The Case Against Harry Goldenblatt

Har­ry Gold­en­blatt has long been one of the most, if not the most, beloved of Sex and the City’s char­ac­ters, owing to his posi­tion as the oh-so-lov­ing part­ner of peren­ni­al roman­tic, Char­lotte York. To be fair, his com­pe­ti­tion is not exact­ly robust: most of the men on Sex and the City are vary­ing degrees of ter­ri­ble. Ter­ri­ble men do, after all, make good tele­vi­sion. Mr. Big strings Car­rie along for years; Steve cheats on Miran­da; Trey is emo­tion­al­ly con­sti­pat­ed even before his mar­riage to Char­lotte begins to dis­in­te­grate; Berg­er breaks up with Car­rie on a Post-it. Suf­fice it to say, Har­ry Gold­en­blatt is hard­ly unique­ly mon­strous among them.

He does, how­ev­er, hap­pen to be unique­ly overrated.

Indeed, some­where along the way, Har­ry’s even­tu­al suc­cess as a hus­band seems to have retroac­tive­ly absolved him of vir­tu­al­ly every­thing that pre­ced­ed it. He loves Char­lotte, true. He finds her beau­ti­ful, also true. He wants chil­dren with her, and is hap­py to adopt them if need be, true again. All of this is gen­uine­ly love­ly. It also does­n’t change the fact that their great romance begins with behav­ior that ranges from incon­sid­er­ate to, in at least one respect, breath­tak­ing­ly inappropriate.

As this post is large­ly a reflec­tion of my thoughts on both Sex and the City and its sequel series, And Just Like That…, please note that it will con­tain unmarked spoil­ers.

The Legal Profession’s Moral and Ethical Standards

Recall for a moment, if you will, how Har­ry and Char­lotte first met. More to the point, recall that Har­ry is an attor­ney — and not just any attor­ney, but a divorce attor­ney; and not just any divorce attor­ney, but Char­lot­te’s divorce attorney.

The legal pro­fes­sion, as I know quite inti­mate­ly, is one of the most strin­gent when it comes to reg­u­lat­ing the eth­i­cal con­duct of its mem­bers. In order to qual­i­fy as a sit­ting attor­ney, we take mul­ti­ple tests meant to eval­u­ate or oth­er­wise reg­u­late our moral fit­ness to prac­tice, the most notable being the Mul­ti­state Pro­fes­sion­al Respon­si­bil­i­ty Exam­i­na­tion (MPRE). We have to engage in con­tin­u­ing legal edu­ca­tion, of which a cer­tain per­cent­age must be ethics based, in order to main­tain our licenses.

When Har­ry meets Char­lotte, she is not a woman sit­ting across from him at a bar. She is his fir­m’s client, and he becomes her divorce attor­ney. A per­son going through a divorce, at least in the­o­ry, is emo­tion­al­ly and finan­cial­ly in a unique­ly vul­ner­a­ble posi­tion. Her attor­ney, con­verse­ly, occu­pies a unique­ly pow­er­ful one. He is entrust­ed with inti­mate infor­ma­tion about her mar­riage, her finances, her vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties and the dis­so­lu­tion of one of the most impor­tant rela­tion­ships of her life. Nat­u­ral­ly, Har­ry decides this (or at least, the imme­di­ate after­math of this) would be a good time to sleep with her.

Har­ry’s bor­der­line-preda­to­ry woo­ing of Char­lotte is, quite lit­er­al­ly, the rea­son that we take so many of these exams. I find it noth­ing short of aston­ish­ing that view­ers ide­al­ize their courtship and ensu­ing rela­tion­ship while treat­ing this detail as essen­tial­ly inci­den­tal. Strip away the swelling music and the show’s insis­tence that Har­ry is Char­lot­te’s unlike­ly Prince Charm­ing, and the premise sounds less like a great romance than the begin­ning of a pro­fes­sion­al-respon­si­bil­i­ty hypo­thet­i­cal: A divorce attor­ney begins pur­su­ing a for­mer client roman­ti­cal­ly almost imme­di­ate­ly after rep­re­sent­ing her through the dis­so­lu­tion of her mar­riage. Discuss.

Yet because we know where the sto­ry even­tu­al­ly ends — with a lov­ing mar­riage, two chil­dren and one of the show’s com­par­a­tive­ly few sta­ble homes — we tend to judge the begin­ning through the glow of every­thing that comes afterward.

A Difference of Religion

Equal­ly frus­trat­ing to me was Har­ry’s han­dling of his reli­gious require­ments for mar­riage. Whether by acci­dent or design (and let’s be hon­est, it was com­plete­ly, total­ly, by design), he neglect­ed to inform Char­lotte that he required his part­ner to share his faith until the two were already roman­ti­cal­ly involved.

