Blake Lively Is The Same: The Media Changed

Is it so easy to spin stories?

It won’t be revolutionary to say that the media loves hating on women. We have seen it, probably taken part in it and also believed that the person had it coming. And it is especially true and concerning for when the women in question are media figures. There is no other place to look about them than the same scorched land of media reports.

I am a loudmouth with something or the other to say for most things (I take great pride in being a devil’s advocate) so the few times I didn’t take a stand, I felt really out of place. One of those times was during the Depp v. Heard trials. And no, I don’t mean the legal dispute, I mean the one that was happening on social media. Somehow, everyone knew exactly what was happening in their relationship. Everyone knew how she conducted herself on the sets of her movies and everyone knew how quirky Johnny was. There were pages littered with opinions written with authority, cosplaying as the truth. No one wanted to consider the alternative that maybe Depp was nothing like his characters and could actually be a shit human but they were all sure that Heard was. That’s the funny thing about being sure about something without any evidence, we start believing that our surety is basis enough for something to be true.

But fine, that case was rigged from the beginning and I hadn’t known about this issue till the material in front of me was completely biased. I couldn’t form a view on it at all.

However, the next case is different.

I watched Gossip Girl and Jane the Virgin. I was captivated by Serena and Rafael. I binged the rest of Lively’s and Baldoni’s extravagant credits. I even followed them on Instagram. They were both such fanciful celebrities. One of them would regularly speak about child harassment and raise awareness about sexual harassment and the other one would use their forum for women's empowerment. They both have regularly spoken about concerning issues but now all headlines seem to forget that for Blake Lively.

There used to be several articles about Blake Lively being one of the most iconic actors of our time which included her relationship with Ryan Reynolds. Her fashion would be chronicled by media houses obsessively. Her quips in interviews would be labelled as hilarious and her messy hair was called chic. But then one fine morning, everyone decided to relabel these.

Her relationship with Ryan was called performative, her fashion was named as cringe and her quips were labelled as rude. It was so easy to flip our adjectives.

When she was pregnant and on press tour for a movie, many journalists focused more on the number of babies she had or how “pregnant” she was and she would often retort back because the press tour wasn’t supposed to be about her babies. At the time, the answers were hailed as feminist. She was at the time being a professional but in a charmingly sarcastic way. Now, the same clips are being used to say that she was being harsh. How?

I am not even getting into who is right or wrong in the Lively v. Baldoni issue because they are both high-rise celebrities with the most advanced PR agents and lawyers. Whatever information you think you have about their dispute is something that has been proofread, edited, twisted and glamourised by many, many many eyes and brains. We are literally at the bottom of the pile in terms of receiving any information on malpractice on sets or powerplay between the Director and Producer of movies.

What I am concerned about is how the media has shown a jarring truth about us. So many women who initially would have called Blake an icon or a powerhouse are now ripping into everything she says. She went to Seth Meyers’ show and spoke about how her year has been so hard and their are influencers and creators who are laughing and saying, “oh it has been a hard year for you sitting in your fancy house and ruining Baldoni’s life?”

She talked about how women are scared to speak up and she got ridiculed for making that statement. How? Why? Are people so excited to spin everything into what can make them popular?

These are some of the clippings I have found about Blake Lively before the movie, It Ends With Us, took it all downhill.

Now, going to one press tour means being hounded by content about being narcisstic and evil by random “analysts.” Literally search Blake Lively up on your social medias and you will see how so many reels and posts are dedicated to analysing how villainous she is. Whether it is smiling for the press on the red carpet or not smiling enough, whatever she is doing has a deeper meaning that only these sleuths on Instagram can identify.

This article details it so well:

And those smiling fans that Lively took photos with before the screening? Fake, say the “experts,” hired by the actress herself. In fact, one “fan” seen taking photos with Lively, they claim, is actually the wife of the film’s director, Paul Feig (“pathetic,” one person on Twitter sneered). In actuality, they say, the carpet was not filled with fans, but protesters, holding signs outside the theater in support of Baldoni. According to one, Lively was terrified to walk the carpet at all and her costar, Anna Kendrick, “hates” her (this specific claim was debunked by Feig, but it didn’t really seem to matter).

What is mad to me is that everyone is already convinced that she is wrong. Based on what? Evidence is something that apparently can be tied to opinions. If I believe this then it obviously logically true. No ma’am, you are dragging down another woman without any foundation, just because you make sarcastic comments into your camera and post it to your followers doesn’t mean that the other woman is heinous.

There is a lady on Instagram who is convinced that whoever has spoken in favour of Lively is paid to support her. What is the evidence she has? Vibes.

How easy is it to vilify such celebrity figures? And it is difficult to say that it is NOT related to their gender. Baldoni had about the same (if not more) accusations thrown at him but he is living peacefully away from all this hate. He is in fact being pitied. When the entire cast and crew of a movie distanced themselves from this person and stood by Lively, how is it this man who apparently didn’t do anything wrong and is somehow a victim?

The only argument that I see about why Lively is in the wrong, that has proper evidence or at least a statement that isn’t spun around to look bad is how she didn’t talk about Domestic Violence in the press tour for a movie that is about DV.

But that is it.

She did highlight how women are always fighting for their safety. She mentioned how she used to hear so many stories about DV that she felt as if she never had the right things to say to help the person and thus chose to remain silent and listen instead. I think that was the right thing to do. What if she said the wrong thing to this person and caused more pain and hardship? She isn’t a trained professional. Isn’t it wiser not to broach a subject that requires training and sensitivity than to assume that just because you played a character who went through trauma, that you are an expert in handling the trauma? Silence isn’t always complicity — sometimes it’s care.

Worst of all, sometimes a contract obligates certain duties. You don’t know what she was required to do in the press junket. You can’t villainise a person because they didn’t do what you expected them to do. There were so many of the cast that didn’t once speak about DV but it is her who was easier to throw to the rocks.

We associate “strong women” with arrogance and “emotional men” with sensitivity. Justin gave a Tedtalk about women empowerment so obviously he can do no wrong. Blake didn’t speak about DV so ofcourse she isn’t sensitive. She has spoken multiple times about harassment and violence but somehow that wasn’t enough. We think a man who does the bare minimum is a great guy but a woman has to be above and beyond.

I didn’t think this would be an article that argues about women and men in cliches but unfortunately, we still live in a time when we have to say the most basic things because live behind a mask of progress and not actual growth.

The humor that Blake and Reynolds were deemed iconic for has now been used to make them into assholes. OFC Rya is going to riff and spoof about this issue wherever he can. Media would have loved this humour 5 years ago but now it has a vendetta out for them so ofcourse they call him a bully. I loved Nice Deadpool because all Nice Guys are exactly like that and if they think that is Baldoni then um well.

Moral of the story: we will never have enough information about extremely rich and powerful celebrities and so to only lash out at the woman in the dispute seems rather malicious of the media. If you want to hate on someone, hate on them both. Best would be to know your place and not hate on either of them and just enough the art, beauty and hilarity they bring to your life. If you must throw stones, make sure they’re going at both. Better yet, save your rage for something real.

P.S: this article was a need because I saw a reel insulting Blake’s hair for being messy and frizzy and how she should not be having a hair care brand. The next reel that came up was how everyone’s hair looks so sleek now and there used to be a time when voluminous hair and beach hair were chic because it let people embrace their natural hair texture. What is this? How is having frizzy hair bad but also good? Stop.