Blake Lively doesn’t break the circle | Opinion

We know that it is complicated to be a woman not only from the cheesy TV ads or from America Ferrera’s soliloquy in Barbie, but because life comes to rub it in our faces every day. What doesn’t happen every day is that Hollywood also puts its obstacles in the way and that, when everything seems to be moving forward, a stumble or a cancellation comes along to complicate things. The perfect Serena van der Woodsen, sorry, Blake Lively, is the latest woman whose head is claimed by the entertainment industry. She had everything to emerge, more than gracefully, elevated from a situation that was handed to her on a silver platter, but for now she will have to settle for getting out of the hole.

The actress is promoting her latest film these weeks, Break the circlea romantic drama based on a book by best-selling author Colleen Hoover, which she produces and stars in. She plays a florist who dates a neurosurgeon (actor Justin Baldoni, director of the film), who abuses her physically and mentally. Baldoni’s intense promotional campaign for the film has revolved around the importance of making gender-based violence visible. She has insisted on this issue in each and every one of her interviews, including on her social networks. Lively, on the other hand, has avoided it all the time and has focused on her looksbased on flowers, like her character’s profession. When asked a serious question, she decided to burst out laughing and justify herself by saying that she is a Virgo. The co-stars have not posed or given an interview together in recent weeks. They also do not follow each other on social media.

Of course, the Internet has been on fire with anger. What started with a couple of conspiracy theories on TikTok has turned into long videos analyzing every issue Lively has let slide or where she has been superficial or, some say, even cruel. Fans and haters have done their research to remember that Lively married fellow actor Ryan Reynolds on a former slave plantation—they had to apologize—or that her former colleagues Gossip Girl They have little to do with her. Some say that she wanted to take creative control of the film with Reynolds, which she has used to promote her shampoo and drinks brands. Others say that Baldoni treated her in a derogatory manner for having recently become a mother. But everyone has made Lively the hot topic of the moment on social media in the US.

The final straw came with Kjersti Flaa, a Norwegian journalist based in Los Angeles, who probably neither you nor I, who share a city and profession with her, knew until now, when we saw the resurrection of that X classic—a video from 2008. In it, Flaa interviews actresses Blake Lively, who was pregnant at the time, and Parker Posey on the occasion of the premiere of Cafe Societyby Woody Allen, in a conversation that starts off anything but well. “Congratulations on your baby bump,” the reporter kindly breaks the ice with the blonde star. The response couldn’t be more awkward: “Congratulations on your baby bump,” replies Lively, pointing at her. Sitting in a shirt and jeans, Flaa showed no signs of pregnancy. The viewer doesn’t know where to put themselves. Even less so when she explains to them that the film is visually very beautiful and that she really liked her clothes, to bring up the subject of wardrobe —Flaa is the founder of the Hollywood Fashion Academy—. Without looking at her interlocutor, Lively asks Posey if they will also ask men about their clothes.

Flaa has taken advantage of the hype and re-uploaded that talk to YouTube, titling it The Blake Lively interview that made me want to quit my job. It had more than three million views in one week. The final straw is that she says it was “the most uncomfortable interview” she has ever experienced. She thought about leaving the profession. Not only was she not pregnant, but she was also dealing with infertility problems.

It’s very easy to take sides, or even the other, but it’s harder to take sides. The truth is that Lively’s attitude in that interview is not exactly charming, but who knows how many she had done, how she was treated in the previous one? Yes, but isn’t that part of her profession? The conversation is open and lends itself to a tennis match, but Lively, praised for her taste in clothes, her apparently perfect marriage with four children and her life of love and luxury, is finding herself in a pillory that many have gone through before her. Many, yes, but not many. As my colleague rightly says Eneko Ruiz Jimenez in X, Lively has been using a promotional strategy similar to that of many men these weeks, but her cancellation affects names like Anne Hathaway or Amber Heard more than Tom Cruise or her own husband, the always charming Reynolds. Perhaps Lively has not managed to break the circle with her film, but neither has she broken the circle of machismo that continues to judge women with a stricter standard, especially if they are famous, especially in Hollywood and especially on social media. She has exposed herself to the wolves of tinsel and they have not hesitated to take a bite out of it, and it remains to be seen how and when she will return.