Why Only A Sex Worker Could Fill The Space Left By Samantha Jones On ‘And Just Like That.”
I was floating in the pool with some friends last week when we discovered I’m exactly eight years older than them.
“I’m the Samantha of the friend group!’ I exclaimed, unsure how I felt about it.
“Samantha is the coolest one, though!” said my friend Miranda… I mean, Vic.
Sex and the City is my comfort show. I am nearly constantly watching it or playing it in the background while I write. My knowledge is encyclopedic.
So many aspects of the show have aged poorly, like ‘the girls’ stance on bisexuality, sex work, and calling women in their thirties and forties ‘girls.’
The reboot, And Just Like That, has been met with mixed reviews and one common refrain: where’s Samantha?
The nod to representation and diversity was noticed in now-defunct characters Che Diaz and Nya Wallace, but neither of them quite hit for their mostly millennial fans. They just could not fill her Choos.
Translating their turn-of-the-century beliefs and value into the social currency of today, the way one might do when looking up the purchasing power of $400 in 1998 ($761), I think that the only way to provide the audience with what they are missing is for the show to have a sex worker as a recurring character.
After all, how many times was the word “whore” thrown around when referring to Samantha’s “man-like” sexual appetites. Who else was even remotely kinky (Che tried, but they were too busy thinking about their failing career, typical stand-up?) Or even remotely open-minded? Charlotte didn’t even give blow jobs; forget about discussing “funky spunk” at brunch.
Samantha was portrayed as more shocking and irreverent than Carrie’s emotional immaturity, Miranda’s avoidance, or Charlotte’s limerence.
The only way to recapture that is with a worker. “I will not be judged by you or society. I will wear whatever and blow whomever as long as I can breathe and kneel,” she once said.
The exact mindset it’s impossible to be successful in sex work without.
We deserve better mainstream representation than White Lotus or Maxxine, undeniably, but this is also about the fact that a sex worker, in 2024, is worth the purchasing power of a 2003 Samantha Jones.
The show owes its longtime fans some amends as well for the big judgmental deal that was made when Stanford Blatch (Carrie’s token gay friend) found out his beau had been an escort. Of course, it was to put himself through some sort of career advancement training, and of course, it was a brief dalliance — the only semi-acceptable way to admit one would ever, then.
Here’s how Darren Star can make it up to us. Give us an older mommy domme. Who else could shock fifty-five-year-old Carrie over eggs? I don’t want to see one of Charlotte’s kids’ friends start an Onlyfans; that’s too easy. Give us someone like Ruby Lynne, making jokes about pup play at the piano recital.
And just like that, solved a reboot.
