Although Carrie Bradshaw (and Sex and the City in general) has been accused of many faux pas as the years have gone by, one of the more shocking moments that has remained under the radar is an incident that occurred early on in the series. Specifically, in episode two of season one, “Models and Mortals.”
With the premise of the episode being centered on how New York isn’t just filled with “ordinary” beautiful women, but models who are literally found within the pages of (then) high-gloss magazines (yet another way in which NYC likes to tout itself despite actually birthing people with rather frightful physiognomies), Carrie paints us a portrait of what she and her friends are faced with.
Thus, we open with Carrie’s usual gambit of using her friends’ dating horror stories. Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) is the first to provide the necessary grist for Carrie’s column as she describes a “modelizer” (get it? Instead of womanizer?) named Nick Waxler (Josh Pais). While Miranda thinks it’s endlessly amusing to play a dinner game that Nick initiates by asking, “Okay. Old movie stars you’d have liked to fuck when they were young?,” his other guests, who’ve witnessed the same exact scene play out countless times, are just glad Nick finally took their advice and didn’t bring a model. But instead, someone “intelligent” (read: not that attractive). Thus, Miranda berates him for making her his “intellectual beard for the evening.” The next day, she regales Carrie with the tale, lamenting, “If men like Nick are dating models, what chance do ordinary women have? I mean, do you have to be a supermodel to get a date in New York?” Oh Miranda, if only you had waited a little longer until Brooklyn popped off (instead of moving there after getting married) to see just how many, let’s say, “antithesis of supermodels” were getting “dates” (better known as “fucks”).
Carrie feels for Miranda’s slight, explaining in her article that, “Modelizers are a particular breed. They’re a step above womanizers who will sleep with just about anything in a skirt. Modelizers are obsessed not with women, but with models, who, in most cities, are safely confined to billboards and magazines, but in Manhattan, actually run wild in the streets, turning into a virtual model country safari where men can pet the creatures in their natural habitat.” This is the first instance of Carrie using language to separate herself—an “ordinary,” “flesh and blood” girl—from the models (deemed “creatures” and “things”). She and her friends are different and deserve better treatment than those skinny ninnies they keep railing against throughout the episode (save for Samantha [Kim Cattrall], who is narcissistic enough to believe she looks like a model). They have brains and can make high-level decisions that dainty, vacuous models cannot (“They’re stupid and lazy, and they should be shot on sight,” Miranda declares). And apparently, among those decisions is being able to suss out when a predatory man is fetishizing you for your body and secretly filming your sexual encounter as a result of that unhealthy fixation. At least, that’s what Carrie finds to be the case when she goes to do more “research” for her column by visiting an “artist” acquaintance and modelizer.
Indeed, Barkley (Gabriel Macht), as he’s called, is “a notorious modelizer.” And as Carrie tries to gain more information about the phenomenon—even though it’s as simple as: men prefer hot women to “normal” ones—he explains that “it’s way easier to screw a model than a regular girl ‘cause that’s what they do all the time. It’s how regular people are when they’re on vacation.” How very insightful. As Carrie watches him attempt to create some shitty paintings, she narrates that Barkley is “one of those SoHo wonders who maintained a fabulous lifestyle despite never having sold a single painting.” Carrie, dear, it’s called: his parents are rich and he’s playing the part of artist on their dime. Of course, this is a topic that Sex and the City never broaches—and sometimes one has to wonder if Carrie doesn’t get help from her own rarely mentioned parents (the ones wielded in The Carrie Diaries), to boot. But no, we’re supposed to believe it’s easy to live the life “artistic” in New York, even in the Sex and the City era, so long ago now. Except that hasn’t really been possible since the advent of Disney to Times Square.
Barkley continues to expound on his dealings with models by telling Carrie, “The trick is, you’ve gotta treat them like they’re regular girls. You gotta be able to roll into a place, walk up to the hottest thing there. Otherwise, you’re finished.” To add to the “super astute” take on how to get into a model’s pants, Barkley concludes, “It’s kind of like being around dogs. You’ve gotta show no fear.”
Carrie’s only half-hearted attempt at pointing out Barkley’s patently misogynistic and disgusting behavior is by playfully commenting, “Things? You call them things?” He confirms, “Yeah. Well, they are things. Very beautiful things.” She doesn’t refute his logic, even though a better woman would have kicked him in the dick at this point. And that’s when he decides she’s “cool” enough to be shown his “real art.” So he sits her down and tells her, “I can’t really show it to the public.” Uh yeah, because it’s so obviously fucking illegal. Not to mention completely slimeball in a manner befitting Harvey Weinstein, Jeffrey Epstein, et al.
Perhaps wanting to exude that expected “attitude of a New Yorker” in that nothing is supposed to (or allowed to) faze you, Carrie doesn’t react horrified the way any empathetic woman might. Only mildly expressing shock on the inside by commenting, “I couldn’t believe it. The man had slept with half the perfume ads in September’s Vogue.” Her slight conveyance of being “judgmental” (otherwise known as: rightly outraged) comes when she cautiously asks (with a smirk on her face that should be smacked right off), “Do they…do they know about this?” Barkley replies nonchalantly, “Maybe.” So yeah, that would be a hard no. And just because a model is supposed to be “vain,” therefore constantly ready and willing to be on camera, does not mean they shouldn’t be asked for their consent to be filmed during one of the most private acts in existence (if you’re not Kim K or Paris Hilton). What’s worse still is that the episode has deliberately been building up to a moment like this by describing models as a form of “non-person.” Therefore, undeserving of being treated as humans (granted, Derek [Andrea Boccaletti], the male model showcased, is given the “humanizing” treatment at the end of the script—tellingly, no female model is imbued with any such handling).
As Carrie watches Barkley have sex with an array of women on various TV screens, she states internally, “I didn’t know what to say. There really wasn’t anything to say except…” Yes Carrie, actually there is a fuck ton to say in this moment. Starting with a heated castigation of this man’s treatment of women as objects that he can use to create his own unsanctioned porno movies. And here, after inwardly claiming there’s nothing to remark upon, she asks out loud as she takes out a cigarette, “Do you have a light?” Haha, hoho. Carrie’s just one of the boys. She’s open-minded and non-judgmental, which is what a New York writer is supposed to be (except not at all—just look at Susan Sontag), right? Or so Carrie would like to emulate, as her entire New York existence is one grand spotlight on why impostor syndrome exists.
The misogyny motif continues to abound when, for the second encounter with Mr. Big (Chris Noth) at an afterparty for a fashion show, he informs her that he thinks her writing is “cute.” As all men think women’s discussions of relationships in print can only be that. At the bare minimum, at least Carrie feels obliged to forewarn Samantha when she indicates her interest in Barkley that, “He has this thing for secretly taping his conquests.” But we’re supposed to further feel a sense of “levity” about how foul the entire thing is because Samantha is excited about such a prospect by noting in a titillated tone, “Really? What a pervert.”
During a discussion about models between the four women early on (marking Charlotte’s [Kristin Davis] lone appearance in “Models and Mortals”), Miranda bemoans, “The advantages given to models, and to beautiful women in general, are so unfair it makes me want to puke.” Well what about the advantages given to men by women like Carrie who enable their vileness, who don’t want to deal with calling out egregious comportment? And for what? All so they can seem “chill”? Look how far that’s gotten us. We’re still capitulating to and “excusing away” men’s behavior for the sake of not delivering “too much” fury at once. When, more than ever, that fury needs to be unleashed like the 79 A.D. eruption of Vesuvio. But thanks to Carrie’s ilk, predators continue to thrive unchecked.
