Middle Age Doesn’t Happen ‘Just Like That’
The New York Times
Why is the “Sex and the City” reboot populated by adults who seem perplexed by everything from politics to their own bodies?
Have you heard? There’s a TV show featuring 50-somethings on HBO, right now. “And Just Like That,” the reboot of “Sex and the City,” has resurrected the old gang (Carrie, Miranda and Charlotte — minus Samantha) in present-day New York City, 17 years after the last episode aired. Yes, it turns out that people — even women-people — can actually keep existing beyond the age of 38. Incredible!
Or at least that appears to be the perspective of AJLT, which depicts a world of middle-aged characters suspended in perpetual astonishment and discomfort about everything they encounter, from commonplace political and social phenomena to their own bodies. (Warning: spoilers ahead.)
“It’s as if its characters must have been asleep for 20 years and awakened utterly gob-smacked to find themselves encountering such things as Black professors, nonbinary children and queer longings,” said Joy Castro, 54, a writer and professor of English and ethnic studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
