“Carried” over to streaming: glocalizing Sex and the City in Amazon Prime Video’s Four More Shots Please!

2.1 The role of formats in transnational adaptations

Transnational television remaking involves adapting series across national contexts, requiring cultural and narrative localization. This process balances cultural proximity, market demands, and audience preferences, transforming global formats through local lenses (Keinonen 2016). These adaptations become sites of cultural negotiation, where new meanings emerge via local reinterpretation.

Rather than producing cultural uniformity, successful adaptations reflect a complex interplay of global and local influences. They rely on revising formats through local narratives, aesthetics, and values. Hirsch (2018) pointed out the tension between standardized programming and cultural specificity, emphasizing local resonance. This tension intensifies in the streaming era, as global audiences consume both originals and remakes (Garofalo et al. 2020).

A central concept in adaptation studies is the logic of franchising. Chalaby (2011 and 2016) introduces the notion of “super-formats” like Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, Survivor, and Pop Idol, which balance flexible narrative frameworks with localized content, illustrating how global television blends transnational reach and local authenticity. Hilmes (2012) further classifies transnational television into imported series, reality formats, adapted series, and format fiction – each reflecting varying degrees of creative modification. This taxonomy reveals how producers navigate fidelity to originals while adapting to local cultures.

Perkins and Verevis (2015) extend this framework by highlighting “critical transculturalism,” viewing remakes as shaped by socio-cultural contexts, industrial histories, and economic imperatives. Scripted formats, once overshadowed by reality TV, now circulate globally. Chalaby (2016) attributes this delayed rise to the creative demands of adapting serialized drama – localizing not only language, but also cultural codes, genres, and storytelling conventions. Effective drama adaptations require reimagining narratives within the target society’s cultural fabric.

Navarro (2012) notes that adapting scripted formats involves interpretive labor from local teams, who must “redefine the format” rather than merely translate scripts. Perkins and Verevis (2015) argue that serialized storytelling in television requires sustained efforts to remap sociocultural specificity, influencing characters, settings, and genre conventions.

Chalaby (2016) characterizes scripted formats as “open” due to their need for flexibility and cultural re-actualization – an active rewriting of meanings within specific localities. These formats thus become tools for expressing national identity while maintaining global ties.

Waisbord (2004) critiques cultural imperialism by highlighting the resilience of national identities, arguing that audiences actively interpret global media through locally rooted cultural frameworks. Rather than enforcing uniformity, remakes often demonstrate glocalization – the co-production of global and local (Robertson 1995). Moran (2009) echoes this, suggesting remakes strengthen national media while utilizing global storytelling forms.

Esser (2010 and 2016) focuses on the industrial logics behind format success, highlighting how scripted and unscripted formats are embedded in global value chains. Tools such as production bibles, licensing frameworks, and consultancy networks support localization, presenting formats as industrial frameworks shaped by markets, production practices, and audience needs.

2.2 Evolving theories of television format adaptation

The global circulation of television formats reflects a dynamic tension between global forces and local responses. Early theories framed this through media imperialism. Schiller (2019) warned that Western media exports, especially American, risked cultural homogenization. However, scholars like Straubhaar (1991) and Waisbord (2004) reframed this, highlighting globalization as a negotiated process shaped by cultural proximity, local preferences, and institutional contexts.

Localization thus becomes a creative negotiation, not mere translation. It involves tailoring narrative arcs, humor, and cultural cues to local sensibilities. This is particularly relevant in genres like soap operas, sitcoms, and reality shows, where emotional and cultural familiarity drive audience engagement (Darling-Wolf 2014). Moran (2009) also notes the role of market forces and regulatory frameworks in shaping adaptation outcomes.

Contemporary studies move past binaries of dominance versus resistance, highlighting glocalization and hybridization. Robertson’s (1995) glocalization theory – where global and local forces co-create texts – has become central. Nederveen Pieterse (1994) adds that globalization involves hybrid recombination, generating novel, context-specific forms rather than erasing the local.

Yet this process isn’t always balanced. Roudometof (2016) warns of asymmetry, where global centers influence what cultural content is retained or transformed. Kraidy (2005) concurs, arguing hybridization is not just aesthetic but also shaped by ideological, political, and economic factors. Appadurai’s (1996) concept of mediascapes captures how media content flows, is interpreted, and contested locally.

Digital technologies intensify these dynamics. Jenkins (2006) notes the role of grassroots participation in shaping transnational media, while Thussu (2006) points to the institutional politics embedded in these practices.

