Carrie Bradshaw: In The Eyes Of Jack Berger – Is A Toxic Man Capable Of Having A Redemption Arc?

My previous post heavily discussed Carrie Bradshaw and her time on the ‘Sex And The City’ spinoff show, ‘And Just Like That. To be exact, we heavily discussed the grief she’d endured following her husband’s, MrBig, death of a heart attack in the very first episode. We finally saw Carrie live the life she always wanted for herself and Mr. Big throughout their very on-and-off relationship, which mostly off up until they got married in the first ‘Sex And The City’ movie. Following his death, Carrie moved forward with her life as she reconnected with her old love, Aidan.

Mr. Big and Aidan were the two main loves in Carrie’s life through the six seasons of ‘Sex And The City.’ In season 3, Carrie has an affair with Big and breaks Aidan’s heart. Though they tried to make it work the following year, it just didn’t feel right. Carrie even threw up at the sight of the engagement ring he chose for her when she looked through his things, and that’s never a good sign. She ultimately chooses to be with Big when he follows her to Paris and finally tells her she’s the one – a sentence that she craved so badly to hear from him throughout their very toxic relationship over the years.

And though Big and Aidan were the main two loves, Carrie did engage in other romances here and there in between. She had a pretty messy love life, to say the least. Season 5 of ‘Sex And The City’ saw her meet Berger, a fellow writer and author. It seemed like a promising relationship, at least at the beginning. They had a lot in common, particularly their love for writing. They continue on with their relationship in season 6. Berger got along great with Carrie’s friends and he never missed an opportunity to learn more about Carrie’s world, like her love for shoe shopping. He’d even given Carrie’s friends some relationship advice. Most famously, he told Miranda that a guy she was seeing was ‘just not that into you’. That particular episode was the inspiration behind the 2009 film, ‘He’s Just Not That Into You’, starring Ben Affleck, Jennifer Aniston, Bradley Cooper, Drew Barrymore, Scarlett Johansson, Justin Long, and more.

Though Berger had his A-game when it came to dating, he didn’t seem to know sh*t about relationships, and how to lead a healthy relationship with someone else. He’s most famous for breaking up with Carrie over a Post-It note, a moment that’s still talked about today so many years later. In today’s world it’s just the same as breaking up with someone over text. When she tells her friends about the breakup during breakfast, Carrie angrily tells them that the relationship she had with Berger was a complete waste of time…but was it, really? And did you know that Drew Barrymore, who appeared as herself on an episode of ‘And Just Like That’. While speaking of Barrymore’s appearance on the show, ‘And Just Like That…The Writer’s Room’ podcast, showrunner, Michael Patrick King said that Barrymore actually defended the Post-It breakup. She said, ‘Can I just say one thing? Maybe Berger had it right. If you’re gonna break up with someone, just say, ‘I’m sorry, I can’t. Don’t hate me. Don’t drag them through weeks of indecision. I just want to say, as painful as it was, maybe Berger was an emoji.’

Throughout her dating history, Carrie mostly dated up. To be exact, Big came from wealth, and so did Alexandr Petrovsky, better known as ‘The Russian’ the man she dated after Berger. She was more attracted to men who came from money. But more than that, she was attracted to toxicity. The only man in her life that wasn’t toxic was Aidan, and she pushed him away. She treated him the same way Big treated her. Aidan was the middle-ground for Carrie. He was the calm before the storm. Remember that time in season 4 when Carrie’s computer that had ALL her work, which she didn’t back up, die? Though Aidan didn’t come from wealth, he was someone who was creative in his own way. He treated her well – like she was everything to him – but it wasn’t enough for her. She became bored in the relationship, and therefore, looked for excitement outside of it with Big. Big was a rich real-estate guy, but he never showed any sort of interest in Carrie’s career as a writer.

That’s why it seemed to be almost too good to be true when Carrie ends up dating a writer. As soon as the two meet, there’s an immediate attraction. As Carrie put it herself, ‘I sparked with this person. I never spark.’ But even though sparks flew when they first met, the relationship turned sour pretty quickly. Everyone talks about how Big was Carrie’s toxic boyfriend, and he was; he definitely was. But he wasn’t the worst. Berger was. He was Carrie’s worst boyfriend, and he was the most toxic of them all. Carrie even failed to see that Berger showed his toxic traits right from the moment they met. But that’s because she’s attracted to toxicity and even finds it sexy.

