Adulting - Let's Talk About... Blake Lively

Episode Date: August 31, 2024

 Hello and welcome to Adulting, and the eighth episode of Let’s Talk About… a broadening of Adulting... where that was about all of the things we never got taught in school, this is almost like seminars on life; where my audience (that's you!), get to chat anonymously about things they couldn't necessarily discuss over lunch with their friends, or feel like they don't have anyone to talk to about whatever it may be.  To get involved, follow me on Instagram @oenone, where every Tuesday we vote on a topic and every Wednesday we dig deep. Let’s Talk About… Blake Lively. The submission read: Blake Lively/ women being piled on / cancelled on the internet. Whilst this conversation was initially about the two camps of support for either Justin Baldoni or Blake Lively, after the press fallout from the film adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s mega sell out It Ends With Us, it was also about the way famous women are built up only to be torn down. Anne Hathaway, J Lo, Cara Delevingne, Jennifer Lawrence just to name a few, have over the past decade, fallen in and out of favour for sometimes indefinable reasons. I had so many messages on this, perhaps this shows we are more interrogative of what content we are being fed, and how easy it is to be manipulated by media, as opposed to instances in the past when everyone turned against Keira Knightley or Julia Roberts and everyone kinda just accepted that they loved to hate with little introspection as to why. Article from The Cut - https://www.thecut.com/article/domestic-abuse-survivors-react-it-ends-with-us-drama.html I hope you enjoy  as always, please do rate, review and subscribe!  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Call 1-866-531-2600 or visit connectsontario.ca. Please play responsibly. Hello and welcome to Adulting and the eighth episode of Let's Talk About, a broadening of adulting where that was about all of the things we never got taught in school. This is almost like seminars on life where my audience, that's you, get to chat anonymously about things they couldn't necessarily discuss over lunch with their friends or feel like they don't have anyone to talk to about whatever it may be. To get involved, follow me on Instagram at Anoni where every Tuesday we vote on a topic and every Wednesday we dig deep. Let's talk about Blake Lively. The submission read, Blake Lively forward slash women being piled on forward slash cancelled

on the internet. So whilst this conversation was initially kind of about the two camps of support for either Jocelyn Paldoni or Blake Lively after the press fallout from the film adaptation of Colleen Hoover's mega sellout, It Ends With Us. It was also about the way famous women are built up only to be torn down. Anne Hathaway, J. Lo, Cara Delevingne, Jennifer Lawrence, just to name a few, have over the past decade fallen in and out of favor for sometimes quite indefinable reasons. I had so many messages on this, which actually surprised me a little bit. Sometimes I can kind of predict how much people are going to be involved, but actually this was a really fertile conversation. And maybe that shows that we're more interrogative of what content we're

being fed and how easy it is to be manipulated by media, as opposed to instances in the past when everyone kind of turned against people like Keira Knightley or Julia Roberts or the women I mentioned before. And we all kind of just accepted that we love to hate them with very little introspection as to why. There was an amazing post by Jamila Jamil, I'm sure it was in like 2020, about all these kind of usually actresses. It was Keira Knightley, Jennifer Lawrence, Anne Hathawayaway and it was about how we suddenly just decide to hate them and how everyone turns on women i tried to find it i cannot find it if i find it i'll put it in the show notes but i think it's probably buried deep on her instagram so the person who submitted the topic wrote yay this was my submission okay so basically i'm

finding it so interesting and concerning how frequently women are being cancelled on the internet and the extreme backlash and hate they'll receive over things that i don't think warrant such a response blake lively is the current example of this but i also think jlo hayley bieber etc i just don't see this happening with men like okay blake seems to have been a bit rude or off in some interviews and the comms for this film timed with hair products launch is a bit odd but it feels like we do not hold men accountable for anything nor have the same expectations or standards for them but women are cancelled for the crime of what feels like being a bit snarky in an interview I feel like there's so much more

to unpack here with layers of misogyny but I'll start there and let others get into it because I'm just quite fascinated and frustrated by seeing this pattern that keeps playing out with different women online another message read I feel like a lot of the criticism people have framed of Blake as misogynistic when mostly I've found it's quite justified because she's been a bit tone deaf in her promo and is generally a bit shitty in the way she speaks to people it does tend to seem more extreme when so many people pile on all at once and clips are edited a certain way etc but also a lot of the points themselves seem fairly reasonable like how she has prioritised promoting her hair care line over discussing domestic abuse and how flippant she has been with a lot of her answers to questions

