The past several months have provided a close-up view of the Hollywood PR machine with the filing of a lawsuit by Blake Lively, who was the star of It Ends With Us, a film about domestic violence. Blake accused Justin Baldoni of sexual harassment, releasing various texts and conversations that support the claim. Considering this issue through the lens of Neo-Marxism, social media ran with this story, reinforcing themes of dominance that have shaped cultural norms and even the narrative about men as obvious perpetrators of violence. In this case, Blake Lively had been victimized on set by the sinister and dangerous Baldoni, the director and co-star of It Ends With Us.
Leaning into the narrative and assumptions that men perpetrate sexual violence, commentators, influencers, and news outlets reported on this feud for weeks. Baldoni was dropped from his management company and written off by the public as a B-list actor who attempted to dominate his female co-star through sexual harassment.
The narrative took a sharp turn recently when Justin Baldoni responded to Blake's accusations with a $400 million countersuit. Justin accused Blake Lively and her husband, Ryan Reynolds, of hijacking his film, for which he held the rights, and seeking to destroy his livelihood and career. Justin's full transcripts of texts and other receipts paint a story of Blake Lively as a "mean girl" who used her position in Hollywood's elite circles to take credit for the film and center herself for future sequels.
Do you think the public is willing to accept the possibility of a woman as the aggressor, specifically when there are allegations of sexual harassment involved? Justin's evidence is alarming and at times, difficult to believe. I'm invested in how this dynamic could shift assumptions of power between men and women in Hollywood!
While admittedly, I have not followed the Blake Lively drama closely, there has been an established pattern of generally believing men, or taking a man's side when accusations of this type are made. In fact there is a whole movement titled, "Believe Women," to address this.
ReplyDeleteWe live in a patriarchy, not a matriarchy. The phrase is, "It's a man's world." I have never heard the opposite. The hegemony that prevails in our society is that men are better, stronger, smarter, deserving of higher salaries, and that they are always, always right, unless the evidence is 100% ironclad, proven beyond a shadow of a doubt contrary to their being right.
Look at the Johnny Depp case. He literally texted his buddy that he wanted to burn and rape Amber Heard. But we believed him anyway, until after the trial when it was revealed he wasn't quite so innocent.
Or look at Brock Turner, who raped a woman behind a dumpster and was let off with a slap on the wrist because we "didn't want to ruin his life for one tiny 'mistake.'" What about his victim's life?
The list goes on and on. The only time we believe women are in cases like Gisèle Pelicot's. She was a perfect victim. She was silent because she was unconscious. That's how we like our women, especially if we are going to hold a man accountable. A woman must be perfect to be believed. Other wise, she is the aggressor, it was her fault, she was "asking for it."
We rarely take the side of a woman because we live in a patriarchy, which means we support men and boys at all costs, even if it means we have to throw women under the bus.