And Just Like That Cast Responds to Meghan McCain's Criticism of Show's 'Wokeness'

"Comments like that say more about the person saying them," Nicole Ari Parker said of Meghan McCain's AJLT criticism

Photo: Courtesy of HBO Max; Greg Endries/Bravo

After Meghan McCain criticized the "wokeness" of And Just Like That..., the cast is speaking out in defense of the series.

Show stars Cynthia Nixon and Nicole Ari Parker expressed disagreement with McCain's stance after the former The View cohost, 37, called out the Sex and the City reboot in her Daily Mail column in late December. McCain slammed the show's "clumsy attempt to reformat … into the woke and puritanical times we are living in."

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McCain continued in her column, "Carrie now plays the part of the 'cisgender woman' on a podcast with younger co-hosts. One of them is -- of course -- queer and nonbinary. Because it's so boring and un-evolved to be a straight white woman.

"I don't know who to blame, the writers of the show or this particularly stupid and repressive time we are living in," she wrote, adding, "now entire plotlines are dedicated to microaggressions."

McCain closed out her op-ed by writing: "Wokeness kills everything and I am disappointed to tell you that And Just Like That is another victim of Hollywood trying to placate a specific audience and not the original one, which was made it [sic] a hit in the first place."

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Andy Cohen interviewed the cast on his Sirius XM show Saturday, where he asked Nixon to respond to McCain's claims AJLT is "too [politically correct]."

Nixon, 55, who reprises her role as Miranda Hobbes on AJLT, said, "I disagree. The show became so beloved — reruns for all those years," adding later, "I feel like people have watched it, and they know it so well, inside and out."

Nixon continued, "Because people know it so well, they have enshrined it in nostalgia. But this is a show that has always pushed every kind of boundary. I think that that's what's so magnificent about the new show — about how many different directions we're going with that, and pushing boundaries and shaking people up.

"And most importantly, shaking the characters up," Nixon added. "We don't want to see these characters … comfortable. We want to see them out of their comfort zones."

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Parker, 51, who plays AJLT's Lisa Todd Wexley, chimed in to directly address McCain's comments, telling Cohen, "Comments like that say more about the person saying them."

Parker continued, "What's too much? Maybe in your living room or when you step outside, it looks the same as inside, and you go to the grocery store and it's the same. Maybe it is too much for you. For these characters in New York City, it's not."

Kristin Davis, who stars as Charlotte York-Goldenblatt, also spoke up, defending AJLT's unique reboot approach. She told Cohen "I can't think of another situation where someone has done that with a show."

She added, "People don't know how to think about it ... It gives so much possibility and we are living in a different time."

And Just Like That... is currently streaming on HBO Max.