We're living in an empire state of mind.
A few nights ago I was watching the premiere of "The Carrie Diaries" on the CW. As a longtime fan of HBO's "Sex and the City" (of which "The Carrie Diaries" serves a prequel), I was initially offended. How could they besmirch the arguably important legacy that "SATC" left behind? So many now deride the show for its writing (re: puns galore) and predictability, but for its time -- the now primordial '90s -- "SATC" was pretty groundbreaking.
But eventually I succumbed to the corny charm of "The Carrie Diaries", which was banal (Wow! 16-year-old Carrie finds her mom journals... I wonder what she's gonna do with those?!) but still endearing.
But something did shake me: Carrie, with the help of her father, gets an internship at a law firm in Manhattan. It's that look on her face, that expression of awe, which hit me like a big yellow school bus (yes, that was a "Mean Girls" reference). She's one of us, a creative type seeking some sort of self-exile in New York.
What's with our continuing fascination with the Big Apple? In fifth grade someone threw a rock at me at recess and I vividly remember saying in the library later that day, "Well, one day I'll move to New York and everyone will be nice to me." Has a desire for vibrant city life been embedded in my genetic code? When I think of actually moving to New York for college it's like my stomach has been filled with a dozen stones, but despite the perceived sensation of being weighed down, I feel like I can do anything. My life, I've come to realize, is a cliché. I'm a small town boy who wants to make it in New York as some sort of a writer. It's humiliating to even write that.
We've been so influenced by pop culture, first off. For decades New York has been sanctified as a place of endless opportunity and acceptance. It all began with "Rent". Ironically, people were drawn to the decrepit life of Alphabet City despite the Pulitzer Prize-winning musical depicting it as a life of destitution, sickness, and isolation.
And then "Sex and the City" came along. We grew up with Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte, and Samantha -- but looking back, SATC was an anthropological piece, a "Welcome, here's the exhibit on '90s Professional Women Blossoming as a Result of the Sexual Revolution." "SATC" portrayed such a heightened reality of New York life, a soft pastel version of adulthood -- most of us can't afford Manolo Blahniks.
And now, currently airing on HBO, is "Girls". The Golden Globe-winning Lena Dunham vehicle was certain to reference why so many young men and women move to the Big Apple. In the second episode, Marnie (Allison Williams) says, "Please, I've seen [Rent] like 12 times. That's basically why I moved to New York." And in the pilot, Shoshanna (Zosia Mamet) is adamant in her fascination with "Sex and the City" and what the show meant for her as a young woman.
As Hannah (Lena Dunham) quips in episode six, "It's like we're all slaves to this place that doesn't even want us, you know?" Why do people move to New York in the first place, knowing that chances are they're going to suffer? Are all creative types masochists?
Maybe it's because of the sense of possibility, a realization that anything could happen. So many move to cities each year, but why? Wouldn't life be much safer, much easier, if we stayed back home, in a place where we're known and already established?
It's time to reconcile my own thoughts about New York, my first love. As a perfectionist, someone who has currently constructed their life like a tightly-wound poem, the thought of moving to the Big Apple -- and letting fate take control -- is hair-raising, liberating, and essentially dumbfounding. Maybe it's my hope, as an aspiring writer, to be in close contact with ferocity that only a city can offer.
We're a unique breed, us wannabe New Yorkers. Is it for the story? Is it to feel something outside of ourselves? We're willing to subject ourselves to poverty, to loneliness, and to general awkwardness, just to live there.
For many, it's worth it.
Follow Nathan Blansett on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@hellonathanb
I've lived in NYC my entire 39 years (and 2 and 3 generations) and shows like SITC do NOT reflect real and true NYers. That show is a fantasy. I really wish the out-of-towners would understand that.
We left Manhattan due to the crime, not due to the moronic rents. Of course that was in 1992 and to explain to these twits what NYC was REALLY like is impossible.
I had to laugh at your comment though...yuppies with the prep schooled accents. I don't get those accents either. I had a grandmother, born in the Village, raised on the Upper East Side and the South Bronx, call the toilet the "terlit". Those days are gone but give me a person who says waddah instead of water any day.
This is a poignant piece that speaks to a certain generation, in the same way Meg Ryan's character in You've Got Mail spoke to others. New York has been loved aloud, on paper, onscreen, and in silence by millions. I really enjoyed hearing your love for it from a young man's POV.
The idea of New York is some many things to so many people, that to boil it down to "Rent" is to cheapen it all. Also, as someone who loved New York and moved there about five minutes after graduating college, I can assure you it had nothing to do with "Rent." It had to do with the possibility of adventure and the (almost) certainty that anything could happen. And I tell you this because I moved there in 1994 and stayed for a decade. Even now, when I talk about it, I feel a little homesick for it all. And I hope when my children finish college, they will go on adventures, too. And it those adventure take them to New York, that would be wonderful, because even now, I am certain that there is no more magical, horrible or better place to spend your twenties.
And again...."Rent?" Nope.
Huh? I think New York's reputation and place in the public's perception began at least a few years before that! Maybe if you can find a few moments between "Sex and the City" prequel episodes, you might want to investigate, and get back to us.
Keep writing!