OPINION | The Immoral Woman: Blake Lively And The Paradox Of Likeability
Photo Credit: Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images; Araya Doheny/Variety/Getty Images
It Ends with Us, Colleen Hoover’s best-selling novel, touched the lives of millions of readers with its depiction of domestic violence. In 2019, the book was optioned by Justin Baldoni to be produced by his company, Wayfarer Studios. He later signed on as director. It was announced in 2023 that Blake Lively, known for her role in the TV series Gossip Girl, would be playing the protagonist, Lily Bloom, and Baldoni would be playing Lively’s opposite.
After its release in August 2024, it became clear that the adaption’s resonance was overshadowed by the very themes the book fought to recognize.
In December 2024, Blake Lively filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against Justin Baldoni, Wayfarer Studios, producer Jamey Heath and the PR team they hired to intimidate Lively and prevent her from coming forward. The explosive suit alleged that Baldoni and his team were behind an extensive smear campaign that employed social media to push false narratives about Lively.
The internet played along, unleashing the full extent of its venom upon Lively, and doing Baldoni’s dirty work for him. Even Melissa Nathan, a veteran crisis management specialist and the PR mastermind behind the smear campaign was surprised by the immediate and overwhelming vilification of Lively. In a subpoenaed document, Nathan said to Jennifer Abel, a public relations executive at Wayfarer, “It's actually sad because it just shows you have people [who] really want to hate on women.”
Lively’s lawsuit alleges that Wayfarer did not adhere to industry protocols regarding nude and intimate scenes, and that Baldoni and other producers created an unsafe working environment for Lively and other female cast members by making sexual comments and repeatedly violating boundaries, including while Lively was nude or breast-feeding.
The suit also includes subpoenaed text messages and documents, which illustrate a complete picture of the retaliatory smear campaign, despite both Baldoni and Heath agreeing to a list of provisions in January 2024 to force the cessation of on-set misconduct, including those prohibiting “retaliatory or abusive behavior to [Blake Lively] for raising concerns or requesting safeguards.”’
The impact of this retaliation took effect in August 2024, during the film’s press tour. Although some attention was paid to the fact that Baldoni wasn’t doing press events with the rest of the cast, the majority of the coverage was focused on Lively.
After saying “grab your friends, wear your florals, and head out to see it,” in a promotional video for the film, Lively was attacked for allegedly misrepresenting the film's message by focusing on the more uplifting aspects of the film. She also received hate for using the film's press tour to promote her haircare brand and beverage companies, which was said to be insensitive as alcoholism has a correlation with domestic violence. Old interview clips of Lively resurfaced, showing tense interactions between Lively and interviewers. While some of Lively’s actions could be seen as insensitive or tone-deaf, they don’t explain the amount of hate she received.
Sadly, the answer is quite simple. Today, women are subject to the likeability paradox, where they are only respected if they present themselves as likeable, palatable, and conforming. Women are held to a higher standard of morality, while male nonconformity is rationalized or dismissed. Women who don’t possess these traits, or conform, are criticized, attacked, and shamed — especially those in the public eye. This phenomenon is so common that culture writer Rayne Fisher-Quann coined the term “Woman’d” to describe when “everyone stops liking a woman at the same time.” Lively is the newest addition to the graveyard of women who have been condemned in the digital court of public opinion.
While the facts of Lively’s case are still largely unknown, the principle remains the same. Blake Lively is held to a higher moral standard than her male co-stars or other men in the industry, and therefore is believed to be more worthy of criticism for not conforming to these ideals. Regardless of her behaviour in interviews, or alleged insensitivity towards the film’s topics, she doesn’t deserve to be villainized, or become the scapegoat for a PR failure.
According to the suit, “Lively and other cast members were under a contractual obligation to render promotional services in accordance with the Marketing Plan,” which advised cast members to “avoid talking about this film [in a way] that makes it feel sad or heavy – it's a story of hope.” The Marketing Plan also says that “whether you have read the book or not, this is the perfect movie to see with your friends or anyone in your support system.” These are the same talking points behind Lively’s heavily criticized friends and floral comment.
The disapproval around Lively promoting her personal brands during the press tour is also unequal to her alleged “crimes.” Self-promotion is not a new concept among celebrities. Blake Lively’s husband, Ryan Reynolds, has business ventures — including Mint Mobile, Wrexham Football Club and Aviation Gin — valued at approximately $14 billion. He has used film press tours and PR work to promote his multiple brands, and has been described as “a marketing savant”. Certainly no mass backlash there.
Although the promotion of her alcohol brand does suggest lack of forethought, given the film’s sensitive topics, this error has been blown out of proportion considering that Lively produced a film about domestic violence which grossed over $345 million worldwide, despite having a $25 million production budget, according to Forbes. That kind of attention on the subject outweighs the alleged setbacks created by Lively's mistakes. The twisting of Lively’s intentions further highlights society’s tendency to sensationalize women’s mistakes, instead of their accomplishments.
It seems, however, that people aren’t interested in understanding Lively’s intentions or character. When viral clips of Lively on the internet in August affirmed people’s beliefs about Lively, they stopped searching for answers. They believed she was guilty, so why search for evidence that could lead to her redemption? Heather Schwedel wrote for Slate that, “people aren’t trying to interpret evidence anymore; they’re taking a Rorschach test, and they’re finding that every single inkblot somehow resembles Lively behaving bitchily.” Once it seemed that she was a woman who needed to be put in her place, every clip of Lively was interpreted as highlighting her transgressions, adding to the evidence that she was guilty.
While Lively received overwhelming criticism and hatred, director and co-star Baldoni received numerous accolades for his performance and his role in the promotional tour. While the film’s marketing plan implored the cast to focus on the positive aspects of the film, Baldoni decided to pivot and highlight exclusively the film’s domestic violence aspects, in order to further isolate and villainize Lively, and maintain his “feminist” brand, which he had previously built with his podcast, Man Enough.
Baldoni’s performative activism led him to be awarded the Voices of Solidarity Award from non-profit Vital Voices, which is awarded to “remarkable men who have shown courage and compassion in advocating on behalf of women and girls,” according to the nonprofit's website. This award was rescinded after Lively’s allegations came to light, but doesn’t erase the fact that Baldoni was able to weaponize positive masculinity and male participation in feminism, in order to vilify and silence women.
The differential treatment between co-stars highlights how easily society can be manipulated by false narratives, especially when the target is an “immoral” woman. In subpoenaed text messages regarding the smear campaign, Melissa Nathan told Jennifer Abel, “You know we can bury anyone.” However, It wasn’t just the smear campaign that attempted to bury Blake Lively. Women are buried beneath expectations of likeability, conformity, absolute morality, and the pressure of constant scrutiny. In It Ends With Us, Colleen Hoover writes, “All humans make mistakes. What determines a person's character aren't the mistakes we make.”