A-list actress Blake Lively is among the many celebrities currently facing scrutiny for their insensitive takes on marketing movies, and I can’t help but agree with the critics. Naming one of your cocktails after the abuser in your movie is a low I thought we’d never reach, yet here we are. Simultaneously promoting your hair care brand and fashion pieces adds fuel to the fire, but I can’t say I’m surprised; this is Hollywood after all.
The novel “It Ends With Us” by Colleen Hoover had an influx of fans due to its virality in 2022 on TikTok. In January 2023, the cast for a new film based on the novel was announced, with Lively starring as main character Lily Bloom.
Usually when a star as famous and widely loved as Lively gets cast in a movie, they are bathed in various compliments and exclamations of excitement. This was not the case for “It Ends With Us.” In fact, it was the opposite.
Fans of the book had premeditated ideas of who the perfect casting would be, and they believed Lively was too old to play Lily Bloom. Many felt Lively wouldn’t portray her character the way the book intended. I, however, didn’t have an issue with Lively’s casting because I only cared that she did her part in keeping the main topics of the book apparent. Sadly, she did not.
One of the focal points of the novel is that Bloom falls in love with a man named Ryle Kincaid, and he ends up being an abusive partner. Many fans, including myself, were wary to see if the adaptation would handle the abuse in a respectful and meaningful way.
As someone who has seen the movie, I think the domestic violence was conveyed in a just manner. What I don’t appreciate, however, is that the lead actress in the film seems to care more about fame and monetary gain rather than raising awareness.
During the press tour for “It Ends With Us,” she repeatedly implied that the movie was romantic and fun while saying things like, “grab your friends, wear your florals, and head out to see it,” without touching on the main aspect of the movie: domestic violence. Lively also took every opportunity she could to brag that Ryan Reynolds, Gigi Hadid, and herself all contributed to the outfits in the story.
Amidst the buzz surrounding the “It Ends With Us” film, people have started to dig up old interviews with Lively. In a 2016 interview with Kjersti Flaa that was meant to promote Lively’s upcoming film “Cafe Society,” Lively was unnecessarily rude to Flaa.
Flaa was aware that Lively had recently announced her pregnancy. Flaa decided to be kind and congratulate her by saying, “Congrats on your little bump.”
This was a kind, harmless gesture. Lively’s response, on the other hand, was not kind or harmless. Lively took it upon herself to respond with a snarky quip. Lively made remarks about Flaa’s “lovely lady lumps” and Flaa’s “little bump.” This alone is an extremely rude comment, but when you take into account that Flaa was struggling with infertility at the time, you have a lifelong hit.
In this same interview, Lively gets very frustrated with Flaa when asked about her wardrobe in “Cafe Society.” She goes to the point of implying that Flaa is being sexist with responses like, “Everyone wants to talk about the clothes, but I wonder if they would ask the men about the clothes.” After this, she blatantly ignores the interviewer and starts a side conversation with her co-star.
So, to be clear, Lively got overly frustrated with an innocent interviewer who asked about wardrobe in a film that has nothing to do with domestic violence, but she is overjoyed to give all the costume details for a movie where she represents an abuse survivor.
As if Lively didn’t do enough to seem ignorant to the horrors of abuse, she proceeded to promote an alcoholic drink with the name of the abuser in the movie used as the punchline. She decided to promote a cocktail called “Ryle You Wait.” Many fans, including myself, find this incredibly insensitive, as there is no joke to be made about a man who willingly pushes his wife down the stairs. This was yet another time where Lively had little regard for how her actions may impact victims of abuse.
It seems that Lively sees this movie as a way to promote all of her business because she also thoughtlessly decided to launch her haircare line amidst her “It Ends With Us” fame. Considering her products just make hair look frizzy and disheveled, I truly don’t understand why her brand couldn’t have waited.
In all of the time that Lively spent posting about buying her products, she could have spent posting domestic violence support hotlines. In fact, the only time she did this was when she received immense online scrutiny for her lack of care.
Blake Lively has potentially caused a lot of fans to go watch a domestic abuse film with the false idea that it will be fun and romantic. The movie depicts a young woman breaking the cycle of abuse, but Lively fails to break the cycle of celebrities who can’t take time to truly advocate real world issues to their fans.