Now, there is noth­ing wrong with want­i­ng to be with a part­ner who shares your reli­gious beliefs — indeed, I know from per­son­al expe­ri­ence just how dif­fi­cult it can be when two peo­ple dif­fer on mat­ters of faith. I learned that les­son rather mem­o­rably at 23, in my first seri­ous rela­tion­ship, when I dis­cov­ered that stat­ing a deeply held con­vic­tion at the out­set and being assured it was under­stood does not nec­es­sar­i­ly pre­vent some­one from spend­ing the ensu­ing rela­tion­ship try­ing to nego­ti­ate it away. Suf­fice it to say, I have lit­tle patience now for peo­ple who treat anoth­er per­son­’s clear­ly stat­ed bound­aries — or their own con­ve­nient­ly unstat­ed ones — as prob­lems to be dealt with only after emo­tion­al attach­ment has set in.

And that, rather than Har­ry’s pref­er­ence itself, is my prob­lem with him. Har­ry did not dis­cov­er mid­way through their rela­tion­ship that mar­ry­ing with­in his faith mat­tered more to him than he had antic­i­pat­ed. He knew from the begin­ning that he would not mar­ry a non-Jew­ish woman. He knew Char­lotte was not Jew­ish. And he knew, or cer­tain­ly ought to have known, that Char­lotte York, of all peo­ple, was not exact­ly dat­ing for the casu­al com­pan­ion­ship. Yet he pur­sued her any­way, with­hold­ing the one piece of infor­ma­tion that fun­da­men­tal­ly changed what their rela­tion­ship could become. Har­ry knew that the rela­tion­ship, as con­sti­tut­ed, had no future. Char­lotte did not.

That dis­tinc­tion mat­ters. Had Har­ry been forth­right from the out­set, Char­lotte could have decid­ed for her­self whether she want­ed to become involved with a man who would nev­er mar­ry her unless she con­vert­ed. Per­haps she would have dat­ed him any­way, would have even con­sid­ered con­ver­sion on her own, even­tu­al­ly. What mat­ters, though, is that the choice would have been hers to make.

Instead, Har­ry waits until Char­lotte is already emo­tion­al­ly invest­ed before reveal­ing the fine print. Sud­den­ly, she is not decid­ing in the abstract whether she would ever con­vert for a hypo­thet­i­cal hus­band; she is decid­ing whether she is will­ing to con­vert for Har­ry, a man she already loves and does not want to lose. Those are not remote­ly equiv­a­lent decisions.

Nor is the change Har­ry requires of her a triv­ial one. Char­lotte does­n’t mere­ly agree to attend the occa­sion­al Shab­bat din­ner or promise to raise hypo­thet­i­cal chil­dren Jew­ish. She con­verts: she stud­ies Judaism, learns Hebrew, aban­dons tra­di­tions she loves (who could for­get the poignant scene where she bids farewell to her col­lec­tion of Christ­mas orna­ments?) and embraces an entire­ly dif­fer­ent reli­gious iden­ti­ty. To Char­lot­te’s enor­mous cred­it, she ulti­mate­ly takes the con­ver­sion seri­ous­ly; what begins because of Har­ry becomes some­thing she gen­uine­ly com­mits her­self to. But the sin­cer­i­ty of Char­lot­te’s even­tu­al con­ver­sion does not retroac­tive­ly excuse the cir­cum­stances under which the choice was first pre­sent­ed to her.

Remark­ably, the show does seem to acknowl­edge there is a prob­lem here. Char­lotte her­self even­tu­al­ly asks the ques­tion that Har­ry should have had to answer much ear­li­er. If he knew from the begin­ning that he could not mar­ry her, if he knew that their rela­tion­ship could nev­er progress unless she fun­da­men­tal­ly changed some­thing about her­self, then why did he pur­sue her at all?

Har­ry’s answer?

“Because I Couldn’t Not”

When Char­lotte asks Har­ry why he ever even kissed her at the begin­ning of it all, know­ing as he did that he could nev­er mar­ry her, he replies:

“Because I could­n’t not kiss you. Not sleep with you. Not see you. Believe me, I nev­er thought a shik­sa a god­dess like you would fall for a putz like me.”

It is a half-baked non-answer that the writ­ers clear­ly meant to come across as roman­tic. The ugli­er truth is that it is no such thing; rather, it is an obse­quious, bor­der­line manip­u­la­tive excuse that — when I first heard it — made me roll my eyes so hard that for a moment I thought I saw my own brain (not real­ly, but you get the idea). Because I could­n’t not is not a jus­ti­fi­ca­tion that would hold up in any respectable court of law. Just imag­ine, if you will, some­body on tri­al for a vio­lent crime of some sort; and in their defense they say because I could­n’t not. I could­n’t not beat the guy, your hon­or. Oh, you poor thing.

In fact, Har­ry’s answer rather neat­ly encap­su­lates my entire prob­lem with his courtship of Char­lotte. He knew some­thing she did not. He knew that there was a hard lim­it on their rela­tion­ship, one that could be removed only if she made a sub­stan­tial sac­ri­fice. Rather than tell her that before she became invest­ed, he pur­sued her because he want­ed her—and when even­tu­al­ly asked to account for that deci­sion, he offers his desire for her as though it were its own moral defense.

