed women portrayed in this show. Not everyone wants to copy cat everything on tv! I sure don't!

SATC was not a bad influence at all, ladies this was fantacy, but the friendship they all had can be real. I have been fortunate to have friends like that, even when we are far away from each other we are always one phone call away.Besides their fabulous lifestyle they taught us what real friendship is and can be if we can women focus more on it instead of stabbing each other.
Carrie was the only one over expending (on shoes), the others had great jobs making good money (even if we never saw them at work).
Anyway, they were fabulous!!!

HI. TO ME SEX IN THE CITY AND EVERYTHING THAT IT STANDS 4, IS A BAD EXAMPLE OF US AS WOMAN, AND WHAT WE REALLY SHOULD ADMIRE AND PORTRAY.
THERE IS NO DIGNITY AND GRACE IN THIS CARACTERS, SO WHY SHOULD WE SPEND OUR TIME(WHICH IS SO PRECIOUS) AND HARD EARN MONEY, ON THESE KIND OF INDUSTRIES. WHAT KIND OF EXAMPLE ARE WE GIVING TO OUR DAUGHTERS WHO ARE THE FUTURE.

I am sorry, that was a loud comment, to introduce myself. As you've seen I'm out-spoken

I agree with Dapper, according to the SATC salary quiz, Samantha an Miranda probably could afford a lot of things on the show, and Charlotte too, especially after getting married. Carrie...not so much, but they did address that some. I saw an interview with Patricia Field the show's costume designer and she said people need to remember its a fantasy and that most people don't really have closets stuffed with designer clothes and never wear the same thing twice. Why is it so hard for some people to separate fiction (TV) from reality?
If teen girls (of which I was one when I started watching) are wasting their money on this stuff why aren't their parents there to set them straight on any of this? TV shouldn't be their education on financial management and life skills!