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Amala Ekpunobi

Will “It Ends With Us” END Blake Lively’s Career?

Actress Blake Lively is in hot water for the way she has been promoting her new film “It Ends With Us” which deals with the sensitive issue of domestic violence. Should this be the end of her career, is this all being overblown, or somewhere in between? Let’s talk about it. 

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Duration:
1h 19m
Broadcast on:
14 Aug 2024
Audio Format:
mp3
(upbeat music) - Hi, everybody, and welcome to the show. I'm your host, Amal Epinobe, and today we're gonna be talking about Blake Lively, Justin Baldoni, and a new movie that's just come out titled It Ends With Us. Apparently, there's a lot of drama and controversy surrounding this movie with both Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively, and we're gonna sound like a bit of a celebrity podcast today because we're gonna be unpacking all of this. Blake Lively is specifically catching a lot of heat and she is in the hot water right now in reference to this film, and the PR surrounding this film, the way she's been talking about it, her reaction to everybody giving her feedback on this. So we're going to get into that in just a moment, but before we do, of course, we have Taylor in Nashville. - Hey, yeah, celebrity drama, not always my biggest area of interest, but we were talking a little about this before, and there's a lot of layers to this about social media outrage and other elements at play. So, and of course, it's an extremely serious topic. So even if you're not here for the celebrity gossip aspect of the conversation, I think there's a lot more meat on the bone there, so to speak, so stay with us. - Yeah, we're gonna be talking about book two movie adaptations. We're gonna be talking about the glamorization of certain traumatic events in people's lives, the romance of it all, and if there can be romance in it, the way that these different PR outlets and marketing apparatuses cover these movies, and specifically through the lens of what's happened with It Ends With Us. Now, for those of you who are not familiar with this movie, it was, of course, a book written by Colleen Hoover, who is this really big romance novelist. She's super popular, specifically amongst women, and her It Ends With Us story is a story of spoiler alert. - For those of you who have not read the book and have not seen this movie, we are gonna talk about it, okay? - It's about domestic violence, and our two leads in this now movie It Ends With Us are here in Blake Lively in Justin Baldoni. Justin Baldoni, you may know from Jane the Virgin, if you've watched that whole TV series. He also directed a movie titled Five Feet Apart about a romance between two individuals with cystic fibrosis, I believe in that film, which we'll talk about that in just a little bit. And of course, Blake Lively, you know her from Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, The Age of Adeline, a gossip girl, and Taylor's like, I don't know them from any of these. - I don't know any of those things. I know her as Ryan Reynolds' wife, and my wife likes her pretty dresses when she goes to events and stuff. That's about all I know about her. - There you go, yeah, she is a fashion icon, and I guess, yeah, for the men, you may know her as Ryan Reynolds' wife. Okay, they star in this movie now, a title that ends with us, that follows the story of Lily Bloom, played by Blake Lively, and Ryle, played by Justin Baldoni. And just to give, I guess, a brief synopsis slash summary of the story, it's about Lily's relationship with Ryle plus her own life and the things that she's trying to pursue. And this relationship with Ryle starts off very romantic with a spark of energy and turns toxic as it is revealed that Ryle is actually a domestic abuser. So she grapples with that in her relationship with him on multiple occasions. She also has a history of domestic violence within her family, I believe her father specifically. And then we go through the sort of push and pull of being in a relationship with somebody that may have started out good and who may have really good characteristics, but you come to find a super traumatic, toxic. It's a really big undertaking for a book and also for a film. And I think that was widely known, at least by most people participating in this film. Of course, when we talk about domestic violence, many, both men and women, have suffered of domestic violence. And this movie specifically was sort of covering this idea of why people end up staying in relationships that do end up being violent and really portraying Justin Baldoni's character, Ryle, as somebody who is multifaceted, has a lot of charm and good qualities, but also has this much darker violent side to him. And it really gave voice to, I think, the aspect that a lot of women deal with in domestic violence relationships of wanting to stay for somebody who you thought was great or you think could be better and grappling with having to make that choice to leave. So not a small subject matter, a very intense subject matter. And I guess Blake Lively may have lost her footing in talking about that subject matter, specifically in the marketing and PR and some of the press tours that