It doesn't matter if Blake Lively sucks

Maybe it really does end with us?

Can’t believe I’m choosing for my first post in a while to be about the Blake Lively/Justin Baldoni saga, but I’ve been internally ranting about this for the past 24 hours, and I thought I may as well put pen to page.

As a brief recap, over the summer, the movie It Ends With Us came out. This is a movie I care nothing about. I’ve never read the Colleen Hoover book, I’m not a Blake Lively fan, and nothing about this seemed interesting to me. What did seem interesting to me at the time though, was the way the press tour was inescapable. All I was seeing on every single social media platform was Blake Lively being cringe and annoying and out of touch. I nodded along, because I already had these vague feelings about Blake Lively (I of course remember when she got married on a plantation), and this all felt easy to believe.

I also remember raising my eyebrows a bit at Justin Baldoni when I learned the entire cast unfollowed him on social and wouldn’t pose for pictures with him, namely Jenny Slate who I trust with my life. Also he hired the Johnny Depp PR firm, which was a red flag that I shrugged off. Because: Blake Lively seems annoying! And Justin seems nice! I didn’t think too deeply about it.

Now a complaint has been filed and a NYT piece has come out, which has laid bare the sexual harassment and abuse Blake Lively endured from Justin Baldoni and others in his production company and the subsequent media smear campaign that Baldoni’s team waged against her in order to prevent these allegations from being revealed or believed.

I am watching a discourse emerge that is mostly in three camps:

1. Blake Lively is terrible. Nobody made her say all those rude and out-of-touch things, and she’s probably lying about all of this because Justin seems nice and she seems annoying.

2. Justin is terrible. I can’t believe he did these things. Blake Lively is vindicated, we should all love her now! Believe women!

3. They both suck (and I hated BL before this!). *Shrugs*

My problem with all of this discourse is that it assumes that whether a person is “bad” or “good” is somehow relevant to what’s at stake here.

As someone who works with incarcerated survivors of sexual abuse and spends a lot of time thinking about how to engage a general audience on this issue, I am often confronted with this problem. We want our morality in black and white. Abusers = bad. Survivors/victims = good. But obviously, it’s not that simple. We know this theoretically, but when we’re confronted with the specifics of what this means, it takes an incredible amount of internal work to remain consistent in this ethic.

A take I’ve seen in lots of places as a response to BL’s allegations against JB: Blake Lively has said positive things about Woody Allen AND Harvey Weinstein!

My question is, and therefore what? She should not be believed? She should not be given the care she needs? Sexual abuse doesn’t happen to people who say things like that?

Another take I’ve seen, again in response to her allegations against JB: Blake Lively is a rich famous white woman! She got married on a plantation! She has more resources and privilege than anyone!

My question again is, and therefore what? Sexual abuse can’t happen to her?

And finally, the take that has made me most spin out: Okay, Blake Lively still sucks though.

AND THEREFORE WHAT???

I don’t know if this was actually

BDM

’s point when she wrote this, but I’m going to quote her anyway, because it succinctly gets at my point (lol sorry BDM).

The big thing is, if you were wandering around going oh women can be bad, you were played. You were played even if somebody files a countersuit that reveals a trove of Blake Lively texts that are just as noxious and (yes) manipulative and even “toxic.” You were played even if Blake Lively, personally, is the Zodiac Killer. It doesn’t actually matter if Blake Lively is a good or bad person!

IT DOES NOT MATTER IF BLAKE LIVELY IS A GOOD OR BAD PERSON.

We have to stop purity testing people in this way, especially in matters of sexual abuse. We have to stop deciding who is believable or not based on vibes. It doesn’t matter if someone is good or bad. It doesn’t matter if Blake Lively still sucks. The stakes are way to high for us to be thinking about it in this way.

We were fed a media narrative, and we believed it. But we are being given an opportunity to adjust, to reflect, to course correct. But this is the age of the internet, and I know I’m wishing for too much.

The bottom line for me is that there is no metric for believability when it comes to sexual abuse. There is no justification. There is no “that person still sucks though.”

And because I know some people will think I’m being dramatic, here is the conduct that BL requested be addressed while filming It Ends With Us:

I would categorize much of this as sexual harassment, some rising to the level of assault. This is a pattern of behavior that I am more than comfortable calling sexual abuse.

The stakes are way too high for us to be shrugging our shoulders and saying “Blake still sucks though.” Because who is that for? Who is that benefiting?

Anyone can be sexually abused. Anyone. And yet we continue to dismiss the seriousness of this because we don’t like a person’s vibes or style or personality or politics or behavior. And when we do that, we are, subconsciously or not, sending a message to survivors. A message that says, you deserved it. I don’t believe you. I don’t care what happened to you.

As we often say in my line of work, no one deserves to be sexually harassed, assaulted, or abused because they committed a crime, no matter what that crime is. Problematic, “bad” people don’t deserve to be abused. They deserve care just as much as anyone else.

Until we can let go of this binary, our society and culture will continue to enable and empower sexual abuse to occur.

Ugh. I hate it when “the discourse” matters.