And Just Like That … misogyny reigns supreme: disciplining womanhood in the critical framings of Sex and the City’s new chapter

ABSTRACT

Two decades after its debut, Sex and the City’s universe was reborn with 2021s And Just Like That (AJLT). More political than its predecessor, AJLT presents a meditation on the complexities of womanhood at specific temporal, personal, and sociocultural moments, making it ripe with deconstructive, transgressive possibility. AJLT’s critical response has, however, been overwhelmingly negative, illuminating discrepancies between its mission and reception. Executing a double frame analysis, this study examines both the sociopolitical themes progressively framed within AJLT and its critical appraisal, positioning the latter as a power-laden, paratextual discourse shaping public opinion of not only entertainment texts but also issues addressed within them. Results reveal two themes progressively framed by AJLT yet contrarily lambasted by critics: 1) temporal politics, and 2) queer worldmaking. It is argued that AJLT’s paratextual discourse dismisses the complexity of women’s epistemologies as illuminated in the series and problematizes instead its leading women, re/enforcing a discursive discipline constituted through the rhetorics of agitation and dismissiveness.

KEYWORDS:

• Sex and the City
• And Just Like That
• frame analysis
• critic reviews
• feminist media theory

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.