Remember When The World Gaslit Us Into Believing Sarah Jessica Parker Was Ugly?
As a child growing up during the tail end of Sex and the City, one message rose above the rest in the public consciousness — that Sarah Jessica Parker was ugly.
Tabloids, the internet, and even shows like South Park latched onto the idea that the celebrity was unattractive — going so far as to compare her to a horse — in the mid-2000s onwards, and embedding the imagery into the minds of the next generation who didn’t get to witness Carrie Bradshaw in her peak era.
However, since finally sitting down and binging the entire six seasons of her most popular sitcom, its spin-off show, and two SATC movies, it’s become crystal clear as an adult that these critics were not only cruel, but also, so, so mistaken.
Can’t believe the media was always talking about Sarah Jessica Parker being ugly when she dead ass was a hottie
— ♡Aurora♡ (@porcelainfawwn) March 30, 2020
One of the Great Misogynistic Lies we were told growing up was that Sarah Jessica Parker is ugly pic.twitter.com/tnQMG7NVZl
— Penny Lane (@pennylanemarie) February 28, 2022
Don’t get me wrong, in many ways SJP still fits the mould by being thin, blonde, and rich. So it’s shocking to think that her societal undoing came down to biology and genetics: her ethnic nose, and how society views ageing women. The slander against her is peak definition of what happens when you cross the harsh beauty standard with the male gaze.
Sarah Jessica Parker is an icon — hot, stylish, charming, and empowered. Her return to the small screen this year through And Just Like That, as well as Hocus Pocus 2, only proves that all these years on, she’s still got it.
Where Did This All Come From?
Four years after SATC wrapped up, and right before the release of the first franchise movie in 2008, a website popped up with a side-by-side comparisons of SJP and horses.
The ‘Sarah Jessica Parker Looks Like A Horse‘ blog came complete with a poll egging users to vote if the premise was funny or mean, and boasted its reference on over 400 blogs, newspapers, news sites, and TV shows after it went viral.
The idea all came down to a throwaway line Parker made in 1994 biographical film Ed Wood, where her character asks of a theatre review if she “really [had] a face like a horse?”
It wasn’t the first time her appearance had been made the topic of public debate either, as evidenced in a 2005 Family Guy episode that commented that she looked like a “foot”. The trend carried through until 2011, before it tapered down into obscurity — but by then, the damage was already done.
The ‘SJP Divide’
It’s abundantly clear which gender is at the heart of the vitriol. A 2008 piece in Style.com on the ‘SJP Divide’ first asked why men hate the Hocus Pocus star so much, after witnessing schadenfreude from dudes after news broke that her husband Matthew Broderick reportedly cheated on her.
“It’s another symptom of male antipathy to SJP that has been building up, with increasing viciousness, for some time,” journalist Hadley Freeman wrote, noting when Maxim Magazine declared her the unsexiest woman alive a year earlier.
“See, here’s the thing about Sarah Jessica: She’s a woman’s woman,” said Freeman. “She does not dress in an overtly sexy manner, i.e., to please men. Instead, she dresses in a way that will appeal to those who follow fashion, i.e., mainly women.”
The discord it seems, is that SJP is simply just for the girls, gays, and theys. The sentiment is the same energy Gen Z carried in a viral TikTok sound last year: ‘Remind me of your gender again? Right, you’re a boy. These are for girls only.”
Freeman concludes, somewhat ahead of her time, that because SJP dressed for herself and not to be sexualised and consumed by the general public, that she struck a chord in the primal male brain.
Of this sexist mentality, she writes: “Men might claim a hundred other reasons for their apathy to the lady: they didn’t like the show … she’s too thin … she’s over 35 but doesn’t dress like a Golden Girl — God strike the woman down.”
Has SJP Ever Spoken Out?
In Episode 6 of And Just Like That, Carrie joins Anthony for a plastic surgery consultation, where she’s poked, prodded, and edited into a youthful rendition of her former self staring back at her.
Despite the persistent commentary on her face for the better part of 15 years, in real life, the 57-year-old now also has to come to terms with entering the next phase of life in the public eye. Parker said in an interview with Bustle this year that she herself has never visited a plastic surgeon in her life, particularly at an age where many of her counterparts are doing so themselves.
“It’s not too surprising coming from a woman who has remained a staple in Hollywood without ever changing certain natural features of her face that many people have cruelly teased her for,” wrote Evie Magazine.
“We’re much more receptive to … different sized noses, and I think we’ve come a long way.”
While she hasn’t been as vocal to the cruel comments about her natural features, we do know that her father has Ashkenazi Jewish heritage and is from Eastern European descent.
“Do you ever find your looks are a problem in your work?” Parker was asked in a 1991 interview on the Arsenio Hall show.
“I’ve always considered myself kind of odd looking, and for years and years, you’d see those women on television and film who fit more of the standard of Hollywood, of what was beautiful,” replied Parker.
“I’ve always felt a little bit odd that I never sort of looked that way,” she continued. “I’ve come to accept it, and realise that you can change for parts — you don’t have to look one way or the other.”
“And the standards have changed considerably. It’s no longer one specific way to look. We’re much more receptive to ethnicity, different sorts of looks, different colours of skin, and different sized noses, and I think we’ve come a long way.”
Deeper Roots In 2022
In October, TikTok took down a ‘big nose’ filter that demonised — as the name suggests — larger, ethnic noses. The corresponding trend saw mostly teenage girls show off the enhanced feature with disgust, before expressing relief when they took the filter off to reveal their ski slope-shaped real noses.
The demonisation of hooked noses has long been documented as having anti-Semitic undertones that still lives on in memes and movies we constantly consume.
Perhaps SJP is another victim of coded representations that do harm, and continue to be perpetuated. But as society slowly progresses, hopefully we’ll all look back in horror at the way we treated her for so many years.