Woman: *steps outside and immediately sins*
My Two Cents
Something scary happened in August. I remember flicking through Instagram reels, first with irritation and then mounting alarm, over the endless churn of Blake Lively related content. First it was clips of her on the It Ends With Us press tour. Then it was criticism of her conduct, her interview manner, her approach to the film in contrast to her co-star, Justin Baldoni. And then it was old clips of her taken out of context, or edited in ways that make her look cruel and calculating, Finally, the social media full circle: videos of people eagerly unpacking the drama, offering their opinions on the evilness of Lively vs the angelic sincerity of Baldoni.
The volume and vitriol of the videos were shocking. Within days, it felt like the entire internet - and subsequently, the press reporting on it - aligned firmly behind Bladoni. Random, unrelated grievances against Lively were aired, unsubstantiated claims about her character, endless comparisons to her co-star - she was bad, and Baldoni was good, the collective decided.
The narrative boiled down to this: Baldoni was a saint. An outspoken women’s rights advocate, he approached the press tour with a level of earnestness rarely seen outside of a GCSE drama performance. He used every opportunity to discuss the film’s central theme of domestic abuse, pointing to helplines and spotlighting organisations. Never mind the fact that he was utterly alone on the press circuit - the entire cast, as well as the author who wrote It Ends With Us - seemingly unable or unwilling to share a room with him. Never mind that rumours of his allegedly abusive behaviour on set were quietly simmering away behind the scenes. No one talked about those.
On the other hand, Lively was rude, exploitative and flippant about the real victims in this story, domestic abuse survivors. She used the press tour to launch a hair care line (admittedly, a poor choice) and approached the heavy themes of the film with a levity and sunny disposition that the internet felt was inappropriate, because she wore a lot of colourful dresses. And smiled a lot. And cracked jokes. Get the pitchforks!
Before I go any further, I just want to point out a few things. One, is that I have never, ever seen an expectation, or demand, that actors modify their behaviour to match heavy themes of films they’re contractually obliged to promote. I can’t think of a single example of what that might look like when it comes to violent films specifically (obviously this does not apply to wardrobe choices for films that aren’t as dark, like Wicked or Challengers). And I certainly can’t think of a time that a male lead was expected to somehow behave in accordance with the solemnity of the film he was promoting.
Secondly, the clothes that women wear have been used as weapons against them time and time again. It’s too much or it’s not enough. It’s boring or it’s attention seeking. It’s inappropriate or it’s dated. There is no way to win! It takes nothing at all for a woman, especially one in the public eye, to somehow fuck up, because the standards we are subjected to are ever-evolving, dehumanising and unreachable.
Watching this insane narrative unfold made me uneasy. Not because of what was happening to Lively - it was disgusting, but she is ultimately a powerful, wealthy woman who has every tool at her disposal to take care of herself, as she is now with this lawsuit - but because of how uniform the online sentiment seemed to be. Humans, famously, are never 100% in agreement with each other. Put ten people in a room and ask them if green or blue is a better colour, and you will inevitably find disagreement. Ask ten people online the same thing and they will spend days arguing whether green even constitutes a colour.
We are primed for polarisation. And yet, scrolling through the Instagram and TikTok comments, that disagreement was no where to be see. I cannot recall seeing a single comment defending Lively or criticising Baldoni. That is not normal. And I was alarmed by it - because earlier this year, I had listened to a podcast series called Who Trolled Amber which dug into the in-famous, harrowing public trial between Amber Heard and Johnny Depp back in 2022. The podcast is brilliant - much too good and complicated for me to summarise well here, so go listen to it if you haven’t already. But in essence, (spoiler alert) the podcast investigated whether Heard was the victim of a sophisticated, targeted bot attack - a manufactured trolling campaign. You can guess which specific man would stand to benefit from destroy Heard’s career and reputation. The results were alarming - evidence implied that bot campaigns can, and are, used to interfere with elections, exploit crises, and contribute to global political instability. Through disinformation, manipulation and good old prejudice, the podcast demonstrated how we can all be influenced by lies. And misogyny. Everything I was seeing online felt like a rise-and-repeat of what we all saw with Heard.