Carrie had her flaws when it came down to choosing the men in her life. She also had her flaws when she chose her toxic men over her friendships. The one time she chose her friend over a man was when Miranda went into labour, and she left her romantic date with Big early to be there for Miranda. Most of the time, when it came down to choosing the right guy for herself, Carrie’s actions were very much questionable. I’m excluding Big and Aidan in this case. She famously broke things off with a guy ahead of her was dating after she found out he was bisexual. She broke things off with a guy after she found out he wasn’t as wealthy as he made himself out to be, but rather just Carrie Fisher’s assistant. She compromised her entire career for ‘The Russian’ by moving to Paris so he could get ahead in his career. Miranda even called Carrie out for her pathetic victim mentality. The fight was about Carrie getting lunch with Big, but truth be told, it wasn’t just about Big. It was about every aspect of Carrie’s life. Almost every decision that she made was questionable and problematic. Her the best friends were always there to support her and empathize with her, whereas she didn’t show the same kind of support when the roles were reversed.

I could only think of one person in Carrie’s life that was more toxic than her – and that’s Berger. When we were first introduced to him, Berger seems like a funny guy; at least Carrie finds him funny. She laughed at every single one of his jokes. She was acting like a school-girl meeting her first crush. What she failed to realize was that THAT exact moment when she first met him was already a sign of just how toxic he was. Berger was deflecting his failure as a published writer. His low self-esteem was showing right from the very beginning. There’s a fine line between laughing at yourself and being negative. Berger was being negative. He felt like a failure because his book barely made any sales, and used a harming kind of humour to make himself feel better, as well as a tactic to flirt with Carrie despite the fact that he had a girlfriend when the two just met.

The thing about failure is that it’s our biggest lesson in life. Some things can’t be taught by reading a book or learning about it at school. Some things are taught by experience and experience only. Robert F. Kennedy once said, ‘Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.’ Berger failed to realize that. He was afraid of failure, and he didn’t blame himself for his failures, but others around him instead. Most of all, he blamed Carrie for it. Though she mostly had relationships with men who came from money, Carrie was an independent woman. The one common thing Big, Aidan and ‘The Russian’ had in common was that they knew exactly who and what they were. She also never saw herself as a ‘trifle-wife’, and she wasn’t looking for someone to save her a** when it came down to a relationship. When she was going through a financial burden following her and Aidan’s second breakup, Big wrote her a cheque, and she ripped it apart instead of using it. She never asked for money. She always took care of herself and took matters into her own hands.

Berger was different than any man Carrie dated. When they first met, Berger used a self-deprecating humour to attract Carrie, and it worked. This type of humour is actually dangerous. When someone, anyone, doesn’t matter if it’s a man or a woman, uses this type of humour, they’re telling you exactly who they are. They’re telling you they’re insecure, jealous, angry, and unhappy with themselves. They’re telling you that they’re looking for you to save them. And that’s exactly what Berger ended up being. The more we saw the relationship between Carrie and Berger progress, the more we saw how problematic it was, and for the first time ever, Carrie wasn’t the problem.

Berger was actually a great guy. Had it not been for his insecurities, and yes, embarrassment and shame of his failure, he would’ve been perfect for Carrie. Carrie showed so much anger for the way he broke up with her, and called the relationship a complete waste of time, but there were far more terrible things she’d gone through in her dating life. And these are:

• Ran” into her serious boyfriend’s mother in church and he introduced her as “a friend.”
• Quit smoking for a man, not because she actually wanted to. 
• Read a poem at a friend’s wedding while her long term boyfriend took a work call in the other room.
• Was nearly homeless because she impulsively moved in with her fiance she had no intention of marrying. 
• Got dumped for cheating on her boyfriend in the middle of her best friend’s wedding.
• Quit her job to run off to Paris with a man she barely knew.
• Got dressed down by said man’s bitchy French daughter. 
• Wandered Paris alone, stepped in dog shit, and was abandoned by the man she moved there for. 
• Got left at the alter the day of her wedding.

Aidan was labeled as being the perfect guy for Carrie. He was anything but perfect. In comparison to Big, of course he was. But no one is actually perfect, and he made some mistakes in the relationship too. He was the one who made her quit smoking when she didn’t want to. He was the one that broke up with her in the middle of her best friend’s wedding. And when they resumed their relationship following Big’s death, he refused to go to her house to have sex, so they end up having sex in hotel rooms and she decides to sell the house she shared with Big solely because Aidan wasn’t comfortable being there.