are involved in talking about a movie. First, I'm gonna show you Justin Baldoni, discussing it ends with us and his role, playing Ryle, a very complex role, and you guys can check it out and see what you think. - As a man, I'm always gonna come with my own biases. And it's one of the reasons I was afraid to direct this movie, let alone act in it. And I wanted to make sure this film always had a female gaze and I was never putting myself into it. But one of the things that I think is very easy to say, especially for us men, is when we maybe talk to somebody who's in the situation or we read a book or we hear a news story, the question that's always asked is why did she stay? And that's the wrong question. What we need to be asking ourselves is why do men harm? - Yes. - And that was the big thing for me and what I've learned more and more and more of is like, these women who experienced this every single day, there's real love there. There's charm, there's charisma, there's passion, there's this belief that they can be better. And it's not so simple. So our friends at No More, I'm wearing their pen right now, they were the ones who really worked with me to help me make this film as truthful as possible. - Okay, so there you go. A little taste of what he's doing out on the press tour for this film, working with different domestic violence organizations. I'm sure reaching out to both women and men who are victims of domestic violence and trying to get an all-encompassing view of how he should talk about this film and how he should direct this film. Now we're gonna juxtapose that with some of what Blake Lively has been doing out on the press tour that is really catching her in some heat. And there's more to unpack as we go through this story, but just watch so that you can get a feel for why you might be hearing the name Blake Lively quite a bit lately. - The work that went into it put about the why behind it. If a Lily Bloom in real life can sit in this theater and maybe make a different choice for herself than what's made for her. Maybe she sees herself on that screen and chooses something different for herself. That's why I made it. - What's your childhood dream? - To wear Britney Spears' Versace dress. - The one thing you want people to take away from this project for what you say. - Hope, and that everybody has the ability to end a cycle that they didn't ask for. We can all say it ends with us in our life. - That's great. - Yes. - What did you love about her? - I just love that she was just like an amalgamation of contradictions and it made perfect sense for her. So she's incredibly strong and self-assured and who she is, yet she's vulnerable and she's tender and she gets lost. I love that she was masculine and feminine. I love that she liked old things and the new shiny things. That she was very utility and practical, but sort of over the top and glamorous and other moments. - This is her night, mister. - No, this isn't my night. This is a night for all the women who we made this movie for. - It ends with us is in theaters now. So grab your friends, wear your florals, and head out to see it. - The question is up. - And I'm gonna pause there. That is a big clip that is circulating right now that a lot of people are pissed about. Okay, you know, I'll quickly explain why. She's saying, you know, it's out now. Grab your friends, wear your florals because the whole thing is like Lily Bloom is this florist and she's opening up a flower shop. And that was, I guess, a lot of the marketing that people saw from this film and they thought it was gonna be some like cutesy rom-com where you grab a ton of your best friends and you go and watch it and Lily and Ryall fall in love. And then they get into the movie theater and it ends up being a film about domestic violence. And now a lot of domestic violence survivors are saying, this was poorly marketed. How could you say something like that, leaving them in anticipation of a sort of romantic comedy type of thing and then getting something wholly different on the other end? So we'll leave you with that and we'll continue watching. It's always asked, is why did she stay? And that's the wrong question. We need to be asking ourselves, is why do men harm? Yes. And that was the big thing for me and what I've learned more and more and more of is like, you know, these women who experienced this every single day, there's real love there. You know, there's charm, there's charisma, there's passion, there's this belief that they can be better and it's not so simple. So our friends know more, I'm wearing their pen right now. They were the ones who really worked with me to help me make this film as truthful as possible and hopefully do justice all the way. I just like this. I just like this. (gentle music) I also had to protect Lily's character as the movie simply won't work. If you don't believe that she really loves it, the audience has to see in "Rio," what Lily sees in "Rio." And if we don't buy the relationship, we don't buy that she's in love with her, then the choice she makes at the end of the movie does not mean it's much. I really feel like we delivered a story that's emotional and it's fun and it's funny and it's painful and it's scary and it's tragic and it's inspiring. And that's what