Hater to Lover of Miranda Hobbes

Fellow SATC lovers, hello. I have a feeling we all already have strong opinions on the character mentioned in the title there, but this is truly deeper than just her story in the show. It has everything to do with what she was doing and how she was living throughout the whole series! Personally, I could not stand Miranda when I started Sex and the City, but to be fair, I was 16-years old. I wasn’t watching the show to see how women lived their lives, I was watching to see the drama between Big and Carrie. I recently turned back to the show, (it’s merely what turned me to starting a blog) and I realized that there is so much more to the characters than just their love life. Before we get into this, decide this now, did you start the show by despising Miranda’s negative attitude? Or love her due to her “power?”

If you’ve watched the show, I feel like you can understand, and even agree with me when I say Miranda was a difficult person to enjoy seeing on the screen. She had an overpowering negative aura, along with her constant complaining. I guess they are the same thing, but not the point. Miranda seemed to have this up-tight vibe to her. She was never able to let loose, and she was never uplifting the other girls. Or at least not from a way I could see it. My mind changed over time though, despite the fact that her marriage with Steve was hard to watch. I mean, throughout the whole show she was cynical and completely distrusting of men. After, going through my own relationships, moving, dealing with rent, and the shitty reality of… well people in general, I understand why she would be all of these things.

Now, I don’t want to skip to the juicy stuff yet. I also don’t want to talk about how awful her character was though either. I would like to talk about the confusing character development she had. Did she even have any? Obviously yes, to extent, but watching her grow was so difficult at certain times because she would make it 10 steps forward, then 8 steps back. Miranda was never one to focus on pretending like love was some amazing thing, and like the sex she was getting from men was any better than what she could do herself. I appreciated her honesty through most of it. I do believe that Miranda was a character that was made to be hard to watch because she is more relatable to most of us that Charlotte ever was. I mean seriously, how many of us are living the luxurious life of Charlotte York (while beginning SATC)?

I have read several articles about how Miranda has always sucked, her character never improved, but I would like to disagree. Prior to getting into why I love and appreciate her character now, I will lay out the facts. At the beginning of the show, the producers made Miranda this masculine figure. Someone who is “her own man,” but not like Samantha, more like in the more traditional and literal sense. Despite this, later in the show she proceeds to get pregnant and sort of let down her guard for her husband. Whom she is on and off again with. This gives the idea that Miranda is more of a feminine figure than we thought. She goes through real problems that many of us can or could relate to! Being on and off again, maybe learning to navigate the lack of male validation, the hatred of the “validation” you get from construction workers, so on and so forth.

Now, as I rewatched the show, I began to love Miranda Hobbes. She is self-aware, she takes control, she doesn’t rely on much other than herself. I appreciate all of those powerful features in a woman while living in a man’s world. Miranda progressively became more aware of her flaws, and laughed about them. She didn’t try to change her coping mechanisms, she wasn’t looking to become a new woman throughout the whole show. She was happy with who she was, and was aware that she may need to adjust some of her stronger traits to get where she wants to be.

Miranda is more successful than I bet a lot of us remember. She wasn’t successful due to what she did for work, she knows what she wants and knows what she doesn’t. That is something to be proud of. She won’t shy away from toxic behavior either, I remember one episode when she walks up to a couple of girls and tells them, “He’s just not interested.” Yes, it wasn’t her business, but she couldn’t help but try to help these other women. I mean, that conversation alone shows that Miranda could easily be the main character of some rom-com where we all end up slightly disappointed, but still relieved she didn’t settle for that asshole. Pardon my french. We all know Miranda wasn’t one to pursue a man who wasn’t meeting her needs, which is something we all need to be doing (myself included). There was just something so strong and powerful about her while going through the seasons again. She was never putting herself in situations to compromise her priorities.

Lastly, I feel as if she was not as judgmental as people assumed. I think she came across as someone that was “close-minded” just because she was hard on herself. Like I talked about in the previous paragraph, she had goals, priorities, and needs. She was making sure she got what she wanted/needed. I believe anything Miranda said was coming from a place of care. Coming from a girl who shows her love by trying to help my loved ones reach their goals and making sure they’re prepared for maybe some big event, I get where Miranda is coming from in a majority of her comments. I know many people would say Samantha was the least judgmental, but truly she was only like that if it was something out of the norm. Samantha doesn’t support the idea of a traditional lifestyle. We all know Carrie isn’t thinking enough about her friends to even judge. And Charlotte is Charlotte. I love her character to death, but she is just Charlotte.

So, moral of the story we all either love or hate Miranda Hobbes, there is no in between. I have chosen to love her because of her strong, untouched, and motivating demeanor. The way she chooses to rely on what she knows she can do rather than others is so important to me and has taught me that there is more to life than waiting for some guy.

If you reached this, email me in the contact page. Let me know your opinions on different characters, and I’ll write about mine.