Empirical studies support this view. Štětka (2012) found that audiences in post-communist Europe, after initially embracing Western imports, returned to local content. Similarly, Rai and Straubhaar (2016) show how countries like Brazil and India increasingly develop indigenous formats rather than only adapting Western ones. These shifts indicate a more reciprocal global media flow – one that negotiates and redefines cultural hierarchies.

2.3 The role of streaming platforms in shaping global-local media flows

The rise of digital platforms and streaming services has significantly reshaped global media flows, fostering multidirectional exchanges between regional industries (Lotz et al. 2022). With global television content increasingly available on streaming platforms, audiences can access original foreign series, which influences expectations for local adaptations and redefines format localization. This shift challenges earlier top-down models of media globalization and highlights the cultural agency involved in how transnational content is received and reinterpreted.

While transnational television flows predate digital platforms, services like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Disney+ Hotstar have scaled up glocalization by expanding the distribution of hybrid content. Traditional broadcasters, often more nation-centric, historically engaged in deeper localization tailored to domestic viewers (Chalaby 2016). Streaming platforms, by contrast, offer both global and localized content simultaneously, encouraging fluid exchanges between global influences and regional identities. Their localization strategies cater to diverse cultural contexts while retaining international appeal, further intensifying the glocalization process.

Rai (2024) distinguishes between the “cosmopolitan local” strategy used by platforms like Netflix, which fuses global formats with localized storytelling to engage regional audiences, and the “indigenized global” approach of services like Disney+ Hotstar, which embeds global content within local traditions, notably through cricket and Bollywood. These strategies showcase how streaming platforms not only distribute but also actively transform cultural products to suit national sensibilities.

Chalaby (2022) notes that streaming services have enhanced both local media industries and international visibility by globalizing culturally specific content. This contributes to transcultural media flows, where global formats are not merely imported but redefined through local agency, reinforcing national identity within global media structures (Kim 2022). As Biswas (2025) observes, while local producers do not control global platforms, streaming has altered media hierarchies by enabling their content to circulate more widely across borders.

Ultimately, streaming platforms play a pivotal role in the hybridization of global and local content, reflecting a dynamic interplay between global media power and local cultural expression.

2.4 Format adaptations in India

India presents a rich example of media glocalization. The post-liberalization media boom of the 1990s exposed Indian audiences to global content, prompting hybrid programming strategies. While shows like The Bold and the Beautiful introduced new narratives, localized adaptations found greater cultural resonance (Sinclair and Harrison 2004). Pathania-Jain (2001) attributes this to the need for aligning with domestic viewers and advertisers, noting the strategic use of Hinglish, Indian familial norms, and cultural references to connect with aspirational urban audiences.

Game shows and talent formats the adaptation wave, with Kaun Banega Crorepati – India’s version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? – emerging as a seminal success. It localized the format using Bollywood references, mythological themes, and cricket metaphors, resonating across regional and class divides. The host’s charisma, linguistic range, and nationalistic undertones reinforced its cultural grounding while maintaining aspirational appeal (Roy 2014).

Drama formats followed, notably Jassi Jaissi Koi Nahin, the Indian remake of Yo Soy Betty La Fea (Roy 2011). While Jassi retains Betty’s awkwardness and ambition, her arc centers on values like modesty, family responsibility, and professional growth. Her transformation is about competence over desirability, aligning with Indian middle-class ideals rather than Western beauty norms.

In contrast, Nikki Tonight, a late-night chat show modeled after U.S. formats, failed to resonate due to its overt sexual humor and irreverence, which conflicted with Indian norms around gender and public discourse Kumar (2006). As Pathania-Jain (2001) cautions, cosmetic localization – focused merely on language or format tweaks for commercial gain – often falls short. Superficial strategies like dubbing or using local hosts may increase accessibility but fail to achieve cultural depth. Furthermore, overemphasis on Hindi-English urban markets marginalizes regional languages and avoids politically sensitive issues, reflecting commercial priorities over cultural inclusivity.

2.5 Sex and the City and its global remakes

Originally airing from 1998 to 2004, Sex and the City (SATC) followed four women in Manhattan navigating careers, relationships, and friendship. Adapted from Candace Bushnell’s book, the show garnered critical acclaim and attracted over 10 million viewers on HBO (Bauder 2004). Its protagonists became global fashion icons and sparked conversations around feminism, sexuality, and postfeminist identity (Meyer 2014).