life is. What was it like for you to read Lily's character for the first time? Someone who spoke a strong woman and a victim of domestic abuse and how did you break her to life? Well, I think she's so much more than just a victim of domestic abuse. That's something that happened to her but nothing anyone person did to her can define her. And she's a woman of multitude. She's an entrepreneur, a shop owner, an artist, a mother, a daughter, a friend, a sister, a lover. She's all of these things. And so to get to play a woman who experiences so many things and all the colors of the human emotion which is such a gift. Okay, so there you go. That pretty much explains it. I could show you one more clip, but first we'll talk about it a little bit more. The main criticisms that she's getting are how dare you promote a hair care line through this film, which is about such a serious and intense topic. How dare you say, bring your besties and wear florals to this film and not really talk about the intensity of the film itself. And then of course they're juxtaposing her coverage of it ends with us with Justin Valdones. And there seems to be other drama mixed in with this cast. None of the cast follows Justin Valdone on social media. I believe many have actually unfollowed him. And he's the director of this film as well as the star. So something interesting clearly must have gone on there. What it is, we do not know. And there seems to be a bit of a split between the people who were invested in this film. And many are focusing on that and saying there seems to be some sort of problem with Justin Valdone. Others are turning their heads towards Blake Lively and saying with all the tone deaf marketing and the things that she's saying in these interviews, it's clear that she is in fact the problem in it ends with us. And then the film in general is being accused of glamorizing domestic violence. So I don't know. I'll show you some maybe funnier criticism that Blake Lively is getting on the internet. Some people are making jokes of course about her saying wear your florals. Here's one where somebody says if other movies were marketed like it ends with us. - Are you ready for the hottest zero summary yet? Grab your champagne and let's storm the beaches of France and my new movie, Saving Private Ryan. It's about a bunch of hot guys looking for Matt Damon and are we all? - It's about a bunch of hot guys looking for Matt Damon and aren't we all? You know, I sorta get it. She could have definitely spoken more eloquently and more seriously about this movie and about what it entails. Given that it is pretty serious and you're hoping, hopefully, that the movie makes an impact on people who maybe are experiencing domestic violence, who maybe don't experience domestic violence, but you want them to understand what it's like. And maybe grab a bestie and wear your florals was not the best way. And I feel like there must have been a split amongst this cast about how this movie was going to be marketed because you have some of them leaning into the seriousness of it. Justin Beldoni specifically, I think he's at the top of the hierarchy on that one. And then you have others who are sort of spinning it as this sort of frilly rom-com. It's gonna be so fun. It's gonna be so funny. And it actually brings up just an interesting, I think, divide on the subject of trauma and things like domestic violence itself. Blake Lively is sort of taking this spin on the film of saying where it's dark and horrifying and violent. There's also a lot of fun. There's also a lot of light. There's also a lot of levity to it. And I want to package Lily Bloom, this character as being something more than a victim of domestic violence and that it's not something that she has to be defined by. Meanwhile, Justin Beldoni is sort of leaning on the seriousness of the impact of domestic violence in talking about how it's something that sort of permeates the rest of your life from the moment that it happens. And that seems to be where a big part of the argument is coming from. You mix it in with a little bit of Blake Lively's lack of self-awareness and it really creates the perfect cocktail for her to not come out of this on top. And when I talk about that lack of self-awareness, this next clip pretty much sums it up. This is her being asked. I'll let you hear the question yourself, actually. - Sorry with you, most of us, if we're lucky enough to run into a celebrity in public, we only have a few moments to maybe speak with you guys. But for people who see this movie, who relate to the topics of this movie on a deeply personal level, they're really gonna wanna talk to you. This movie is gonna affect people and they're gonna wanna tell you about their lives. So if someone understands the themes of this movie, comes across you in public and they wanna really talk to you, what's the best way for them to be able to talk to you about this? How would you recommend they go about it? - I like asking for like my address or my phone number or like my location share. I could just location share you and then we could, (laughing) - Social security number. - I'm a Virgo, so I'm like, are we talking logistics? Are we talking emotionally? - Yeah, what's been-- - And you can watch, I just wanna replay her