about abuse. It's so funny because I can flip-flop between the two. When I have seen various clips of late live Indian interviews, I did feel my back up a bit. I did feel that she was quite brusque, quite rude, quite mean girlish. And it did make me dislike her a bit, but being, hopefully feeling a bit self-aware of that, I then was like, well, that's kind of ridiculous. Like you can't expect everyone to be polite all the time especially their celebrity especially if they're pregnant or especially they're doing press tours like I'm sure we've all been shitty to people in the past and I do think we have really high expectations of women being palatable and kind and I think especially because Blake

is presented as a sort of like candy floss floral princess who is very sweet and sexy and conventionally attractive and gorgeous. It maybe is even more jarring that she can be quite snipey and sarcastic. But I do think that that shouldn't make us turn on someone. I mean, that's not a crime. And there are many unlikable actors in Hollywood where people are like, oh, it's funny that they're like that, or that's just a quirk that they have, or that's just who they are. There are loads of famously grumpy sportsmen throughout history. And if anything, it makes them love them. I mean, we're literally living through the resurgence of Oasis and those two brothers have said some of the most unhinged things in history and people love them for it. So I definitely think there's a double standard there when it comes to

palatability and what we expect from women versus what we expect from men. Another message read, I think it's not without misogyny because nothing is, but I mostly just feel like she's been a bit lacking in sensitivity that she has been promoting this film being like, put on your florals, come with the girlfriends, buy my haircare line. And she has kind of skirted around or evaded talking about domestic abuse. And when she has had some direct questions, she has said that she doesn't really want to, you know, she's kind of batted that off again with some sarcastic comments, which were kind of fair enough in some senses. But again, it does feel like her sort of PR maybe should have given her a few more tools to work with if she wasn't equipped, even just being like, you know what, if someone wants to talk to me about these issues, I actually don't know where to start, but I

can point you in the direction of XYZ. It does seem a bit flippant. Again, not a crime. It does just seem like maybe she's not the most i was about to say bedside manner what is the celebrity equivalent of that i can't think another message read i feel like i'm going insane justin bought the rights to this movie and has been adamant about talking about dv and has been ostracized by blake and her fandom for talking about dv domestic violence blake has literally mocked domestic violence survivors and spent all of her interviews pushing merch

and referring to this as a light rom-com and pushing her husband's hero movie on their press tours. Blake has also defended Woody Allen and admitted that they scabbed during the writer's strike here in the US to adjust this script after it had already been locked, which was the only reason they were able to film when they did. People acting like Blake did nothing wrong

are either super uninformed or are just mad about a white woman being called out on her shit it's so bizarre to act like she's being held to an unfair standard here when she has done so much objective harm also really bizarre to say why should blake help domestic violence survivors when she played a person who is a domestic violence survivor and will make millions and millions i think that message is particularly interesting because the person has such an emotional investment in this saga and they really feel like they are defensive of Justin Baldoni and they feel very justified in critiquing Blake Lively. I think that it's really interesting that we are positioned as consumers of content and fans to choose sides

when things like this happen and to try and find the truth or try and get to the root of who is good and who is bad. Fundamentally, the saga and the fallout from this is actually quite interesting because we're also not talking about domestic violence or domestic abuse. We're having a debate about whether or not we think the vitriol that Blake Lively is receiving is justified. And again, that's also a distraction. And a message read, I do think critique of the approach to promo is valid. And often these things start with valid questioning of problematic behavior. However, the total pile on and attempted cancellation it leads to seems to be reserved exclusively for women. Like literally, there are men who are abusers in Hollywood, hi Johnny Depp, who have never received such backlash, which in my opinion would have been

warranted. Why are we unable to critique women without it leading to a destructive pile on? So I do think that that misogynistic element is evidently true. Women are held to so much of a higher standard that it's so much more of a fall from grace when we perform anything outside of the realms of palisability and idealized gender norms and so I think a woman can do something that's maybe minorly harmful and it's seen as a much bigger discretion than someone like who is an actual abuser or I don't know think about Donald Trump and all of the things that he has been accused of and just men in power in general who are able to carry on their work and still be respected and honored despite the fact that they very clearly have done some very awful things and so while I agree I think the level of critique against against