SATC’s global influence spanned over 200 countries and inspired multiple international remakes, each localizing its core themes – female independence, urban modernity, and intimacy – according to regional values (Yoshioka 2011). In Down to Love (China), the focus shifted to traditional ideals like marriage; Diaries of Shou-nyus’ Desire (Taiwan) retained professional and romantic themes but downplayed political commentary (Yang 2011); Sexo e as Negas (Brazil) reinterpreted SATC through race and class, featuring Afro-Brazilian women and engaging local sociocultural tensions (Joyce and La Pastina 2014).

Urban settings in these remakes adapted SATC’s depiction of New York as a glamorous, sexually liberated city (Handyside 2007; Heller 2007) into distinct, localized imaginaries in cities like Taipei and Rio. While structural elements were retained, character arcs, friendships, and relationships were recalibrated to reflect local realities. These adaptations exemplify glocalization, revealing how globally popular formats are elastic enough to enable localized storytelling. They stress the importance of analyzing transnational television beyond surface similarities.

This scholarly discourse on SATC’s global remakes sets the foundation for examining Four More Shots Please! (FMSP), its Indian adaptation. While FMSP mirrors SATC’s premise – four urban women navigating love and selfhood – it roots these themes within Indian sociocultural realities, addressing gender norms and post-liberalization aspirations. Feminist critiques of FMSP are varied. Paunksnis (2023) contends that the show frames agency through individualism and consumerism, while Laskar (2021) critiques its focus on “sismance” over collective feminist solidarity.

Rather than solely evaluating FMSP’s feminist politics, this study situates the show within broader debates on format adaptation and glocalization. It examines how narrative arcs, character tropes, and aesthetics from SATC are recalibrated for Indian audiences and how streaming platforms like Amazon Prime Video enable new modes of localized storytelling. These platforms offer both the structural framework and creative flexibility to tailor global content to national contexts. The research questions for the study are:

1. How does Four More Shots Please! adapt the characters, story, visuals, setting, and themes of Sex and the City for Indian culture?

2. In what ways do the textual and contextual changes in Four More Shots Please! reflect the process of glocalization?

3. What key themes emerge in the adaptation, and how do they reflect cultural shifts in India?

Although comparing SATC with other global adaptations could enrich discussions of glocalization, meaningful analysis requires linguistic and cultural fluency. Given the researcher’s Hindi-language expertise, focusing on FMSP ensures a deeper and more contextually grounded examination of adaptation practices.

3.1 Comparative procedure

The comparative design consisted of three distinct but interrelated phases:

Phase 1 – Descriptive coding. All 30 episodes of FMSP were viewed and coded using the five variables above. In parallel, all 94 episodes of SATC across its six seasons were watched at least once, with selected episodes viewed again for deeper comparative coding. Each SATC episode was summarized for its dominant plotlines, character functions, and stylistic signatures – such as voice-over narration, fashion-led mise-en-scène, and iconic uses of Manhattan space.

Phase 2 – Cross-text mapping. For every FMSP episode, variables were mapped against SATC patterns. Particular attention was paid to:

Female friendship settings (SATC’s diners & cupcake bakeries ↔ FMSP’s Truck Bar).

Occupational parallels (Carrie & Damini as columnist/journalist; Miranda & Anjana as lawyers balancing single motherhood; Charlotte & Siddhi’s aspirational focus on marriage).

Sexual agency archetypes (Samantha’s unapologetic exploration ↔ Umang’s bisexual storyline).

Notable examples include: S3E5 “No Ifs, Ands, or Butts” – a key moment showcasing the centrality of food venues to female bonding, echoed in FMSP’s repeated use of the Truck Bar. S1E3 “Bay of Married Pigs” and S3E12 “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” – episodes that reflect Charlotte’s idealization of marriage, paralleled in Siddhi’s Season 1 arc. S2E11 “Evolution” and S5E4 “Cover Girl” – which explore Carrie’s journalism career and tension with editorial constraints, mirrored by Damini’s trajectory. S5E3 “Luck Be an Old Lady” and S6E5 “Lights, Camera, Relationship!” – where Miranda balances career and motherhood, analogous to Anjana’s legal and personal challenges S3E4 “Boy, Girl, Boy, Girl…” and S4E6 “Baby, Talk Is Cheap” – both of which portray Samantha’s engagement with sexual fluidity, providing a thematic bridge to Umang’s bisexual identity and narrative centrality in FMSP.

Phase 3 – Thematic synthesis. Recurring patterns and divergences were clustered into meta-themes – such as “urban female autonomy,” “familial absence versus presence,” and “linguistic hybridity” – and interpreted through the glocalization lens. This process allowed for identifying not only what was retained or changed in adaptation, but also how cultural specificity shaped the transformation of global television genres for a regional streaming audience.

