Today it was announced that Blake Lively is suing Justin Baldoni, her co-star and director of the film It Ends With Us for misconduct. How is the world taking this news? Well, much of the internet is hurling abuse her way instead.
This morning The New York Times published a brilliant investigative piece outlining Blake’s case against Justin Baldoni over his alleged behaviour, and that of the lead producer, Jamey Heath, during the making of the much hyped film, It Ends With Us. The piece is written by Megan Twohey – the same journalist who alongside Jodi Kantor brought down Harvey Weinstein.
Blake has alleged that Justin and Jamey violated physical boundaries and made sexual and other inappropriate comments to her during the making of the film. Amongst her allegations are that Justin improvised unwanted kissing, that he discussed his sex-life, including ‘encounters in which he said he may not have received consent’ and that Jamey showed her videos of his naked wife and repeatedly made her uncomfortable by watching her whilst she was undressed, even when she asked for him to stop looking.
It’s also alleged that in retaliation to her complaining about the way she was treated on set, Justin and his team orchestrated and carried out a smear campaign against her during the film’s release. Blake’s complaints partway through filming had resulted in a high-level meeting – at which her husband Ryan Reynolds was present – and the studio agreed to put in a number of safeguards moving forward, including a full-time intimacy coach and an outside producer, as well as, very tellingly, an additional letter to her contract stating the studio would not retaliate against Blake.
But Blake, as they say, ‘has the receipts’ and the Times piece has published many of the damming messages that were sent between Justin’s PR team, plus an external crisis management PR expert hired by the two men. They’re messages Blake’s legal team were able to obtain via a subpoena.
There are very telling, damming and disturbing messages from the women involved who were careful to never put in writing to Justin that they would carry out his wishes and ‘destroy Blake’, but they were a lot more careless in their private messages to one another.
The two women are almost gleeful at times as to how well their plan is unfolding in the media and throughout social media. One of the most uncomfortable messages is between Justin’s publicist and Melissa Nathan, the crisis PR specialist he hired. If you followed any of the Johnny Depp/Amber Heard trial, her name may be familiar as she’s the same woman Johnny Depp hired pre-trial.
Melissa writes:
“And socials are really really ramping up
In his favour, she must be furious
It’s actually sad because it just shows you have people really want to hate on women.”
You’d have to have been living under a floral painted rock to have missed out on the drama of the release of the film, It Ends With Us. The film, an adaptation of the bestselling Colleen Hoover novel about breaking cycles of intergenerational domestic violence.
Its release was bizarre. I’d like to think my algorithm knows I’m a feminist, but much of what I saw of the film’s launch online was an assault against Blake Lively and her character. But just before that narrative began I caught some of the marketing campaign that rolled out here in New Zealand. I started noticing reels by NZ influencers popping up – they were all very whimsical and pastel with flowing floral dresses and often seemed to focus on floral arranging. I fired off a message to our Capsule group chat, confused after seeing a couple: ‘Have you guys seen these? I thought this was a story about domestic violence?’
It’s of note, because that is the exact approach and messaging that Sony Pictures head office decided upon for marketing this film. The signed-off strategy was to focus on the more uplifting messages of the film – that whole ‘wear your favourite florals and go see this film with your girlfriends’ vibe – rather than the main thrust of the film: violence against women. That’s why Blake spent the press tour reiterating this message of florals and friends – it’s what she was under contract to do. She was sticking to the company script. But while we didn’t come after any of the NZ influencers with pitchforks for following this narrative, it’s exactly what happened to Blake. And the hate levelled against her was only intensified as Justin broke from the script and focused on talking about domestic violence and what an ally he is to women.
Honestly? This was the bit during the roll-out that didn’t sit quite right with me. If what is alleged of Justin is true, he joins a little list in my head of men who are classic ‘wolves in sheep’s clothing’ kind of guys. These are men who hide in plain sight – constantly (so constantly it can be nauseating) talking about how they are such wonderful allies to women, how awful men can be and list all they are doing to better educate men on how to be better and do better. They’ll call other men out on social media. They’ll tell other men to do better. Right now I’m thinking of one particular man who has almost made his whole career out of doing this – saying one thing in public, whilst in his private life has a long history of being abusive to women and saying abhorrent, objective things about females to other men when he thinks no one is listening or watching.
We know these kind of men. We’ve now seen these messages flicked between these women who, if they didn’t entirely orchestrate a hideous, hateful smear campaign against Blake Lively that everyone fell for hook line and sinker, they certainly amplified it. We’ve been told Blake’s story by a credible journalist. Legal proceedings are now underway. And yet, if you go on social media right now and click on the comments of just about any post about this news, what you’ll read are hateful, unbelievably vicious and cruel messages about Blake, not Justin or Jamey.
Here’s a little sample:
Wow. Melissa really was spot-on, huh. The world really is so quick in wanting to hate on women.