Blake Lively is wild. And I also think that we should be able to say, I don't really like how she carried herself in that interview. I don't really necessarily think that was that polite. And that be the end of it, rather than that being taking her crown off and aiming to destroy her, I guess. Another message read, amazing that we're intellectualizing this specific case because Blake Lively literally pitched a movie about domestic violence as a fun day with your girlfriends, women who are the most impacted by domestic violence. She was also unbelievably rude to

that interviewer who cannot have kids. Like when has anyone ever held accountable for shitty behavior? If anyone thinks that a man would get away with pitching a domestic violence movie as a fun day out with the girls, lads, they are being intentionally delusional i'm trying to think of examples when there has been a film that i've seen or been aware of the promo that has had such strong ties to domestic violence and has been promoted by a man and i'm racking my brain and maybe i'm just not knowledgeable but i think one of the things about this film, which is why it's quite confusing, I did actually read the book, hands up, being totally honest. I didn't think it was the most well-written book. I did read it very quickly. It was quite compulsive. I did feel like it felt kind of like more young adult in the way that it

was written. And I wouldn't say it's a particularly literary book, but it definitely does deal with some difficult themes and it definitely does deal with some difficult themes. And it definitely does bring up this element, which we'll come on to because people are saying that it's kind of meta or mirroring the film, which is that sometimes when you are a victim of domestic or emotional violence, and I have been in a relationship in my very early twenties when I was like 19, 20, that was abusive. It can sometimes take, especially with emotional abuse, it can take a long time to realize that you are a victim because that's kind of the way that it plays out and the manipulation and the abuse

can be slow and steady and can be gaslighting. So the thing that I guess is tricky is that domestic violence and abuse in relationships is not always super obvious and dark and scary it can be happening behind closed doors of relationships that perhaps on the outside look like they're lovely and then behind closed doors there it's a lot darker and so i think that is maybe where there is a tiny bit more leeway with this film because it's not it's not like an upright thriller people did make lots of comments that you know there's loads of films that men star in that are about violence and rape and awful things and they

don't necessarily talk about the themes in a super serious way they might just be doing red carpet interviews about their new flashy film talking about what they're wearing that is maybe very normal but I do think there's something about this domestic violence film that has really touched a nerve and I think that we maybe do have that expectation as Blake of a woman as Blake Lovely as a woman to have um a kind of level of understanding I guess of the sensitive nature of people that are victims of domestic violence and what that might look like. And so maybe that message is true, but I don't know if it is. I don't know if Meng... It's difficult to say as well because this is such a context of this period. And I think that promo for films has become so much more of a spectacle in a way.

And that we see sometimes the promotion of films, maybe in the past, was just like a red carpet. Evan's going to go see the new movie. I feel like promo now is such a big part. It's so much bigger. The press tour is so much larger. The outfits are so much a thing. The language around press tours is massive. If we think about Barbie, if we think about Dune, if we think about, I'm think about Dune if we think about I'm trying to

think what else has come out recently but the press tour feels so much more all-encompassing than it used to maybe that is because it's so much harder for movies to do well in the box office because not as many people go to the cinema more people are streaming there's not as much money in cinema so maybe the press tour has become a bigger thing so I do think this is happening within the context of the fact that this book sold millions of copies. It's hugely popular. It is a very sensitive and raw subject, but it has, you know, a lot of fans who had a real belief about who they wanted to play Lily Bloom. And actually lots of people didn't want Blake to play her in the first place. Sorry, I'm rambling. I'm going to read a message, which I thought was really good because I hadn't thought about it

from this point of view. Again, I still don't really have a definitive viewpoint on what I think about all of this all I know is that my initial trained reaction to seeing those videos of Blake was to feel slightly disenfranchised by her if I'm being totally honest but again I realize that's kind of the way that I've been socialized to see women when they're not acting the way that we expect them to so another message read I think she's making the film accessible to people. Victims of domestic violence that don't realize they're being abused aren't going to a movie that's blatantly about domestic violence. Girls who get all their girlfriends together to go and watch the film might be helping a friend that watches the movie and resonates with the character's

situation and might open their eyes about their own situation or empower them to speak to their girlfriends. Blake Lively is absolutely correct in my opinion, it's a movie that's about domestic violence but it's so much more than just that. In my opinion that's the whole point of the book and the movie and I feel like people are missing the point. We all like to see domestic violence as a super black and white issue but in reality lots of women stay in those situations because it's a little bit grey. Life is complex and it makes us uncomfortable to talk about domestic violence as though it's completely awful which is that there are many reasons why women don't leave for me personally I feel like Blake completely hits the nail on the head with the narrative around this movie as someone who's been subjected to emotional and physical abuse in a past relationship