Aidan was trying to turn Carrie into someone she wasn’t. He had an idea of what his perfect woman would be. The longer they were together, the more he tried to change her into his ideal woman. Berger never did that. He loved Carrie for the woman that she was. Heck, Big didn’t try to change Carrie as much as Aidan did. Carrie was a city girl. She’s your typical New Yorker. She wears nice outfits, she loves her shoe collection, and she loves to be out and about. Aidan was a country boy. He’s the type of guy who loves being in a farm with his dog, staying indoors, drinking his beer, and live the simple life. Carrie, on the other hand, was anything but…

Berger was almost the male version of Carrie. He fit right in to her lifestyle and ways of thinking. The main issue in their relationship was that they met and got together at the absolute worst time. Not in Carrie’s life, but in Berger’s life. Berger wasn’t ready for Carrie. He was sad, angry, depressed, lonely, amongst other things. On top of him feeling like a failure and not good enough for his new successful girlfriend, he wasn’t over his ex-girlfriend. Remember his very angry and questionable reaction to his ex’s voicemail where he yelled ‘’F*CK YOU!’ at the top of his lungs and showed two middle fingers up in the air? Online psychologist Dr. Jonathan Pointer, previously opened up to Newsweek and said, ‘It is healthy to appreciate one’s exes’ qualities and to speak of them from a place of compassion and appreciation, however, this needs to be done in a way that is thoughtful of the impact that it may have on one’s current partner. In other words, if it becomes the center of almost every conversation, then it has become more of an unhealthy obsession with idealising their ex, at the expense of minimising their current partner’s own qualities and contributions.’

Berger didn’t support Carrie’s career. He actually resented it. He was jealous of her success as a writer, most particularly because she was a woman. The original ‘Sex And The City’ series aired between 1998 and 2004. Berger appeared on the show in 2003. It was a different time then. Society still saw men being more successful than women. Seeing her be this successful, well-known writer when his own book was such a failure that the publishing company fired him almost killed him. With that said, his relationship with Carrie was almost based on competition – who’s better than who. Carrie was always afraid to say the wrong thing as to not hurt Berger’s feelings. She tried to support him and tell him what a great writer he was, but to no avail, especially when Carrie got an advanced cheque when her book becomes massively successful in France. Of this type of competitive nature, Dr. Pointer said, ‘If they [the couple] were to compare themselves to each other, as a way of attempting to calculate whether they were of equal value, then this could lead to some level of despair, for at least one of the partners. Instead, each partner needs to focus on their own intrinsic self-worth and that of their partner, and understand that self-worth is not based upon external successes. They can also remind themselves that it is healthy to celebrate each other’s successes, and find pleasure in this.’

And of that infamous Post-It breakup, Psychotherapist Dr. Akua Boateng explained, ‘Breaking up with a person is emotionally challenging. While many would desire to avoid this conversation, it shows care and accountability to your partner to do so. Berger showed that he did not have the capacity to face the emotional act of breaking up. At times, people do not move toward this because of fear of conflict, rejection or negative recourse. Emotional avoidance can be damaging to your partner as well as yourself. A break up conversation can provide closure, clarity and emotional care for the person that you have invested in. At times, people do not move toward this because of fear of conflict, rejection or negative recourse.’

The thing about Berger and Carrie’s relationship is that they were both well into their 30’s when their relationship started. A woman like Carrie wasn’t ever looking for a boyfriend to baby. She was looking for a boyfriend who’s an equal. Berger wasn’t her equal by any means. He constantly made her feel like she had to apologize for her success or, worse, belittle her success because he was threatened by it. It made him feel less of a man. It’s not a woman’s job to make her partner feel like a man. At least, it shouldn’t be. In Carrie’s case, it became her job to make Berger feel like a man. She tried to help him any way she could. She even tried to promote him during a premiere that was about her and he was her plus one. If it wasn’t for his ego, Berger could’ve used Carrie’s connections to make something of himself. And maybe, in time, he did. That’s why I wish that instead of Aidan coming back on ‘And Just Like That’, I would’ve much rather preferred to see Berger. Carrie wouldn’t have to date him in the revival. She could’ve just bumped into him. It is, after all, New York. And just as a fun fact, Rosemarie DeWitt played Aidan’s wife on ‘And Just Like That’. DeWitt is married to Ron Livingston, the man behind Jack Berger.

