[It feels good to be sarcastic.]
Once upon a time, it wasn't exactly flattering
to be labeled 'a Miranda'.
[Sexy is the thing I try to get them to see me as,]
[after I win them over with my personality.]
She was the cynical pessimist,
[Soulmates only exist in the Hallmark aisle]
[in Duane Reade drugs.]
...and the least glamorous of the Sex and the City crew.
[I'm never gonna be a girly girl.]
...after all, it's hard to imagine Carrie,
Charlotte, or Samantha willingly getting adult braces.
[Am I hideous?]
But in today's world there are many people
who would proudly call themselves Mirandas.
[I like my life.
I love my job, I love my friends.]
Because, nearly 20 years after the first episode aired,
she's the character who appears most
like a role model in our times.
There's even a 'We Should All Be Mirandas' t-shirt,
playing on the book title
We Should All Be Feminists.
We still might rather trade closets
with one of the other women,
but Miranda is the one with
the inner qualities that are most enviable.
[I want to enjoy my success, not apologize for it.]
[Bravo, honey, Bravo.]
So here's why Miranda Hobbes is the Sex and the City
character who's aged the best and feels most relevant
to our lives today.
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[How did it happen that four such smart women]
[have nothing to talk about but boyfriends?]
[It's like seventh grade with bank accounts.]
[What about us?]
Miranda's a nonconformist when it comes
to the premise of the show she's on.
Sex and the City is so much about
analyzing the ins and outs of dating,
there's an implicit assumption that
relationships are all-important.
But Miranda calls the other women out
for obsessing over men.
[Give me a call when you're ready]
[to talk about something besides men.]
She's the one who most often notices
sexist double standards.
[A 34-year-old guy with no money and no place to live]
[because he's single, he's a catch.]
[But a 34-year-old woman with a job and a great home,]
[because she's single, is considered tragic.]
So in this sense she's the devil's advocate of the show,
she voices what the critics among us are sometimes thinking.
[Jesus, every time you get near him,]
[you turn into this pathetic, needy, insecure victim.
[And the thing that pisses me off the most]
[is that you are more than willing to go right back for more.]
Miranda also refuses to conform
to anyone else's expectations
of how her life should look
or what qualifies as success.
[My sister and her husband want me]
[to third-wheel with them down the aisle]
[God forbid that I should walk it alone]
[because that would be the real tragedy, right?]
[Ignore the coffin.
There's a single 35-year-old woman]
[walking behind it.]
What's funny is that by today's standards
she has so much going for her --
a great career as a high powered lawyer,
close friends, and complete independence.
But even when she seems to be at the top of the world,
people around her don't always see it that way.
[Look, he's out there for you somewhere,]
[you just haven't met him yet right?]
[Maybe, maybe not.]
[I don't know if I believe all that.]
It's pretty amazing that Miranda's able
to buy her own Manhattan apartment in her thirties.
but she has to face judgment for doing it while single.
[Just you?]
[Yes, just me.]
[Such a big apartment to buy for just you.]
And when she hires Magda as her cleaning lady,
it proves she's financially stable
and settled in her career,
but she then has to deal with Magda's view
that she should focus more on baking and marriage.
[It's good for woman to make pies.]
In spite of all these,
Miranda never lets anyone make her feel ashamed
of her life choices.
She takes full ownership of them.
[I drink coffee, have sex, buy pies]
[and enjoy battery operated devices.]
[If you can't deal with that,]
[I will find another housekeeper who can.]
Superficially, Miranda and Samantha
may seem polarized on the show,
as the sexiest and least sexy of the main characters.
But in some ways, Miranda's dating philosophy
is most similar to Samantha's.
Both are resistant to the sweet,
touchy feely moments that their boyfriends initiate.
[How long are we gonna do this?]
[You want a time frame for cuddling?]
And unlike Carrie and Charlotte,
they don't rely on men to fulfill their emotional needs.
[I believe there's that one perfect person]
[out there to complete you.]
[And if you don't find him?]
[What, you're incomplete?
It's so dangerous!]
Sometimes it even seems like Miranda and Samantha
struggle to see men as complex individuals.
So when Miranda meets Steve in season two,
what makes him different is that he forces her
to see him as a real person.
[I'll have another glass of wine.]
[- Please.
- Please what?]
[I'll have another glass of wine, please.]
[Are you allowed to talk to me like that?]
[Yeah, I think I am.]
Miranda doesn't just dish it out,
she can take it, too.
When she tells Carrie and Berger about
a date she went on and asks Berger
for a guy's opinion, he tells her:
[I'm not gonna sugarcoat it for you.]
[He's just not that into you.]
For some of us this blunt message
would be demoralizing.
But for Miranda it's freeing, even empowering.
[No, I love it.
It is the most liberating thing]
[I have ever heard.]
[Think how much time in therapy I could have saved]
[over the last 20 years if I had known this.]
Because she's all about facing the facts.
We, the viewers, love how honest Miranda is.
[What about you, Miranda, seeing anyone special?]