response to that one more time. - To be able to talk. - Watch her co-star who plays Atlas in the film, grimace as she begins to give her answer to this question. - You about this. How would you recommend they go about it? - I like asking for like my address or my phone number or like my location share, or I could just location share you and then we could-- (laughing) - Social security number. - You can see the emotion, leave the space as the answer comes out of her mouth. Now, it's undeniably tone deaf, the answer. To somebody asking you, what do you do if a fan of yours wants to talk to you about their domestic violence situation and the abuse that they've endured and this traumatic thing and then you give this sort of sarcastic answer about location share and then wanting to know where you are at all times. I don't know that, maybe should Blake Lively's like so big that they didn't prep her for how to talk about this film because oftentimes they'll do PR training for films, especially if you're like a newer actor on the scene but maybe because Blake Lively's isn't a much higher role in this film and she was deeply involved. Some even say with the direction of this film in a lot of different ways and that it ends with us ended up going more in her direction than Justin Valdones that she didn't really go through PR training necessary to talk about a topic like this and that's why we're getting some of these clips but on the other hand, I see clips of Blake Lively talking about Lily Bloom and her as a victim and how she views identifying with that traumatic experience and I'm thinking y'all may not like what she's saying but I agree with her and we're gonna show a clip here that's been circulating of her being interviewed for Deadline and a trauma therapist reacting to it on the other end and I want you guys to tell me what you think about this one. - Message that you hope that they take away from you. - I think that you are so much and not to minimize it anyway but you're so much more than just a survivor or just a victim, well that is a huge thing. You are a person of multitudes and what someone has done to you doesn't define you. You define you and what you have in you and what you're capable of and what you have done and are doing and will do is so much bigger than anything anyone else can do to you. Blake, is anyone else seen on the press that Blake is doing for this movie and just recognizing how completely out of touch it is? And as a therapist who specializes in trauma, the reason this response is just so troublesome is it just completely misses the mark on understanding what trauma does to the mind, body and soul. Anyone who has experienced domestic violence or works individuals who have or knows someone has, knows it is not just something that you can choose to not be defined by. Well, we love that in theory, right? That we can just turn it off and be fine. That's not how trauma works. And of course, if this is part of your story you resonate with us too, of course there is more life and beauty and truth and deepness in who you are. But I think that Blake is not choosing to combine them. She's choosing to separate them. Saying domestic violence happened. Okay, let's push it aside because you're all these beautiful things. When in reality, trauma work and trauma healing allows us to combine what has happened in the past with who you truly are in the present to give you this full round of the picture of healing and truth in who you are. And it's like she just missed the entire point of the book and I wasn't in the movie yet, I'm about to. But even look how she reacts to him asking this question. - Survivors of generational trauma and domestic abuse are gonna see this film. I'm curious, what is the-- - The shifting eyes with the tongue, it is all this body's way of saying I'm annoyed and I'm kind of over this question and I'm really ready to get on with it. And then the rest of the press tour is about dresses and wardrobe and seeing it with florals with your friends. - The wardrobe was a really critical part of that storytelling and I'm really, really proud of it. But I'm wearing like a ton of like bodey and vintage and it's some of my favorite wardrobe I've ever worn. - And while I love the positivity and being able to promote light in life, oftentimes trauma survivors are told to just make light of their story. Just pretend everything's okay, your story's too heavy. I don't wanna hear that. And I feel like her actions are doing just that. Her actions are continuing to make victims and survivors of domestic abuse and trauma feel like their story is too heavy to even talk about. - Okay. You all know when you sit down and you're listening to an argument between two people and you're like, okay, what you just said was right, but everything you just said after that was wrong. And then you look at the other person, you're like, okay, what you just said was okay, but everything you just said after that is wrong. That's how I feel watching this right now. Like I'm watching two people who have like good and bad aspects of themselves and they're just shining through, but one person thinks they're holy, right? The other person thinks they're holy, right? In my opinion, with what I heard from Blake Lively, which was, I don't