I would never just categorize myself as a domestic violence victim or a survivor that is a part of my history and a shape who i am today but absolutely no way does that define me and i'm so much more than that it's weird to me that people seem so obsessed with the idea that this film should only be about domestic violence and have no character depth whatsoever and not be remotely empowering or relatable to women which is like a really positive and interesting take on it and I think that there it's it is clever in a way I guess to use this film and Blake's sort of like sanitization I guess of the subject matter and making it kind of girly and feminine I guess that does make the film a bit of a Trojan horse where maybe it will be really relatable and maybe it does highlight I haven't actually seen the film yet but I have read the book but years ago and so maybe that is the angle that she's aiming for maybe she's trying to show us like I said it's kind of meta you know life can

look all sparkly and gorgeous on the outside but once you get into it and once you see the reality of it it might be a bit darker there was a piece in the cut as well which I thought was really good um which read the conversation we should be having around it ends with us and it's by Lux Alptrum and I wanted to just share a couple of bits from it so to author Ella Dawson whose novel but how he really was inspired by her own recovery for an abusive relationship thought Lively's comments were ignorant you never put it behind you, she said of domestic abuse. You just heal in whatever way you're able to, but it is incorporated in who you are. Trauma lives in your body. Dawson feels that telling survivors to see themselves as bigger than their experience of abuse ignores the truth. And again from that cut piece,

but for many abuse survivors, there's no clear hero or villain in the situation. None of the six survivors I spoke with about the drama that's no clear hero or villain in the situation none of the six survivors i spoke with about the drama that's unfolded in the wake of the movie's release were eager to declare their loyalties the way both blake and justin talked about domestic violence survivors is so infantilizing said dawson instead survivors told me they were frustrated that a petty hollywood squabbled sidelined what could have been a fruitful conversation about domestic violence and that they were angry that once again survivors were being talked about rather than listened to. I think that that is a really interesting angle and I think it's true and as someone who has

had experiences I also did think that it does no longer impact me actually and I and it was a long time ago and I do feel like I've really you know worked on it and and got past that but I think if I was in the throes of dealing with something those comments wouldn't have landed well with me but then we had that other message from that person who wrote in and said that you know they they found it really true and really empowering you know everyone's going to receive this very differently and one size doesn't fit all another message read personally I think the promo of the film has done its job it's highlighted that domestic violence can occur and be totally hidden to the outside and be carefully concealed by the abuser. Domestic violence is not just physical, it's mental too and this promo has shown how easy it is to overlook

what is happening when something is presented in a glossy way. Equally, while Blake has taken the fall in this, what are we all talking about? Domestic abuse. And what is being highlighted? Domestic abuse. A part of me wonders whether this has actually been thought through just a thought there has been lots of people saying that you know when the don't marry darling thing kind of happened and there was all of that drama people were like is this just to ram up views to get people talking about the film it certainly has had that impact and everyone is talking about the movie but again i do agree with the cut article where i don't really know if i've seen any positive or useful conversations around domestic violence

apart from people saying that maybe I think Justin Baldoni said that people have now gone to see the film and have since left domestic violence relationships but I haven't actually seen any informative takes about how domestic violence manifests what you should be looking for how you can protect a friend that's going through it, how you can protect yourself, how to get a get out fund. I don't know any kind of more useful pointers around domestic violence. I haven't really seen. I've just seen people talking about the fact that the film is about domestic violence and that domestic violence occurs. So I do think that definitely we know that that's what this film is about now. Maybe I guess it hasn't been out that long. I have seen people saying, you know, people say that they really enjoyed it,

or they thought it was really impactful. I actually do want to go and see it now, just because I am intrigued. And I do think it's a really fertile subject matter, and that handled correctly, it could be incredibly powerful. But again, I have mostly just seen stuff about Justin and Blake, to be honest. Another message read I wanted to point out that as a therapist I actually don't think Blake Lively necessarily should be giving advice or put on the spot to use her platform to discuss domestic violence. Could she have done a better job with promoting the movie? Yes it definitely bordered tone deaf but at the end of the day she's an actress who was cast to play a part in a movie and it isn't her job nor is she qualified to have these difficult conversations especially on such a large

scale when she deflects some of the questions thrown her way in interviews promoting her hair care is going to get her less hate and maybe even be more appropriate than if she were to say the wrong thing or an uneducated thing about such a sensitive topic i think that is that is true you know she definitely could have got it wrong, and it is better not to get it wrong. However, I don't know. I think that in this current climate, like I said, with Prestles being so big, with the film being so highly anticipated, and the book being so popular, then it does seem odd, perhaps, that, you know, she hasn't been advised on what to say. live dealer studio exclusively on FanDuel Casino where winning is undefeated.