I am not the only one who talked about this obviously - Shameless Media put out an excellent podcast episode breaking down the issues at the heart of this (scroll to the ep released on August 14 if the link doesn’t work) and Lainey Gossip put out a piece questioning the treatment of Lively. Both noted that Baldoni had hired the same crisis management agency who have represented Johnny Depp. (And others: Brad Pitt, Harvey Weinstein.)
There was no proof back in August that Baldoni, or his team, were deploying the exact same tactics that had proved so effective and devastating against Amber Heard. Until now, with a New York Times report (unfortunately paywalled) documenting the smear campaign against Blake Lively run by Baldoni and his team - which include Wayfarer, the production company behind the film (Btw, the company is co-owned by Baldoni. There are also allegations that Wayferer’s CEO has ‘engaged in sexually inappropriate conduct.)
The piece examines the messages - revealed by subpoena - between Baldoni and his team, which include lines like, “he wants to feel like she can be buried” and “we can’t write we will destroy her…imagine if a document saying all the things he [Baldoni] wants ends up in the wrong hands.” At various points, Baldoni expresses worry that the smear campaign’s resounding success will making people realise that he is, in fact, conducting a smear campaign. He worries about bots - and, I should note, one team member reassures him no bots are being used, although there is no way to verify this. As the campaign continues, they plant stories about Blake Lively and celebrate the resounding success when stories about Baldoni’s alleged misconduct are buried.
The allegations are disgusting - I have pulled some from the NYT piece below.
During shooting, Blake Lively, the co-star, had complained that the men had repeatedly violated physical boundaries and made sexual and other inappropriate comments to her. Their studio, Wayfarer, agreed to provide a full-time intimacy coordinator, bring in an outside producer and put other safeguards on set. In a side letter to Ms. Lively’s contract, signed by Mr. Heath, the studio also agreed not to retaliate against the actress.
And one more:
She [Lively] claimed Mr. Baldoni had improvised unwanted kissing and discussed his sex life, including encounters in which he said he may not have received consent. Mr. Heath had shown her a video of his wife naked, she said, and he had watched Ms. Lively in her trailer when she was topless and having body makeup removed, despite her asking him to look away. She said that both men repeatedly entered her makeup trailer uninvited while she was undressed, including when she was breastfeeding.
I could keep going, because there is so much more to this story - but you can go and read the actual journalism to know more. The thing I really can’t stop thinking about, is that back in 2022 when the vitriol against Amber Heard was at its peak, many journalists and women’s rights activists worried about the precedent it might set for women coming forward to speak about abuse. We were all right to worry, as it turns out. The tactic of men silencing women through lawsuits has increased in recent years. Men accused of sexual misconduct have become more aggressive in their responses - ranging from demanding that the identity of an accuser be publicly revealed, as Jay Z has done (the allegations have so far remained unproven), to Marilyn Manson suing Evan Rachel Wood for defamation and ‘intentional infliction of emotional distress.’ Though he has, thank fuck, dropped the suit.
In both cases, the justification behind these actions have been to right the wrongs men feel have been done to them. It’s a fascinating insight into the psyche of powerful men, some of whom appear to interpret their own (alleged) awful behaviour being made public as a…personal attack.
And now, it looks like the widespread silencing tactic has reached its next, most alarming iteration. And Lively is still going to have to live with the impacts of it - even if she wins the lawsuit. In an era where social media is dominated by men such as Musk and Zuckerberg, who are both immune to and uninterested in the visceral impacts their businesses have on women and others from minorities backgrounds, this feels like the start of something, not the end of one. Smear campaigns are not new, but never before have we had this form of technology at our disposal, from bot armies to AI-generated disinformation. I struggle to believe that what happened to Heard, what is still happening to Lively, will be the last time a woman who speaks out, or who threatens to speak out, is attacked and harassed in this way.
One more thing. As podcasting extravaganza and my future best friend Julia Hava points out, this man proposed via flash mob and filmed himself asking his wife’s father’s GRAVE for permission to marry her. Some sins just cannot be forgotten.
A quick favour. I love writing these posts, and I intend to do them for free for as long as I can. If you enjoyed reading this, forward it to a friend (or three) who you think might like it too. It helps massively, because validation from strangers is truly the only thing that makes the horrors bearable for me.