want to minimize the situation that is domestic violence. But I also through this story wanted to tell victims and survivors that you don't have to be defined by this thing that happened to you in your life. Oh, I see anything wrong with that message. Nothing at all. And this therapist is twisting it and saying that what Blake is really saying is that the story doesn't, nobody wants to hear your story. It's too much for us to hear. You just need to turn it off and keep going. I don't know that she ever said that. In fact, if she thought the stories of domestic violence survivors should not be heard, she probably would have never made the film in the first place. She probably would have never been involved with, it ends with us in the first place. At the same time, I can see some of the tone deafness in the other interview clips where Blake Lively is being questioned about this film. And maybe she's sort of over of answering the same question over and over. Maybe she has a few little narcissistic tendencies where she wants to talk about herself and pat herself on the back and talk about her fashion. But that doesn't make the entirety of what she's saying wrong, if that makes sense. So I find myself sitting here like, this is getting a lot of hype and people are making thousands of videos about this on the internet and people are saying Blake Lively's career has been ended and she's a Nepo baby who didn't deserve this opportunity in the first place. And she's so wrong about domestic violence. And while I can see some tone deafness, I'm not seeing much more than that. - And this is really interesting, Amla. We did a poll. As you said, you wanted to hear from the audience. And we asked you guys, is a therapist right that Blake Lively's take on the film's message is troublesome? And it split pretty evenly. Yes, 32% no, 34% and show results, 34%. So some fensitters and a pretty evenly split audience. It appears very interesting. - Yeah, and I can see how that would play out in reality. I think you see so many different groups of people. There are people that really go through a traumatic event in their life and it can become them in a sense. And I don't mean that in a negative sense, but that traumatic event sets them on a new path where it is something that they are maybe constantly reminded of or it's something that they wanna do advocacy for. And they start working with organizations that are based around a traumatic event that they went through and they really use it as a positive force, but it also remains a part of their life. And it remains a deeply set part of their story and their identity. And if that works for you and you're gaining positive results from that and it's helping you lead a healthy lifestyle, that's fine. But I don't know why we can't give credence to the opposite story, not even the opposite, just a different way of handling traumatic events where somebody goes, you know what? I did experience that. I had to sit with it. I had to process it. But I realized that that is not going to define me and it's not going to be a part of my identity moving forward. And there are so many other parts of myself that I feel like should take priority over a traumatic event that I really have no say in, somebody else imposed upon me. Why are those two things not allowed to exist at the same time? And that seems to be a lot of the criticism that Blake Liveley is receiving, especially from a few domestic violence survivors out there, they're saying, well, I am defined by this thing and it's not my fault and it is something that's constantly going to be a part of my life. It is the lens through which I look through the world and how dare you say that this is not something to identify us. And I think there's room for a lot of different interpretations of how we deal with trauma and how we deal with horrible things that happen in our lives and it's different strokes for different folks. So her receiving criticism for that statement in particular is really not making sense to me. - Yeah, just as you're talking, I think it should be pretty clear that like, you can process something healthily and the way that that ends up looking like in your life is that you leave it completely behind, you don't really think about it anymore, or you can process it healthily and you're very involved in the advocacy in whatever area of trauma that you've experienced or the opposite, you can process something unhealthily and then you're obsessed with that issue, you carry it with you, it hovers over you, or you can process it unhealthily and you're just jamming it down and not confronting it. And so it's not as clear a cut as I feel like the TikTok psychotherapist or therapist is making it out to be necessarily. And just to attribute, it just seems to be going a little far, especially when you're piling on, like reading into her body language and things like that, it's maybe a bridge too far and we could be a little bit more charitable with how we are interpreting things. And that being said, obviously I agree with you that like there was inklings of maybe some narcissism, maybe some tone deaf and at least a missed opportunity on Blake's part to maybe come across better for her own sake but also in a way that doesn't take away as much from the film's