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And a message read I feel that actors and actresses do have a duty to do a theme and character they are playing justice in the discourse

surrounding its promotional activity by what they're representing and in this case gender aside Blake is playing a woman victim of domestic violence and is the main character so by default all eyes default to her but the cancel culture is unfair and ultimately Blake is just the face of a whole team who should have prepared this with respect and the sensitivity it deserved I completely agree. Another one said, I just say take all this stuff with a pinch of salt and don't idolize celebrities. Would be good to think of a way to bring about some of these issues which we feel haven't been at the forefront in a way which doesn't directly take people down.

And another message read, what feels so striking in this conversation is how quickly women can change from objects of love to hate. When we are framing a conversation of domestic abuse, I think we should also be looking at what perpetuates abusive behaviours. Cancelling someone is abusive. It degrades them, removes their personhood, financial opportunities and other resources. Even if you think someone deserves it, it's mad how quickly the conversation can turn and it becomes about people finding ways to excuse their hate-fueled and harmful behavior. I'm not saying people shouldn't be held accountable in this discussion, Blake, but if we want to hold celebrities accountable for everything they say in public, then we should also question the way we talk about them online more privately and observe just how extreme and vindicated we can feel in women bashing. I think that message is so true.

We recently did an episode of Everything Is Content where we spoke about parasocial relationships as the headline topic. And I think that whilst I, again, I do think some of the ways that she's handled this press tour have been a bit questionable. I definitely think she should have been better advised by her team. I also think that to live under a level of scrutiny as a celebrity must be unbearable and you must be constantly second guessing yourself. I had it on a really micro scale when I wrote my memoir. Every sentence I wrote I could kind of hear someone's reaction or how it could be taken out of context or how someone might perceive that to be the wrong thing to be said. So I can only imagine when you are super famous and a mega celeb that it can be quite exhausting trying to please everyone. So I think that I agree. I think that

we should be able to have this sort of quite inconsequential conversation where we can say, she's not the best at doing press tours and sometimes she doesn't seem that well PR trained, but whatever. I don't think it is harmful. I think that it's confusing in the context of this film, but perhaps like people have said, maybe there are positives to her pitching the film like this. Maybe it was a conscious decision. Maybe she thinks more people are going to be endeared to watch the film if they think it's fun and flowery rather than if they make it very dark. There are all sorts of reasons why she might have chosen to speak in that way.

And irrespective of whether or not we think that it was the right choice, it still isn't, you know, bad enough for us to sort of decide that we want to cancel her and pile on her. And I wonder if also her approach, just watching those videos, even in that interview with the Scandinavian woman who says, congratulations on your bump. And, you know, talk to her about the outfits. I can't remember what year that was, but at certain points in the height of sort of like lean in feminism and the pussy hat feminism, there was this whole conversation around women really pushing back on anyone talking to them about things which were seen as hyper feminine, because it can be degrading. I actually think in the context of that interview, the woman saying congratulations on your bump, I definitely probably would say that to someone if

they were publicly pregnant and everyone knew and they'd announced. I do think that's kind of a normal thing to acknowledge. It's like if someone's just got engaged or they just bought a house or they're pregnant or whatever, you often do open up with, oh my God, by the way, congratulations. I don't think it was that strange of a thing to say. And her asking about outfits again, it was a Blake love styling and clothes. I just wonder if that was in the context of an era when women were really taught to kind of not let themselves be diminished by answering questions or talking about things which were seen as inherently feminine and so seen as less than, whereas maybe we've evolved a little bit to be like, actually, the feminine isn't inherently weak. And we can talk about things that are

described as feminism, that as feminine, you know, clothes and beauty are billion-dollar industries. They are clearly not insignificant parts of culture or society or our identities. And we can talk about them alongside serious subjects and then still be meaningful um i think people also you know comparing that interview to this current film which i guess does feel a bit jarring where she is talking a lot about the outfits and the styling and she very talks about how proudly talks about how she styled the film so there's a bit of an incongruity there but i guess that is you know there's been time between those films, the culture has changed, people are talking differently. And even in this press run, they asked her if she cried and she says something like,