The dynamic of Carrie and Berger’s relationship greatly reminded me of Vanessa Hudgens and Austin Butler. Hudgens became well-known to the entire world after she starred in the ‘High School Musical’ movie franchise, which also starred Zac Efron and Ashley Tisdale. Hudgens and Efron were in a relationship between 2005 and 2010. She then moved on to be with Austin Butler the following year. They were together for almost 9 years before breaking up in 2020. She’s now married to Cole Tucker, and together they have a daughter who was born in July of this year. Butler also moved on following the breakup. He’s been in a relationship with Kaia Garber, daughter of supermodel Cindy Crawford, since 2021.

Butler has been in the industry for a very long time. He appeared on such shows as ‘Zoey 101’, which starred Jamie Lynn Spears, Britney Spears’ little sister, as well as ‘Hannah Montana’, which starred Miley Cyrus. He never got the fame that Vanessa Hudgens found until his recent role in 2022’s ‘Elvis’. In 2023, the actor opened up on how he got the role in an interview with ‘The Hollywood Reporter’s Actors Roundtable’. He said, ‘The month before I heard that Baz [Luhrmann] was making the movie, I was going to look at Christmas lights with a friend, and there was an Elvis Christmas song on the radio and I was singing along, and my friend looked over at me and goes, ‘You’ve got to play Elvis.’ I said, ‘Oh, that’s such a long shot.’ A couple of weeks later, I was playing the piano. I never really sang for any of my friends or anything. That same friend was there and I was playing the piano. She said, ‘I’m serious. You gotta figure out how you can get the rights to a script.’ Then my agent called and said, ‘So Baz Luhrmann is making an Elvis film.’m

This particular interview got a lot of backlash because that ‘friend’ Butler referred to was actually Hudgens, his former girlfriend of 9 years, and we know this because she shared an almost identical story on ‘Live! With Kelly And Ryan’ in 2019 when they were still a couple. She said, ‘Last December, we were driving along and we were listening to Christmas music, and then an Elvis Presley Christmas song came on. He had just dyed his hair dark. He’s a natural blond, and I was looking at him and he was singing along and I was like, ‘Babe, you need to play Elvis.’ Then in January, he was sitting at the piano. And he’s playing and he’s singing and I’m like, ‘I don’t know how, but you need to figure out how you can play Elvis. Like, I don’t know how we get rights or what we do, but you need to play him.’’

Earlier this year, Hudgens appeared on the ‘She Pivots’ podcast where she opened up about her breakups with Efron and Butler. She said, ‘I feel like so much of my character was built from my breakups. My last breakup had really catapulted me into a very, very special place. It pushed me to the right person, which I’m so grateful for. He is just the most supportive, real, understanding human being that I’ve ever met.’ And in a 2022 interview with Jay Shetty, Hudgens said of her breakup with Butler specifically, ‘I was in an eight-year-long relationship before him, so after that I was like, ‘OK, we’re getting serious.’ We’re going to make a list of things that I need. Not want, but actually need. Straight off the bat, I was very forthright with what it is I want in a relationship.’

The relationship between Hudgens and Butler was obviously just not right, and breaking up when they did was the right thing to do. It’s been rumoured that Butler had cheated on Hudgens with a co-star, but it was never confirmed. The reason for the breakup was never revealed in the years since. Nevertheless, even with the fact that they both moved on since then, it was so disrespectful of Butler to diminish his former love’s role in his life and call Hudgens just a friend in public. When defending himself in an interview with Esquire to promote ‘Dune: Part Two, Butlwr said, ‘Oh, yeah, I learned a lesson with that one. I felt that I was respecting her privacy in a way and not wanting to bring up a ton of things that would cause her to have to talk. I have so much love and care for her. It was in no way trying to erase anything. I value my own privacy so much, I didn’t want to give up anybody else’s privacy.’

He could give all the reasons in the world for calling Hudgens a friend in that infamous interview. The fact of the matter is, however, he discredited her for being responsible for his success. She played a pivotal role in him getting the role of a lifetime, and he belittled her role in his life publicly. In hindsight, it made me think that maybe that’s probably something that Berger would’ve done to Carrie had they stayed together long enough and he found success while they were together. I know I said before that I wish we saw Berger in the ‘Sex And The City’ revival instead of Aidan, and maybe for my own good, to prove me wrong. Berger and Austin Butler both represent men who work in the same profession as their girlfriends, who are more successful than they are. They represent the competitive nature seen in weak men when they feel threatened by a woman’s success when the opposite sexes who are in a relationship work in the same profession. Butler at least got to redeem and explain himself when crediting his ex for his massive success. Whether his words hold true or not is for him, and him only, to know. But what about Berger? Would he have redeemed himself? Or would he still be the same old Berger that we once knew…and hated?