The anxiously awaited revival of "Sex in the City" — a new series titled "And Just Like That" — unveiled its first episode Thursday and picks up with the characters' lives a whopping 17 years after the original series ended in 2004.
Naturally, the characters have gone through a lot of changes — and the world also has changed a great deal. And the first episode of the new series addresses one of those changes: the birth of left-wing woke culture (i.e., the rise of transgenderism and the centrality of "personal pronouns," policing speech, canceling those who break woke rules, and the so-called "racial reckoning" that swept across America in recent years, to name a few).
What happened?
One plot element from episode 1 involves the character Miranda. According to Vulture, Miranda left corporate law "after being inspired by her time assisting those affected by the Muslim ban" and is going back to school to get a master's in human rights.
And a scene that's raising some eyebrows across social media shows Miranda's first day of class, during which she "completely humiliates herself," the outlet said.
Clearly much older than her fellow students, Miranda notices a woman entering the classroom and is surprised the black woman with braids and informal clothes is the professor.
Then Miranda apparently misgenders an individual in the classroom she believed is male, after which that person shot back, "Someone's quick with the pronouns."
Image source: Twitter video screenshot via @MythinformedMKE
And it keeps getting worse. Miranda begins to babble, trying to rescue herself.
When the professor questions Miranda, saying, "A law professor can't have hair like mine? Why is that?" Miranda replies that "my comment had nothing whatsoever to do with it being a black hairstyle. I, I knew that you were black when I signed up for this class. That was important to me."
Oh, no.
The professor leans forward and asks, "You signed up for this class because I'm black?"
Image source: Twitter video screenshot via @MythinformedMKE
Miranda then continues to feverishly bail water from her sinking ship, complimenting what she's heard about the professor's activism, and then issues yet another faux pas: "God, I sound like such a brown-nose!"
Silence from the room, as if to inquire, "What do you mean by brown?"
But Miranda just won't cut her losses. She tries to diminish the importance of hairstyles by saying she lets her hair go gray and that she's not concerned "if that makes me look old. Not that I'm ageist. Do I sound ageist?"
"You really want me to answer that question?" the professor smugly responds as the apparent transgender individual nods and smiles victoriously at Miranda.
Image source: Twitter video screenshot via @MythinformedMKE
Check out the un-woke train wreck:
What in the Woke hell is this?pic.twitter.com/pL8cHiy0Wj
— Mythinformed MKE (@Mythinformed MKE) 1639109261
Anything else?
Vulture noted that the scene "doesn’t completely ring true. Would Miranda really be so nervous about saying the wrong thing 'in this climate' that she’d have this wild case of verbal diarrhea in which she goes on and on (and on!) about the braids of her professor, Dr. Nya Wallace, and being excited to have a Black teacher for this course?"
The outlet also observed that "it's clear" the scene is part of an attempt "to deal with the fact that the original series was so out of touch when it came to race, so … maybe it’s this cringey on purpose?"
It's worth it to note that Miranda is played by actress Cynthia Nixon, who's a well-known left-wing political activist and LGBTQ advocate who ran for New York governor in 2018 — which likely made the scene either very easy or very difficult for her to pull off.
How did observers react?
Commenters on Twitter indicated they're hip to the goal of the scene — and they don't like it one bit:
- "Funny that our cringe reaction to the entire scene resembles the intended reaction of the professor & students cringing at the clumsy white Karen in the scene," one commenter said. "We would all be better off if Karen would stop her woke-simping."
- "This little skit is a blatant attack on white women, making them look dumb and racist," another user declared. "Shameful."
- "Sickening," another user said. "Written by white haters. Dismal attempt at cringe humor — it’s just cringe."
- "So contrived and cringe. Such a fake scenario. When real racism doesn't present itself in sufficient quantities to feed the narrative, they produce convenient content," another commenter noticed. "When was this produced? Was it prepared for the Juicy Smollett verdict and strategically released? Tiresome."