I've got toxic masculinity. I don't know. I just think her sense of humor is slightly cringey and outdated. I think she has Ryan Reynolds' sense of humor, which again, maybe on a man we see as a bit dorky and cute, and maybe on a woman we see it as abrasive. There are definitely so many layers to this which are misogynistic. And that, you know, if a man had done or acted in the way that Blake did, we know that to be true. It's true across the board. Men do, you know, get away with things that women could never even dream of getting away with. And women are so heavily vilified for such small things. And even if we can pick out and pinpoint where we think she went wrong yeah just the amount that people are piling on to her the the crime doesn't justify the reaction so we've spoken about

Blake a lot but someone did point out that Justin Baldoni has hired a PR crisis management team and that um it was the same one that Johnny Depp used which now people are kind of seeing as a smoking gun which is kind of funny in a way because that PR crisis company team whatever they're obviously very good at what they do because they managed to kind of exonerate Johnny Depp of his crimes in the eyes of so many people. And yet at the same time, now by association, if anyone hires them, they're kind of seen as being on a par with Johnny Depp or having done something similar. So I don't know if that PR company needs to maybe change its name or sever ties with Johnny Depp, but it certainly doesn't look great. And someone said,

Justin Baldoni using a crisis management PR company doesn't make him guilty of something. These sorts of agencies are commonplace in this sort of industry and they're clearly extremely experienced. I've seen a few people say this and find it a bit of a weird thing to hone in on. On another note, women are definitely held to higher scrutiny than men. They should be caring and sensitive and beautiful and everything in between, etc, etc, etc. I've really tried to look at the interviews through this lens and not judge as much, but she's come across so, so badly in my opinion. I've watched interviews on other films as well, which have emerged, and it's the same thing. Very tone deaf. If a man said the things in the same

way, I'd certainly think he was an arrogant dick. I think maybe it's not as widely spread when it's a man. Although I think there are some instances of this happening too. I can can't remember who it was but definitely doing some sort of TikTok deep dive into a man before about them being rude there was definitely that thing about Hugh Grant being really rude on a red carpet and everyone just being like oh that's just Hugh Grant like I think that men can have rudeness as a personality quirk and we still find it enduring and women are not allowed that freedom as much another message read I always think when I see people doing a story time on TikTok about a time when they met a celeb, they're humans just like us. We all have bad days. We've all been a bit put off with the person who served us our coffee at

some point in life, haven't we? I also think, is this not a bit of reflection for us to all stop idolizing celebrities because they will let us down? If Blake is a decent person, she's probably mortified at her own behavior in that particular interview but likely being advised by an entire team to stay silent in my opinion they always get told to not comment when they're being dragged they meaning celebs i'm not condoning her behavior in the interview i think she was rude and it was incredibly unnecessary let's also not lose sight of the power dynamic in the room that she holds versus the interviewer too but she is also a nepo baby is she I didn't know that and I do think they're often much less self-aware a sweeping statement I know nepo babies could be a whole subject

so I guess everyone's really caught up in this interview with a Scandinavian interviewer um whose name I should know I'm really sorry I don't know so I can't I'm really sorry I don't know how to pronounce the interviewer's name but but it was, I'm going to say Kirtsey Flaher's 2016 interview with Blake Lively and Parker Posey. Oh my God, I really do think that that 2016 there is so important in the context of what I was saying about feminism. And the way that it was quite mean, Gali, they kind of turned, they shunned her um in a kind of that's again that charles sandberg lean in feminism it was sort of like she asked questions which they they had deemed kind of anti-feminist anti-women i don't think the interviewer meant it in that way but it was a very heightened time in terms of like quite white feminist ideology being very pervasive and also very surface level you know 2016

it was very basic feminism it was very much kind of scratching the surface of of misogyny but not really getting deep into the roots of you know intersectional feminism and the kind of feminism that we hopefully are talking about today and when parker posey and blake lively kind of turned to each other and are really catty it was just it felt cool but that was a while ago and i do wonder if you know times have changed i also do think how hard it must be as a celebrity to have this whole back catalogue of everything you've ever done i'm sure there are millions of other interviews with blake lively where she's perfectly nice and there aren't that many things coming up obviously she got married on a plantation which is kind of beyond I don't know when that would ever have contextually made sense as something to do but you know that is and they have apologized for that that's still

wild but there aren't that many things coming up about her and I do find it interesting like that message that when people do these things about oh my god this one time I met Jason Momoa in a restaurant and he didn't give me a tip and we really want to out these celebrities as being secretly evil but like the truth is I'm sure we all could have been rude in the past I'm sure we all have made comments that we in hindsight well actually I'm sure you guys like this too but sometimes if I say something really wrong I do dream about it for the next like six to ten years and it wakes me up in the night thinking about how cringe it was that I did or said whatever it might be but I do think we get some real kind of pleasure about bringing a woman down there's there's so much vitriol in it I don't know where it comes from

