  Cynthia Nixon, Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall and Kristin Davis in Sex and the City 2.
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NEW YORK — From the catfighting cast of The Hills to backstabbing Gossip Girls — and all of the scheming Top Models and sneaky Gleek gals in between — women on TV can be so cruel.
And it’s a shame, Sex and the City 2 star Sarah Jessica Parker tells a news conference, that they just don’t make ’em like Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte anymore.
“For me, when I look at a lot of what’s available on television and I see how women treat each other, it’s stunning to me; it’s arresting,” she says, relieved the women of Sex and the City count for at least four strong female role models out there, even though their TV days ended six years ago.
“I like that there is some place we still like to illustrate where women would rather be allies than adversaries.”
Coming from wildly different backgrounds — and you’ll see how they met in the hit HBO series’ second film adaptation Sex and the City 2, now in theatres — Carrie Bradshaw (Parker), Samantha Jones (Kim Cattrall), Miranda Hobbes (Cynthia Nixon) and Charlotte York (Kristin Davis) manage to forge unlikely friendships in the unlikeliest place: New York City.
“They were never made to be friends,” says Parker, 45. “Their DNA is so wildly different from one to the next, and they have found this incomparable friendship that is really, truly inspirational to me, and it changes the way I think about my friendships constantly.”
While all four beloved gal-pals have always had sex, stilettos and stiff cocktails in common, their lives have taken them in different directions. And that’s still the case in Sex and the City 2, the sequel to 2008’s Sex and the City: The Movie (a $415-million worldwide-grossing theatrical reunion for fans of the TV series, which aired from 1998-2004).
While much of the new flick sees the ladies on vacay in Abu Dhabi (an all-too-conservative place to shoot in, so Morocco stands in), it also sees them dealing with marriage and middle age in their own, unique ways.
Carrie, for one, has been married to her off-and-on-again love Mr. Big (Chris Noth) for two years, and is starting to question the convention she never even considered in her single-girl days.
“There was a wedding and now there has to be a marriage, and the two are very different,” Parker says.
Then there’s cynical lawyer, wife and mom Miranda, who, as Nixon says, tries to figure out “what to do when you have a really terrific job that you’re well paid for that you’ve for worked decades to get, and all of a sudden you’re miserable.
“I think I could totally relate to that,” Nixon, 44, jokes.
Domestic goddess Charlotte, on the other hand, is trying to juggle two kids — no glamourous task now that her daughter Rose is in her terrible twos, says Davis, 45, of her character.
“She’s faced with yet again her own kind of lack of the perfect picture that she’s trying to create, and even having trouble being honest with herself about the stress involved.”
And as for Sex siren Samantha? Well, Cattrall has only one word for her character’s latest dilemma.
“Menopause,” deadpans the 53-year-old B.C. native. “And I didn’t need to do any research. I don’t need to say anything else.”
But compared to the traumas Sam has dealt with in the past — breast cancer, a cheating millionaire and bleached pubic hair, to name a few — hot flashes got nothin’ on her.
“I think the most powerful thing for me is that we have encouraged many women to change the way they feel about being single, about having cancer, all of the storylines about getting married and then being deserted, being lonely,” Cattrall says. “I think that’s a very powerful thing. In this era of post-feminism, I think that we’ve come to find what it is to be successful, smart and also feminine.”
And to have three best friends to share it with? Well, that’s the lime in the Cosmo.
lindsey.ward@sunmedia.ca
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