4.1 Characters: comparative analysis of main and secondary figures

The core narrative of Four More Shots Please! (FMSP) mirrors Sex and the City (SATC) in its focus on four urban, affluent women navigating love, careers, and identity in a cosmopolitan setting. However, while SATC’s characters function in a context of individualism and romantic autonomy within New York’s consumerist culture, FMSP situates its protagonists in a socio-cultural framework marked by familial entanglements, linguistic hybridity, and the evolving norms of Indian post-liberalization society. The adaptation exemplifies what Villegas-Simón and Soto-Sanfiel (2021) term the “search for equivalences” – where original character functions are retained, but attributes and interpersonal dynamics are reconfigured to align with local cultural logics.

This section begins with a character-by-character comparison between Sex and the City (SATC) and Four More Shots Please! (FMSP), highlighting key parallels in role, personality, and narrative function. Damini Roy in FMSP maps onto Carrie Bradshaw in SATC, both serving as narrators and career-focused writers. Anjana Menon parallels Miranda Hobbes as an ambitious lawyer and single mother. Umang Singh mirrors Samantha Jones in her embrace of sexual agency and defiance of heteronormativity, especially through her bisexual identity. Siddhi Patel resonates with Charlotte York in her traditional aspirations around marriage and family, but her arc pivots toward body image and self-worth. These equivalences are explored in depth in the following subsections, each grounded in specific character arcs and illustrative episodes across both series.

4.2 Narrative structure: premise, plots, and dramatic conflicts

Both Sex and the City (SATC) and Four More Shots Please! (FMSP) move the plot forward with dramatic conflicts. Yet, while SATC locates these dramas in an environment of individualism and romantic experimentation, FMSP embeds them within collective structures of family, social expectations, and patriarchal resistance in post-liberalization India.

In both series, the episodic structure revolves around personal dilemmas, romantic entanglements, and work-related challenges. However, SATC’s episodes often function as loosely connected vignettes centered on one thematic question (e.g., “Can women have sex like men?”), usually posed by Carrie in voiceover. In contrast, FMSP’s plots unfold as serial arcs with sustained emotional stakes, grounded in family-based conflicts and identity negotiations.

Damini’s professional arc – being ousted from her investigative outlet – functions not just as a workplace conflict but as commentary on press freedom and gendered leadership in Indian journalism. While this echoes Carrie’s challenges as a columnist, FMSP revolves around systemic barriers over personal indecision. Anjana’s storylines – especially her efforts to balance single motherhood with legal aspirations – parallel Miranda Hobbes, but are reframed to reflect Indian custody dynamics, informal labor, and maternal guilt shaped by communal expectations.

Romantic plots also reveal structural similarity and cultural differences. SATC constructs romantic instability as a site of self-fashioning, often framed through Carrie’s cyclical relationship with Mr. Big. FMSP mirrors this in Damini’s shifting choices between casual encounters and cohabitation with Jeh. But unlike Carrie’s open-ended pursuit of love, Damini’s dilemmas reflect respectability politics and the expectations on ambitious, unmarried Indian women. While SATC interrogates romantic agency within a neoliberal framework, FMSP presents relationships as spaces where desire and duty are negotiated.

FMSP introduces dramatic conflicts absent in SATC – especially those rooted in generational and parental disapproval. Umang’s coming-out, dismissed by her father as a “lifestyle choice,” reveals the emotional labor of asserting queer identity in a society shaped by heteronormativity and filial duty. Siddhi’s tension with her mother over body image and marriageability echoes Charlotte’s idealism but shifts the conflict toward intergenerational shame and resilience. Where SATC privileges friends and lovers, FMSP assigns narrative weight to family, tradition, and constraint.

In both series, autonomy is affirmed, but through different paths. SATC’s characters find empowerment through consumerism and friendship; FMSP’s protagonists must wrestle choice from embedded norms. The adaptation recontextualizes narrative structure within India’s sociocultural terrain, fulfilling Robertson’s (1995) notion of glocal negotiation.

4.3 Audiovisual style: visual language, narrative rhythm, and linguistic codes

In their audiovisual styles, Sex and the City (SATC) and Four More Shots Please! (FMSP) reflect the distinctive aesthetic traditions and audience expectations of their respective media cultures. SATC draws from the visual lexicon of Western prestige television, with elegant tracking shots, muted urban palettes, and fashion-forward mise-en-scène. Its polished cinematography and restrained color grading complement the aspirational cosmopolitanism of late-1990s Manhattan, where the city becomes a narrative entity – an emblem of personal reinvention, stylish independence, and postfeminist self-fashioning.