I don't know if it's because of this idea that women there's only so much room for women to do well and when someone's very beautiful very has it all, and they maybe show this kind of cruel streak, it's like, yes, gotcha. Let's take off the pedestals. Let's drag her down. She didn't deserve it anyway. And there is that schadenfreude feeling. And with men, it's like impossible. We can try to cancel men as much as we want, as much as we try to. They'll just keep showing up. They have no shame. They really don't seem to feel the effects of it. I'm sure maybe they do, but in cases like Johnny Depp, where he's still being the face of things and working and acting and turning up and Shia LaBeouf turning up on a red carpet, like to great fanfare from, you know, magazines and stuff years after everything

that came out about him and FK twigs. It's just, it does seem that, that men, A, are socialized to be able to deal with the hate in a different way and b it just they'll just keep showing up whereas a woman will kind of have like tomatoes thrown at her metaphorically if she tries to show up in the wake of something really that pales in comparison compared to what most of the men have done i also think that point about not idolizing celebrities is really important because as someone who has very slight access into being in a world where you are the talent, inverted commas, you can be quite insulated from the natural order of society. When you're making a lot of money and when you are bankrolling,

like, you know, you're bringing in people commission or you're paying people, you have people on your payroll, you are a celebrity, you're a name, you have a lot of power, people will protect you. People will tell you things that in order to keep you working, to keep you going, to keep their jobs. And so there is that sense of like sometimes celebrities might be protected by a level of sort of being a different echelon of society. They're kind of, yeah, they're insulated from the normal shame that we have because there are people around them going, even when maybe they did fuck up a bit unless it's for like a PR spin they'll be like no don't worry it's absolutely fine this is going to blow over whereas like in a day-to-day real life scenario your friends might be like look actually what you thought

what you said was really bitchy so like I think you should apologize the parameters around that get really mixed up when you are a very famous person and it's being broadcast to millions of people and millions of people have an opinion on what you said so maybe it just can't function the same way but someone also did make a comment like she's going to be fine because she's so privileged so rich like fundamentally we should be able to criticize her and who cares if there's like massive fallout from it and someone said I think it's unfair to say that rich privileged people won't be affected by being heavily criticized by the masses. Is it the most important event in current affairs? No. Do people have it worse? Yes, definitely. But just because a person is privileged,

it doesn't take away her emotional response as valid. We don't know how she could feel about any of this, but she could be feeling negatively. Privilege absolutely needs to be recognized, but I disagree with the narrative that a privileged person shouldn't complain about poor treatment I think that's fair I wonder how much of this really gets to her I mean I'm sure it does but again I do think there is I do think you can be more protected if you have money and celebrity and you know being piled on as someone with those privileges is very different from say someone who on the internet messes up and is just like a general person and ends up losing their job and could end up losing their home like this pylon may definitely impact her negatively and I do think we need to address the way that we

speak about and judge famous women and just women in general but I do think that absolutely privileged will impact the way that that she materially suffers from this I think that definitely her mental health and definitely the way she can be impacted but it's not going to stop her getting work um not that that you know doesn't make it okay but I definitely think that it is important to recognize that I've spent ages going back through Jamila Jamil's Instagram trying to find this post because I do think that we have a problem with deciding that we don't like women on the internet. And I really remember the Hatha hate. It was a whole movement. That's why it has a name. People just kind of decided that they found Anne Hathaway annoying. They didn't like

her. And she's now had this like resurgence. The fact that public opinion can switch so quickly, usually from a woman that we've lauded and adored and held up to suddenly being like actually no you're no longer flavor of the month we don't like you anymore we're not going to like you and maybe if you can ingratiate yourself back to us at a later stage we will once again shine our glory on you like the princess that we thought you were but now think you're actually a bit of a loser that is a massive problem that we see time and time again and so many women are impacted by it but I thought one of the earlier messages which was also addressing how we as fans and consumers of content approach celebrities is also really important and that episode that we did on everything is content where we were talking about Chapel Rowan's boundary setting around how she wants fans to approach her was a good kind of introduction to this too because even I had this

sort of initial reaction to that being like no you what you have to let fans come up to you because you're a celebrity and that's how it works maybe this sense of entitlement does need to go away and I also think we do have to remember that Blake Lively is an actress and she is not a therapist. She is not a psychologist. She is not a specialist in domestic violence. Maybe we need to be asking more of the teams that surround films. I know that she was heavily involved and that her husband ended up being quite heavily involved in the production of the film too. But I wonder if what we're asking for is a level of accountability or just a bit more help and nuance in the conversation surrounding films, whether or not that means we need to have teams

