About misogyny, PR, victim blaming, and DARVO
I've posted the below points (now a little edited) to another sub earlier, but wanted to post this here too as a resource because many found these points useful. I've now tried to elaborate some parts a little and be more precise with the concepts that are in the title, as they are in the very center in this discourse. Others have said most of these things too, but thought that collecting them here wouldn't hurt.
- The myth of a perfect victim
- About being a feminist ally
- Proactive PR & liability
- About the NYT lawsuit
Lastly: misogyny and DARVO
The myth of a perfect victim I'm finding it frustrating how people seem to find it so much more believable that she's lying than that he could have done something wrong.
So many people are uncritically on Baldoni's side mainly because they don't like Blake Lively. There's so many people saying things like "I usually believe women but I just can't believe Blake Lively, there's something in her I cannot trust".You do not have to like Lively to remember how incredibly rare it is that people lie about SH. Annoying, unlikable and mean people do encounter SH, too. These aren't mutually exclusive. Thinking they are mutually exclusive is pure misogyny.
Just like now someone again posted on TikTok how she's met Lively through work once YEARS ago and she was a total bitch, and thus she's sure that Lively is the problem here because she's got "a habit" of manipulating and so on. These just keep coming, people that have met her once years ago keep posting about what a horrible person she is and so they KNOW that she must be the problem. I don't understand how people publicly make these statements about someone they've met once (unless if it's payed PR).
Above mentioned things rely on the myth of a perfect victim, the idea that a victim needs to portray the idea of certain kind of person and act in a certain way.
- About being a feminist ally
I find it interesting that Baldoni have said constantly that he wanted to make the movie, esp sex scenes through the "female gaze". however most of the producers, director, music & cinematography people of the film men. like if you are such a feminist ally and sincerely would want to picture DV and sex scenes through female gaze, wouldn't you hire women to work with you to make this happen? (And also if you are so feminist, why not get women to work alongside with you instead of only getting women to work for you, keeping the hierarchy between you and the women?)
Why haven't he hired more women if gender equality is so important for him? And I mean if most of the top positions at the workplace are occupied by men, it follows that women staff (and as an actor BL was working for JB, the director, no matter how much more well known she is) trying to raise conserns about unappropriate conduct at workplace often leads nowhere. So why wouldn't it be the case here too?
Also, Baldoni even said in one interview himself something along the lines: "i'm a man. no matter how hard i try i can never see the world through a female perspective. that's why there were many situations were i stepped back and let the women decide how to do things". But which women? the only women present who all work for you & under you, not with you. Ofc it's clear then that the finale say for everything - including what female gaze means in making the film - is these men's (so much so that the men in charge told the female lead, who have given birth to four children, that it's "not natural" for women to give birth chlothed).
I don't get how people don't find these things in itself a little sus.
- Proactive PR & liability
Furthermore, i've been thinking about Baldoni talking in interviews about how difficult role to play Ryle was for him, emotionally, because the character is so awfull. And he's really carefully underlined how playing Ryle wasn't his idea but Colleens, that he never even thought that he could play that role.
He's said something like he had to go and be by himself after shooting some scenes, just to calm himself down etc. I have a theory on this: it might be a proactive PR spin to make him seem less liable. He knew that he had crossed boundaries and made Lively feel uncomfortable, and he was afraid of this coming out, as we know. Thus he's been public about the role being emotionally difficult, going under his skin, so if the claims of him being harrassing comes out, he can defend himself by saying that it was difficult for him to tear away from the horrible caracter he played, and if he crossed some boundaries it was because of he being so deeply in the mindset of this awfull caracter, and this makes him less liable: he wasn't truly imself but instead in character.
And overall I think basicly everything he's said during the press tour can be seen as proactive PR to protect himself: praising Lively to make us think he's such a good guy; talking about how Lively was involved in every aspect of the movie and made everything she touched better, to seed foundations to the narrative of Lively stoling the film from him; saying "humbly" that Lively would be a better choise for directing the sequel, again seeding the narrative of creative differences and Lively stoling the film and he just being a humble and nice guy who would just give it to her without a fight - even though he owns the rights for the sequel. And so on.
It's possible that he truly cares about DV, but that doesn't mean that he isn't capable of sexually harrassing someone. However we know from the lawsuits that Baldoni intentionally leaned on the DV aspect as a PR tactic to make Lively look bad & himself look good. Also his press tour heavily leaned on the narrative of creative differences, which seems to be big part of his defense - as if creative differences means that the SH couldn't happen, which it ofc doesn't.
- About the NYT lawsuit and victim blaming
I think the lawsuit is mainly for PR. I read it, and the tone is quite emotional and angry. Main thing i noticed from it is that it's point seems to be to build a narrative of Lively being a manipulative bitch who came and steamrolled the whole project, a powerfull Hollywood actress who wanted to steal the project from poor Baldoni with the help of his powerful husband, and succeeded in this. And the NYT lawsuit has succeeded in this, it seems, at least based on social media. (Ofc impossible to know how much of the pro Baldoni stuff is real and how much is produced by astroturfing and such.) Furthermore, it's interesting how the lawsuit doesn't deny that these things Lively said happened, happened, but instead it's like "yes Baldoni called Lively sexy, but Lively said that first herself thus setting a tone for what is okay to say", as if it wasn't a different thing to say as an actress that for the character this piece of chlothing is sexier, than a director calling an actress sexy. The whole lawsuit is basicly just saying that yes these things happened, but it's okay because of x,y,z, or that it's Lively's fault. That's victim blaming. Also I think the lawsuit emphasizes the role of Ryan Reynolds to make it seem like poor Baldoni was entirely disadvantaged and without power, an underdog, because people love to root for the underdog. This is also the DARVO tactics on play, as many have noted.
- Lastly: misogyny and DARVO So, I find it disappointing, frustrating and agonising that it's easier for people to believe that a woman is a selfish, manipulative bitch who wanted to steal this poor, powerless man's project, than that a male director sexually harassed an actress. As if the latter was so rare and unbelievable. As many have covered in a nuanced way, this is classic DARVO tactics, trying to make JB as a victim and BL as an abuser. That people really think it's more likely that Lively have manipulated the whole cast plus Colleen to cut ties with Baldoni, than that Baldoni sexually harrassed her and that's why they didn't want to be with him. That it's easier for people to believe that there's this evil, manipulative woman who wants to destroy an innocent man's life, than that there's a man who they thought to be a nice guy and a feminist ally but who has used his power to cross others' boundaries. Or as if being stupid or tone deaf in interviews means that it wouldn't be possible that she was sexually harrased. As if someone would actually lie about SH because her hair care line wasn't successfull. That's so misogynyst and and deflecting. Whether she was tone deaf or not has nothing to do with her being a victim of SH.
As if we didn't know that it's incredibly rare that people lie about SH and SA. We know how people react to people who publicly make these claims. Lively have had to restrict commenting on her instagram because she gets so much hate comments. At the same time Baldoni's Instagram is full of people commenting Team Justin, Justice for Justice, etc. support for him. And this is precisely why people do not lie about sexual harrassment.