The Uncomfortable Truth
However much Sex and the City explodes taboos about motherhood, the celebrity discourse surrounding the series constantly undermines this process. Nowhere is this more evident than in the magazine stories about the stars’ real-life pregnancies and attitudes toward motherhood. Sarah Jessica Parker gave birth to her first child, James, in autumn 2002. Six months later Parker was back in shape. Promotional shots for the last series revealed no trace of her recent labors (Hello! 82). Compare this to Miranda’s experience in seasons 5 and 6. According to the media Parker shares none of Miranda’s problems: “She’ll slip into motherhood as easy as she does her Manolo Blahniks” (Millea 338). If we read this against Miranda’s story of lugging around a puking baby, the “blissfully wed” Parker story confirms the “have it all” discourse so neatly dismantled within the show.
It also adds rather interesting reading to what Michaels and Douglas call the “celebrity mom profile,” which, in their analysis, snowballed in the 1980s and became a fixture in the 1990s. According to them the celebrity-mom profile “was probably the most influential media form to sell the new momism, and where its key features were refined, reinforced, and romanticized” (113). They add that the celebrity-mom profile has been an “absolutely crucial tool in the media construction of maternal guilt and insecurity, as well as the romanticizing of motherhood, in the 1980s and beyond” (113). Not only does it present mothers who have allegedly found a balance between working and caring for children, but there is an added pressure. If the celebrity mom is willing to give up her glittering showbiz career in order to nurture and mother her children, the suggestion is, why aren’t we? Michael and Douglas argue that the celebrity-mom portraits resurrect many of the stereotypes that women had hoped were buried 30 years ago, including the notion that
Women are, by genetic composition, nurturing and maternal, love all children, and prefer motherhood to anything, especially work, so should be the main ones responsible for raising the kids (139).
They add that what is worse is that the celebrity-mom discourse exemplifies what motherhood has become in our intensified consumer culture: a competition. One that pits mother against mother and leaves the notion of sisterhood in the dust.
The argument is not then whether Sex and the City is reality or fantasy, whether the endings are believable, forced, or tacked on. The depiction of motherhood may be real to some and fantasy to others. What is radical about Sex and the City is that it gives us an alternative version of motherhood to the stereotypes that exist in the media. It depicts motherhood in all its ambivalence. Which is why, when Magda tells Miranda that she is expressing love, it reveals an uncomfortable truth. One of the roles of adulthood is potentially caring for our own parents. Miranda has been on a long journey of rejecting motherhood, being ambivalent about taking on the role and then embracing it. She faked her sonogram, let a friend’s baby fall off the sofa at her baby shower, and had difficulty coping with and bonding with Brady. She has never been someone for whom mothering comes naturally.
This is not where her story ends though; she has had to move out of Manhattan to Brooklyn for the sake of her family and now must take on the next stage of her life’s journey, which includes caring for Steve’s mother. Despite their difficult relationship, it is Miranda who recognizes Mary’s illness and shares responsibility for looking after her mother-in-law, thereby accepting the traditional mantle of “nurturer,” albeit temporarily. Rescuing Mary after she wanders off in a confused mental state, Miranda is forced to care for her mother-in-law as a mother would a child. Framed in the bathroom, their red hair superficially at least suggests a connectedness, and with Brady’s bath toys reinforcing Mary’s child-like state, the mise-en-scène suggests that Miranda has accepted the role that she fought against for so long. After three seasons of witnessing Miranda’s difficulties with motherhood this is hard to accept and is arguably why viewers found Miranda’s ending unbelievable.
It should be no surprise then that when Magda tells her, “What you did—that is love—you love,” Miranda immediately tells Magda “Let’s not tell Steve. It would only upset him.” Keeping the truth of Mary’s illness from Steve is not Miranda’s only motivation here. Magda may feel vindicated by Miranda’s apparent acceptance of the role of mother, but we know the truth as surely as Steve will. Over the course of the final three seasons Miranda has learned that there is more to being a mother than the idyllic and often sanitised versions offered to us in the media. She may perform the role of caretaker to Mary but this does not mean that she has embraced the whole romantic fiction of the “naturalness” of motherhood. Far from being contained in the role of mother and naturalised by it, Miranda’s narrative shows us that it is possible to retain independence despite the constraints of caring. By portraying the difficulties along the way, Miranda’s narrative has shown us that even the most intelligent and cynical woman can be completely unprepared for a role that the media romanticizes as a smooth fit (but like Manolo Blahniks, the role of mother can be more painful than sexy). Miranda’s narrative ends here for good reason. While her struggle with a young baby may be good comedy, it is difficult to see how Miranda’s new relationship with Mary could be such a rich source of humor. Steve and Miranda may share their caring roles in the same way they share the parenting of their young son, but you can be sure there will not be many laughs along the way.
Works Cited
Akass, Kim and Janet McCabe. “Ms. Parker and the Vicious Circle: Female Narrative and Humour in Sex and the City.” In Reading Sex and the City: Critical Approaches. By Akass and McCabe, 177–200. London: I. B. Tauris, 2004.
Douglas, Susan J. and Michaels, Meredith W. The Mommy Myth: The Idealization of Motherhood and How It Has Undermined Women. New York: Free Press, 2004.Hello! 758, April 1, 2003, 82.
Millea, Holly. “Oh, Baby!” Elle, September 2002, 336–45.
Nelson, Ashley, “Sister Carrie Meets Carrie Bradshaw: Exploring Progress, Politics, and the Single Woman in Sex and the City and Beyond.” In Akass and McCabe, Reading Sex and the City, 83–95.
Sex and the City. Created by Darren Star. HBO. 1998–2004.