There is some­thing unde­ni­ably flat­ter­ing about being told that anoth­er per­son found you so irre­sistible that all his bet­ter judg­ment sim­ply evap­o­rat­ed. I under­stand why the writ­ers thought that “because I could­n’t not” sound­ed swoon-wor­thy. But irre­sistible attrac­tion is not a waiv­er of respon­si­bil­i­ty toward the per­son to whom you’re attract­ed. Some­times car­ing about some­one requires exer­cis­ing pre­cise­ly the restraint Har­ry con­grat­u­lates him­self for being unable to muster.

Per­haps this is the lawyer in me talk­ing, but “I knew bet­ter; I sim­ply want­ed to very bad­ly” has nev­er struck me as a par­tic­u­lar­ly com­pelling defense.

The Happy Ending Problem

None of this means that Har­ry does not even­tu­al­ly become a good hus­band. He does, and that, I sus­pect, is pre­cise­ly why his rep­u­ta­tion has become so untouch­able. Because, it must be said, Har­ry adores Char­lotte. He sup­ports her through infer­til­i­ty, is thrilled to build a fam­i­ly with her. Their mar­riage is warm, affec­tion­ate and endur­ing. And after spend­ing six sea­sons watch­ing Char­lotte chase a very par­tic­u­lar vision of roman­tic per­fec­tion — the hand­some, wealthy, impec­ca­bly man­nered WASP hus­band who turns out to be Trey Mac­Dou­gal — there is some­thing sat­is­fy­ing about watch­ing her dis­cov­er hap­pi­ness with a man who looks noth­ing like the per­son she thought she was sup­posed to marry.

But the the­mat­ic neat­ness of that sto­ry has done some­thing pecu­liar to our mem­o­ry of Har­ry him­self. Because Char­lot­te’s rejec­tion of super­fi­cial­i­ty rep­re­sents growth, Har­ry becomes good. Because Trey was wrong for her, Har­ry becomes right in seem­ing­ly every respect. Because their mar­riage suc­ceeds, the way Har­ry pur­sued her becomes roman­tic retroac­tive­ly. Now, I am per­fect­ly will­ing to stip­u­late that Har­ry Gold­en­blatt ulti­mate­ly becomes a lov­ing hus­band. I object only to the propo­si­tion that this retroac­tive­ly makes him an exem­plary roman­tic part­ner from the moment he wan­ders into Char­lot­te’s divorce proceedings. 

Which brings me, some­what belat­ed­ly, to Miran­da and Steve.

The Couple They Chose Instead

I under­stand the prob­lem the pro­duc­ers of And Just Like That… faced when they returned to these char­ac­ters decades lat­er. As Alan Ball famous­ly said, “Hap­py rela­tion­ships are bor­ing. We all want them in our own life. But I don’t want to watch them on TV.” Fair enough — a series does need con­flict, after all, and there are only so many sto­ry­lines one can wring from watch­ing hap­pi­ly mar­ried peo­ple con­tin­ue to be hap­pi­ly mar­ried. So, fine, per­haps some­body had to go; but what I can­not under­stand is why, of the show’s two great sur­viv­ing mar­riages, the writ­ers chose to dis­man­tle Miran­da and Steve.

Their rela­tion­ship had accu­mu­la­tion, some­thing Har­ry and Char­lot­te’s has always lacked for me. Over the course of three sea­sons, Steve makes Miran­da, a woman who spends much of the orig­i­nal series deeply sus­pi­cious of roman­tic sen­ti­ment, believe in love despite her­self. Their rela­tion­ship grows, fails and grows again. They have a child nei­ther of them expect­ed they could con­ceive, build a fam­i­ly, even move out of the city prop­er. Miran­da, won­der­ful­ly, is the one who asks Steve to mar­ry her. They sep­a­rate after his infi­deli­ty and even­tu­al­ly choose each oth­er again.

If And Just Like That… had its heart set on sac­ri­fic­ing one of its pre­de­ces­sor series’ estab­lished hap­py mar­riages on the altar of inter­est­ing tele­vi­sion, I wish it had looked a lit­tle hard­er at the oth­er one. I must admit here, that I’m like­ly a bit biased: as an attor­ney with more than a lit­tle of Miran­da’s instinc­tive cyn­i­cism about romance, I have always had a par­tic­u­lar soft spot for the fact that Steve did­n’t sim­ply ful­fill a dream she already had. Lov­ing him made her recon­sid­er what she thought she knew about her­self; and when she final­ly chose mar­riage, she chose it so com­plete­ly that she was the one who pro­posed. For me, that has always been the more sat­is­fy­ing love story.

Har­ry and Char­lotte may very well deserve the hap­py mar­riage they ulti­mate­ly built. But if we’re hand­ing out titles for Sex and the City’s great roman­tic hero, I would like the record to reflect my stren­u­ous objection.

The con­tent of this post con­sti­tutes an expres­sion pure­ly of my per­son­al opin­ion. The var­i­ous facts and quo­ta­tions ref­er­enced in sup­port of it have been cit­ed to their prop­er sources. If you see any errors in any of the fac­tu­al ref­er­ences made, please let me know.