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By Maya Mackey
What the hell is wrong with everybody right now?
This last month has been filled with hellish stories of people’s indecency.
There was the Blake Lively/Justin Baldoni fiasco in the form of promoting their movie, “It Ends With Us.” While I looked forward to seeing the movie because I had frequently seen the book in stores and hoped to read it someday, I was sorely uninformed that it was a story about domestic abuse. Again, I hadn’t read the book, so that’s on me but the trailer gives no indication that this is what you’re signing up for.
Blake Lively, asks movie goers to “wear your lilies and pearls’, whilst also promoting her new hair spray. The actress who plays the PROTAGONIST in a film about domestic violence would rather promote hair spray than resources for survivors of domestic abuse? Even the original book cover is doused with flowers. Everything about the aesthetic gives romantic drama. Nothing implies abuse. Needless to say, movie goers who weren’t already familiar with the story felt unprepared and triggered by the content. I can only imagine what DV survivors must have felt being misled like that. Even the logline for the movie on IMDB reads as such: “Adapted from the Colleen Hoover novel, Lily overcomes a traumatic childhood to embark on a new life. A chance meeting with a neurosurgeon sparks a connection.”
Sparks a connection? Chanced meeting? This is giving Nicolas Sparks melodrama. Not terror. Not the severity of what a story like this requires.
Whilst promoting the movie, Lively was asked, hypothetically, what message or advice she would give to women who watched the film and had been in a similar situation as her character, Lily. Her response? A crass and sarcastic, “I mean what do you want me to do—like share my location? Set up a zoom call with people?” Surely the interviewer wasn’t expecting Blake to become a trauma counselor. He knows she’s an actress. But an actress with that much experience should know better than to respond like that. Celebrities are people. Yes, they’re allowed to have bad days. The point is, why would you sign up to make this type of content if you were going to be that uncomfortable talking about it?
In contrast, Justin Baldoni, the movie’s director, has been vocal for months about who this movie is for, making sure to uplift survivors and imploring men to do better. He even mentioned that for certain scenes, he took a step back and allowed Lively to direct super intense scenes and there has been footage of her coaching Justin on how to grab her and kiss her during scenes. This isn’t a shock, however. Justin has always been a feminist in public. He’s a cohost of the “Man Enough” podcast where he explores healthy masculinity and how to be better allies to women alongside, Liz Plank and Jamey Heath. Apparently, there was a falling out between Blake and Justin. Blake and her husband, Ryan Reynolds are producers of the film, albeit probably how Blake got casted, and there are rumors that Renolds wrote additional scenes into the film, during last year’s writer’s strike and without informing Justin (the director). Justin found out and decided to “cut” the film two ways. Justin’s version and Blake’s version. Both were shown to audiences and audiences overwhelmingly sided with Justin’s version. That should speak volumes as to who is really concerned with honoring the integrity of this story.
Yesterday, I had the displeasure of sitting in on the live finale of the Bachelorette on ABC. Bachelorette Jenn Tran informed us that she and Devin Strader, the man she ultimately chose, are not together. Devin broke off their engagement in July and then ghosted her. I watched as Jenn detailed the fall out after the cameras stopped rolling. She explained on the special that she and Devin’s relationship shifted after she proposed to him in Hawaii. After they left and went back to their separate lives, he began pulling away and contacting her less often. She felt at the time that he was “pulling away all the promises he had made,” and that she’d felt “secondary” to everything else in his life.”
“He called me, and he basically broke off the engagement. [He said] he didn’t love me anymore or feel the same way and felt like something was off. He regretted getting engaged.”
Devin allegedly began following Maria Georgas on social media a day after the breakup. Maria is a former Bachelor contestant who appeared on Joey Grazidai’s season. This is significant because Maria was always the producers pick for this season of the Bachelorette, a point that’s been driven home by Jenn’s own contestants (namely Sam M).
After Jenn and Devin hash out their grievances—for the first time IN PERSON, the host of the Bachelor/ette, Jesse Palmer asks Jenn to watch the ‘beautiful proposal” even though the relationship is now extinct. By now, Jenn is sobbing vehemently and asks, “Do I have a choice?”
Producers IMMEDIATELY CUT TO THE CLIP! Their lead money maker for this season (Jenn) is violently sobbing on the couch, two feet away from her narcissist ex-fiance and they make her relive the proposal (she proposed to him!) that ended in a matter of a month! The sheer desire to place money and viewership over humanity and integrity is appalling. As Marie Claire put so poignantly, “Beyond the possible mess, the Maria of it all also has left viewers side-eyeing The Bachelorette‘s producers for casting men who were interested in Maria, a white woman, and then replacing her with Jenn, the first Asian Bachelorette, without recasting more men with Jenn in mind.”
They sabotaged her from the jump and then abused her in front of a live audience. Time to boycott the Bachelor and the Bachelorette.
