HBO Max’s ‘Sex and the City‘ explored sexuality. Its reboot, ‘And Just Like That‘, now portrays the character Miranda Hobbes as a lesbian.
The showrunner Michael Patrick King approached Cynthia Nixon to discuss her character Miranda Hobbes’ new journey on the show. He asked whether she wanted Miranda to be queer. After all, Nixon herself came out in 2004. She has also been married to Christine Marinoni since 2012.
“I was like, ‘Sure, why not!’” Nixon recalled saying. “If we’re trying to do different stuff, and show different worlds, and show different aspects of these characters, why not do that?”
To make this happen, he had to ‘get Miranda out of her marriage.’ So the plotline in the earliest planning stages was formed. It was going to show that Miranda was having an affair with her professor, now that she had gone back to school after quitting her job at her corporate law firm.
Cynthia Nixon At Crossroads With ‘Sex And The City’ Showrunner
Though this idea was rejected by Nixon, she opened up in an interview for Variety‘s cover story about Sara Ramírez – the actor who would be cast to play Miranda’s new love interest, Che Diaz.
“I know we’re crossing a lot of boundaries here that people have a lot of opinions about, but for me a boundary that I don’t want to see Miranda cross is dating her professor, you know? That’s not OK with me.”
It was then decided that Miranda would meet Che and fall head-over-heels in love. This new love makes her leave her husband, Steve (David Eigenberg).
“My friend Gregg Araki, he’s a filmmaker, said to me, ‘How does it feel to have created the most polarizing character in all 5,000 shows that are on TV?’” When she asked him to clarify, Araki cited outrageous characters currently on television, such as “Vikings who are drinking children’s blood” and so on.
“And what everybody’s concerned about is a nonbinary stand-up comic in the present day,” King said.
“Miranda Has Lesbianic Qualities About Her”: Nixon
Nixon and King feel Miranda’s decision to leave Steve for Che makes complete sense. King pointed out that when it came to the wedding, Steve had gotten Miranda ‘married against her will almost.‘
“Miranda was an anarchy character,” he continued. “She was like, ‘Why do I have to wear a dress and go out and pretend guys are smarter than they are?’”
Nixon elaborated on King’s ideas about Miranda. She was asked whether Miranda was always queer. “Yes!” she said. “Even though she was only really interested in men, I think that Miranda had many other queer and frankly, lesbianic qualities about her. And I think for a lot of gay women, she — we didn’t have a gay woman! But she was a stand-in for the gay women we didn’t have.”
Nixon added, “Miranda has always grappled with power, and female power versus male power, and women getting the short end of the stick — and that’s a big issue for women who are queer. I think not having to be under a man’s thumb has always been one of the very appealing things that being with another woman has to offer.”
Nixon gave examples from Season 4’s storyline. She mentioned a scene from ‘Sex and the City,‘ when Samantha (Kim Cattrall) briefly dated Maria (Sônia Braga), a lesbian painter.
“Samantha we understood was actually semi-queer or a little bit queer,” she said. “And that was very different.”
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