[Actually no, but I am seeing a whole bunch of unspecial guys.]
But sometimes, her honesty can border on cynicism,
because she's only seeing the ugly truths.
And in these moments, Miranda's best quality
turns into a bit of a fatal flaw.
[My god Miranda, you are so judgmental!]
After they sleep together,
Miranda's skeptical of Steve's good intentions.
[I like you.]
[Translation: â€˜I think you're an easy lay]
[and I'd like to have sex again.']
[No, it's not like that.]
But over time he eases her cynical side.
He teaches her is that sometimes
nice people really are just nice.
And Miranda comes to see that this kind,
earnest guy is Steve's authentic self.
Even though Miranda's skeptical of Charlotte's idea
that there's one special person who can complete you,
she finds there's some truth in it after all --
because Steve has what she herself is missing:
that naive, open, trusting faith in other people.
And of course the one thing Miranda's not at all
cynical about is her friendships.
She's loyal and compassionate,
and she always shows up for
the people she cares about.
[But if I'm totally wrong and it is a huge mistake,]
[I need to know you'll be there for me.]
[I'm there.]
Friendship is something Miranda takes really seriously,
and she expects her friends
to be there for her in the same way.
[If you fell or something]
[I would never send my boyfriend to help you]
[and yes, I know, I don't have a boyfriend.]
Miranda stands strong in rebelling against
conventions she doesn't believe in.
but she also comes to realize that
some traditional things do actually make her happy,
and allowing those into her life
doesn't make her a sellout.
When she gets pregnant
after sleeping with Steve
while they're broken up,
she has doubts about motherhood.
[I'm gonna be a terrible mother.]
But after she doesn't put pressure
on herself to be a stereotypical mom,
she finds herself totally in love with her baby Brady.
She also puts her own spin on things
when she eventually proposes to Steve.
[Will you marry me?]
And stands firm on not wearing white at her wedding.
[I said no white, no ivory.]
[No, nothing that says virgin.]
[I have a child.
The jig is up.]
So Miranda's character is revolutionary
in how she shows that you don't have to be
either the career woman or the happy wife and mom --
you can do both in a way that suits you.
Miranda does go through some hard times though,
as she tries to find that right balance.
She has to make big sacrifices
because she's chosen to have a family.
Like... moving to Brooklyn,
which in her eyes is the same as Siberia.
[I can't move to Brooklyn.]
[Even cabs won't go there.]
And later having Steve's mom move in with them.
In retrospect we can see that Miranda's move to Brooklyn
was just another way she was ahead of the curve...
as today it's one of the trendiest,
most desirable destinations for young Miranda types.
But in the story, these big changes
disrupt the independence and control
Miranda loves having over her life.
So her arc disproves the idea
that settling down is always a fairy tale ending.
This is even more overt in the Sex and the City movie,
where we see Steve and Miranda
really struggling with their marriage,
and Steve admits to cheating on her.
[I had sex with someone else.]
But in the end, Miranda learns to deal with
messiness and disappointment,
just because her life isn't perfect
doesn't mean there aren't good things worth holding onto.
A big part of what fans love about
Sex and the City is the escapism of it.
The way Carrie and her friends
live life like it's all a big New York adventure,
and how there's a beautiful backdrop
even to their 'down' moments.
But these days, people often criticize
this aspect of the show --
how it gives viewers a completely unrealistic vision
of being a young single woman in the city.
So maybe it's because we never see Miranda's life
through these rose colored glasses
that her problems resonate the most today.
She's the exception to the show's charmed glamour.
She's the one who finds herself stuck in a rut so many times,
living vicariously through a TV show,
[If there wasn't a Jules and Mimi marathon]
[on BBC America this weekend,]
[I'd have jumped out the window.]
ordering chinese takeout so much
the place knows her order by heart,
[Brown sauce with brown rice.]
[Cold noodles.
I know.]
[Every night the same.]
and unable to stop herself from eating chocolate cake
straight out of the garbage.
[Your good friend, Miranda Hobbes,]
[has just taken a piece of cake]
[out of the garbage and eaten it.]
These unglamorous, rock-bottom moments
make Miranda feel uncomfortably close to home.
When Sex and the City was on the air,
there was still a stigma
around women having the qualities
that made Miranda who she was --
abrasiveness,
[Cause you're an asshole!]
strong opinions,
[So what, they get a medal for]
[correctly identifying a feeling?]
[We do that all day long.]
['I feel pissed off' ta-da!]
and resistance to going with the flow.
[I miss ESPN and NPR and Dateline --]
[I am not the honeymoon type!].
But these days Miranda's realism
and rawness are qualities we try to emulate.
...and it's just no longer cool
to hate on a woman for owning her intelligence
and calling it like she sees it.
Because Miranda Hobbes had the guts
to go against the grain then,
the character has endured
as someone we look up to now.
[I hope what I'm gonna say]
[will save you a lot of time and energy.]
[He's just not that into you.]
[So move on.
Have a great day!]
I'm Debra.
I'm Susannah.
We are the creators of ScreenPrism.
If you like our videos,
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