- Sarah Jessica Parker is reprising her role as Carrie Bradshaw nearly 20 years after Sex and the City wrapped—and she refuses to listen to “misogynist chatter” about ageing.
- “I know what I look like. I have no choice,” Parker, 56, continued. “What am I going to do about it? Stop aging? Disappear?”
- The Sex and the City reboot, And Just Like That..., is set to premiere in December.
The Sex and the City cast has aged (celebrities, they're just like us!) since the show went off the air nearly two decades ago—and like the rest of us, Sarah Jessica Parker has had to navigate what it means to grow older in a youth-obsessed culture. Her solution? Calling out sexist double standards about the way we age, just like Carrie Bradshaw would.
In a new Vogue profile, the Sex and the City reboot (And Just Like That..., set to air this December) star addressed the wave of online criticism about how she and her fellow Manhattanites are supposedly too old to reprise their characters. “There’s so much misogynist chatter in response to us that would never. Happen. About. A. Man,” Parker said. “‘Grey hair, grey hair, grey hair. Does she have grey hair?’”
“I don’t know what to tell you people! Especially on social media. Everyone has something to say,” Parker continued. “‘She has too many wrinkles, she doesn’t have enough wrinkles.’ It almost feels as if people don’t want us to be perfectly OK with where we are, as if they almost enjoy us being pained by who we are today, whether we choose to age naturally and not look perfect, or whether you do something if that makes you feel better.”
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Her co-stars agree, citing a need for greater representation of women over 50 in leading roles. “I like that we’re not trying to youthify the show,” Cynthia Nixon, who plays Miranda Hobbes, told Vogue. “We’re not including, like, a 21-year-old niece.”
That’s not to say that Parker entirely loves getting older; in fact, she’s long been refreshingly honest about the process. “Yes, I am ageing. Oh my God, I’m ageing all the time,” she told Elle USA in 2010. “It’s like those flowers that wilt in front of you in time-lapse films. But what can I possibly do? Look like a lunatic?”
“I know what I look like. I have no choice. What am I going to do about it? Stop ageing? Disappear?” Parker continued in the Vogue interview. But as the star of And Just Like That..., she’s not going to—and our screens are all the better for it.
Now, with over five decades under her belt, Parker says she trusts herself more than ever. “I make choices that make me feel comfortable and try not to worry too much about what other people think,” she told Harper’s Bazaar UK in 2018. “I care less about other people’s opinions. I wear clothes that make me feel like myself.”
We couldn’t help but wonder: Was the culture of ageism and misogyny too much to overcome? Or will trailblazers like Parker create a new path forward?
With stars like Andie MacDowell, Jane Fonda, Helen Mirren, and Jamie Lee Curtis carving the way alongside Parker, we think we know the answer (a resounding yes!).
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