on boarded to, if a film has difficult themes, to either help the actors and actresses talk about them or to just give better advice and resources. These actors are actors fundamentally at the end of the day, and some of them might have a real emotional connection to the work that they're acting. Others might just see it as a job. And even if it's a really difficult subject matter, fundamentally their job is to get into character, to evoke a feeling, a person, to create a world for us to consume, to teach us something about life, to make us feel emotional, to make us laugh. Their job isn't necessarily to give out advice or to be spokespersons for various issues that their films may cover. And perhaps we need to stop looking to actors and celebrities in general to be a catch-all for whatever it might be. And I don't know when we've spoken about this, but we've definitely spoken about this before. I

wonder if it is just because so many other things in our world and our society are failing us, our government bodies, our healthcare systems, our schools, all of those things are criminally underfunded and perhaps we don't feel supported. And maybe the arts, which bring us so much joy, help us understand ourselves better, help us feel whatever it might be, maybe we're then kind of incorrectly misplacing so much of our wants and needs, desires and expectations onto performance of the arts because we're not getting much from the bodies that should be helping us. Like there should be resources more readily available there should be better access for women suffering in domestic violence situations you know our nhs needs more funding there should be free therapy on the nhs all of those things have really long wait times the government is

not really doing that much right now about femicide and violence against women this film is coming out at a time when those things are really rife and that we're even looking at calling you know extreme violence against women relay beginning terrorism, which I think is a great move step forward. So I do think that, and also Blake Loveday's ties to Taylor Swift, there's so many ways that, and obviously everything that's been happening with those young girls that were killed at the Taylor Swift party and just the way that misogynists and incels are also targeting sort of like Taylor Swift themed things because Taylor Swift seems to be right now in some eyes of some very radicalized men the symbol of or the emblem of femininity and girlhood and some of them are

very angry and hateful towards women so there's's just lots of things within the cosmos and the atmosphere right now that I guess made this the perfect storm to see Blake as the issue, whereas fundamentally domestic violence more often, in almost all cases, is violence against women perpetrated by men. And so really what we need to be doing, I guess, is talking about how to educate young men, how to change legislation around violence against women, how to make sure that women and girls are protected and feel safe in a society. And this film is a drop in the ocean in terms of that conversation that needs to be happening. And maybe we all feel slightly hopeless and helpless and are looking for a spokesperson. And when someone

with power and privilege like Blake Lively is the face of this film, maybe we misguidedly placed a lot of hope that she would be able to give a voice to a topic which is so important to so many of us and just important in general. And whilst maybe the way that she did it was a Trojan horse, like I said, to get women and girls into seeing this film, to help people understand domestic violence and domestic abuse better. Maybe we've got to stop looking in the wrong places and maybe this is just the starting point. And hopefully this will create more conversations around domestic violence. Hopefully it will create more awareness. Hopefully it will give some people comfort or courage but I guess we just don't want

this conversation to end here with everyone just picking a team whether it's Justin or Blake or her being cancelled I really don't think that that should be the outcome of this maybe some people won't like her maybe some people will not everyone's personality is going to be completely likable to you but it might be someone else's cup of tea. Either way, I do hope that this is the beginning of a larger conversation rather than just like another feud that we see, because it is a really good starting point. And as so many of you said, we are talking about domestic violence now, and that is something that we should be talking about more and more. I feel like I went around, sorry, I'm recording this kind of like at the end of a long workdayday and I don't know if I went all around the houses on

this one. And I really wanted to consolidate my thoughts more, but my brain is a bit more messy. Maybe we should do a topic on misogyny and just general misogyny in society. It was actually quite meaty, there was bits I wanted to go into just about the general women online but some of the messages were about Blake and maybe this episode would have been like four hours long so if you have a more specific subject around misogyny or yeah you know those topics do submit them let me know if you go and see the film let me know what you think I am going to try and see it because I am intrigued and uh I feel like it feels a bit, I don't know, to talk about it this much and not go and see it.

It just feels a bit silly. So let me know if you've seen this film. Let me know what you thought. Let me know if you enjoyed this episode. Please do rate, review and subscribe. And I will see you here next week. Bye. We'll be right back. by 11 p.m. every day. 19 plus and physically located in Ontario. Gambling problem? Call 1-866-531-2600 or visit connectsontario.ca.

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