‘Sex and the City’: Miranda Hobbes Had Some Pretty Bad Personality Traits, Too
The main characters of Sex and the City were all inherently flawed. Carrie Bradshaw has gotten a lot of flack for being selfish and dramatic. Fans often criticize Charlotte York for her overly stringent standards and traditional values. No character was as disregarded as Miranda Hobbes, at least during the show’s initial run. She didn’t seem to fit in with her friends. Now, more than 20 years after the show first aired, Miranda is considered pretty cool. Still, she could be just as toxic as her pals. Do you remember her worst personality trait?
Miranda wasn’t beloved when Sex and the City first ran on HBO
The late 1990s were a strange time for the Mirandas of the world. Miranda’s personality had not yet become cool, and it wouldn’t for several years after the show went off the air. In fact, when fans watched the series air, they debated which character they most closely related to. While most fans exclaimed that they were a Carrie or a Samantha, very few were willing to admit that they were a Miranda.
At the time, Miranda was too abrasive, too cynical, and too completely lacking in fashion sense to be considered cool. She was, for all intents and purposes, the odd one out. That didn’t mean she was a bad character, though. Society eventually caught up, and now it is easy to see Miranda’s good qualities.
Eventually, society caught up with Miranda’s personality
While Miranda was the discarded character, largely seen as uncool, society eventually caught up with her. The same qualities that viewers considered troubling 20 years ago are a lot more acceptable. Once you look past some of them, you can see Miranda for what she was. Miranda was self-assured and low maintenance. She was smart, successful, talented, and independent. Those are all qualities we considered desirable now.
Miranda’s star has risen so much that there is an entire book dedicated to the fact that Miranda is someone more people should aspire to be. The book, We Should All Be Mirandas: Life Lessons from Sex and the City’s Most Underrated Character, published in 2019, implores fans to take a closer look at the feisty redhead for some seriously sage advice. It’s true, too. If you rewatch Sex and the City now, you’ll find that Miranda was serving up the hard truths, was consistently a good friend, and was a champion for the professional woman. Hold on, though; it does not mean she was perfect. Miranda still had some less-than-enviable traits.
She still had some pretty toxic qualities, though
While a lot of Miranda’s qualities aged well, she still had some pretty toxic traits. Perhaps her worst was just how judgmental and aggressive she could be. She might have been great at serving up the hard truths her friends desperately needed to hear, her delivery could be pretty awful, and she tended to alienate those closest to her when they didn’t behave in a way that she found acceptable.
Carrie often bore the brunt of Miranda’s critical moments, especially if Mr. Big was somehow involved. It was no secret that Miranda didn’t like Mr. Big or the way Carrie acted around him, but she could have been a bit more understanding. She was similarly judgmental when Charlotte decided to quit her job after marrying Trey McDougal. Sure, it wasn’t the best decision, but it was Charlotte’s to make.
