Blake Lively’s behavior during this 2016 interview totally changed the way I see her current legal situation:
Blake Lively being her bizarre, cruel self while attacking a well meaning inexperienced female journalist during an interview
Click link above to view (warning!!!) cringeworthy Lively interview from 2016
What cannot be denied:
Blake Lively’s behavior during this 2016 interview totally changed the way I see her current legal situation
Blake Lively announced her pregnancy to the public immediately prior to sitting down with budding female journalist Kjersti Flaa and costar Parker Posey to promote the film Cafe Society.
Without question, a permissive and deeply sexist culture does exist in entertainment journalism. Actresses constantly have to navigate overtly sexist questions and remarks or more subtle lines of questioning that undermine their authority as actors, trivialize their contribution to a film, or shift focus away from their professional careers in favor of questions regarding their clothes, bodies, or sexuality. ALL THAT SAID—what happened in this interview and YouTube is NOT at all similar to the injurious/harmful situations that fit the criteria described above. Upon watching the interview, I am confident any viewer would readily agree. This is an environment that is NOT threatening to Lively. This footage documents no sexual misconduct upon Lively. What is does depict is Lively being paranoid, unresponsive to reality checking, and cruel. Specifically we see:
In this interview, I see Lively interpret the interviewer’s very benign and reasonable attempt to build rapport as a personal attack and profoundly sexist violation.
Lively’s interpretation of an inexperienced female journalist’s earnest attempt to compliment Lively and demonstrate awareness of Lively’s broader status as a public figure was distorted, defensive, and immature.
In this situation there is a huge and bizarre gap between reality and Blake Lively’s perception of reality.
Even more disturbing is the way Lively responds to the perceived personal attack. She snaps back with a cruel and sarcastic insult.
That was not enough. Lively spends the rest of the interview punishing Flaa so severely that the footage is difficult to watch. She ignores Flaa for several minutes, engaging only with her costar, denying Flaa eye contact and opportunity to speak.
Lively’s behavior is vindictive and disgusting.
Watching two women with a great deal of influence and status gang up on a woman trying to navigate a career in journalism is disgusting.
This interview is extremely relevant to Lively’s current legal claims.
Lively’s self centered, distorted perception of reality, specifically with respect to incidents of perceived sexism or sexual harassment from the past are alarming.
Lively’s aggressive and retaliatory action against Flaa is unrelenting, out of proportion to the initial perceived offense, and lacks any intellectual or social insight.
I am unable to champion Lively’s current claims, having seen her character and behavior in this interview.
I hope that she suffers loss in her legal endeavors so that she may be motivated to become more educated. I hope she loses enough and is criticized enough that she has impetus to grow up.
As it is, she is actively working against progress in gender dynamics and female safety in our modern society.
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