FMSP adapts and transforms these elements through Indian streaming aesthetics, drawing heavily from Bollywood’s sensorial traditions. Rather than mimicking SATC’s minimalist visual palette, FMSP saturates its screen with bold colors – deep oranges, pinks, golds – aligned with the melodramatic vocabulary of Hindi cinema. Stylized montages, heightened lighting, slow-motion sequences, and musical cues replace Carrie’s voiceovers to mark emotional turning points. Diegetic music scenes like karaoke or dance numbers are used not only for spectacle but to externalize internal conflicts or celebrate moments of female camaraderie. While SATC often reserves emotional expression for private moments or witty reflection, FMSP locates emotional intensity in public spaces, using visual excess and music as devices that reflect the collectivist ethos and performative culture of Indian storytelling.

This Bollywood-inspired stylistic hybridity serves a dual purpose. It localizes the format in an aesthetic familiar to Indian audiences while also appealing to global streaming viewers accustomed to gloss, polish, and cinematic production values. As Kraidy (2005) argues, such “cultural hybridity” enables local adaptations to repackage global genres with indigenous affective registers, enhancing both commercial appeal and narrative authenticity.

Language further distinguishes the adaptations. SATC’s dialogue is rooted in the sharp idiom of urban American English, filled with metaphors of dating, therapy, brunch culture, and liberal individualism. In contrast, FMSP deploys Hinglish – a fluid mix of Hindi and English – as a register of class, generation, and cosmopolitan identity. This code-switching is central to the show’s realism and appeal. Umang’s shift from Punjabi with her conservative family to English with her friends dramatizes her ongoing negotiation of identity. As Pathania-Jain (2001) and Nema and Chawla (2018) note, Hinglish signals aspirational modernity and global belonging, anchoring FMSP’s characters in India’s urban, English-educated middle class. While SATC uses monolingual English, FMSP’s multilingualism reflects Indian urban polyglossia – grounding the adaptation in its local linguistic ecology.

4.4 Space-time structure: urban settings, domesticity, and temporal arcs

Both Sex and the City (SATC) and Four More Shots Please! (FMSP) are structured around distinct urban spaces and intimate settings that reflect the emotional and sociocultural trajectories of their protagonists. However, while SATC uses New York City as a metaphor for female autonomy and experimentation, FMSP reimagines Mumbai as a layered urban site where tradition and modernity coexist, often in tension.

SATC positions the city as a liberating force. Carrie’s apartment, with its view of Manhattan, represents a safe haven for self-reflection, while restaurants, boutiques, and nightclubs become spaces for personal transformation. Public space is tied to freedom and pleasure. In contrast, FMSP’s Mumbai is more domesticated and familial. While the Truck Bar echoes SATC’s social hubs (e.g., Magnolia Bakery or Samantha’s haunts), FMSP layers these with culturally specific domestic spaces – Siddhi’s family home, Anjana’s apartment with her daughter and ex-husband, Umang’s childhood home in Ludhiana – which highlight how the personal and political intertwine in private Indian settings.

The Truck Bar functions as the Indian equivalent of SATC’s regular cafés and lounges. It serves as a narrative anchor where the four women regroup, gossip, and reset. However, unlike SATC’s fluid use of nightlife as a playground, the destruction of the Truck Bar in FMSP’s final season is symbolic – it signals rupture, communal transformation, and the end of a life phase. SATC rarely treats its social spaces with such gravitas, underscoring a key difference: FMSP imbues spatial change with narrative weight.

Temporal structure also reflects differing cultural logics. SATC’s six-season arc spans nearly a decade, with little closure until the final season. Episodes are episodic, often independent, and driven by Carrie’s voiceover reflections. Time is fluid and subordinated to theme. FMSP, by contrast, adopts a serialized arc over three seasons, where each represents a cohesive chapter. The shorter time span (2019–2022) and condensed episodes reflect streaming platform norms and an aesthetic of emotional intensification, where growth and trauma are cumulative.

FMSP also expands into regional India – a move absent in SATC’s urban focus. Flashbacks to Umang’s life in Ludhiana and her return home to face familial rejection shows how small-town conservatism shapes identity. In contrast, SATC rarely leaves Manhattan, and when it does, excursions (e.g., to Paris) are framed as exotic detours.

4.5 Inductive themes emerging in FMSP

To situate the adaptations in the times they were released, Four More Shots Please! introduces themes like body image issues, sexual self-presentation online, and the current state of feminism and journalism in India – reflecting the socio-political shifts between 1998, when SATC was released, and 2019, when FMSP debuted. Two new themes that build on the dramatic conflict and character arcs are bisexuality and body image.