message and the seriousness of it. - Yeah, 100%, but I will, like in watching that clip, it didn't make me like dislike Blake Lively anymore, it made me question therapists. If that's your interpretation of what she said, imagine you do get a client who has Blake Lively's view on their trauma and you redirect them in the direction of, oh no, it has to be something that deeply impacts you for the rest of your life and it's the lens through which you look at the world. That seems pretty harmful given that people are different and they process things in different ways and to not give voice to that I think is dangerous but we're actually gonna watch a TikTok. This has 180,000 likes, over 180,000 likes from a domestic violence survivor themselves talking about Blake Lively, giving a message to Blake Lively, let's hear it. - This message is for Blake Lively, hi Blake. I am a domestic violence survivor. I heart honestly just broke for the entire survivor community because with all due respect in this movie, you represented us and you're preparing for a role. It's your job, right? It's your job to study the character that you're playing. Domestic violence is not an intense topic. How many times have I seen it in the media talking about, well, you know, you guys are really, like you're acting out intense scenes, like very emotional, talking about emotional. No, this is domestic violence. Domestic violence, one in three women. Are domestic violence survivors or? - Okay, pause. Does something being frequent make it less intense? Use the question. She says domestic violence is not an intense subject matter because it happens often. I don't know that it makes it any less intense or any less emotional, but let us continue. - Every nine seconds, Blake, a woman in America calls a DV hotline. 20,000 calls a day are made up to and possibly more than 11 women every single day in the United States of America alone lose their lives to DV, 78% of those women, Blake, lose their lives trying to leave. And you have the audacity to show up to the premiere and tell your audience and have influencers promote it. Like it's the sequel to Barbie. You could have gone about this so differently in such a respectful, tactful, gentle understanding, advocacy, bringing awareness, manner, warning your audience. 33% of the women in that audience are currently victims or are survivors. And every other woman in that room knows a domestic violence survivor. It's either their mother, their aunt, their sister, their niece, their cousin, their daughter. And you told these women to show up in bright floral, bring your besties. My mind is blown that you use this as an opportunity to not only compete with box office sales for your husband and his premiere of Deadpool, but you also use this as an opportunity to promote a hair care line. There was not bringing advocacy awareness, education about the effects of domestic violence. No, you use this for you. You use this for you. And I heard you talking about how literally we talk about heavy subjects and everything. But we didn't want this, we didn't want it to be the feature. We didn't want it to be her identity. We didn't want, I didn't want to play a character where her victimhood is her identity. Being a domestic violence survivor, Blake, permeates my entire being. And it permeates the being of every woman who has survived DV and has found the insurmountable strength to leave windshield. - Okay, I'm gonna pause really quick just to unpack some of this. Okay, is it from a PR standpoint, just not great to be promoting a hair care line and talking about your husband's other film when you have something like this series coming out from a PR perspective, just wouldn't do that. How'd you done it with any other film? It probably would have been fine. But because this is such a subject for so many, it involved, might have been a misstep on behalf of Blake Lively, her management team, whatever. But this idea that domestic violence victims are a monolith and that she in taking on this role is a representative of all of them is incorrect. And that's exactly what this woman is saying. She's saying as a domestic violence survivor, this permeates every part of my being, okay? We can grant that for you that as an individual, that is the case. Who are you to say that is the case for every other victim of domestic violence, that this movie spoke to no one? When I see videos of other women who are saying, "I'm a victim of domestic violence," and I feel like this movie did properly represent me, and I do like to hear this idea that it is not something that I have to identify as and it's not something that is my total being for the rest of my life. So then it becomes who are you to speak on behalf of every other survivor of domestic violence just because of what you went through? And that doesn't minimize what you went through. It's just to say, you shouldn't minimize the voices of people who have other opinions on how they've dealt with their trauma. So a lot of the heat that Blake Lively is getting, I can understand of being tone deaf, missing the mark a little bit, not saying the right things, maybe Justin Baldoni is doing better at voicing what this movie is about and the impact that he wants it to have on people, but this seems like a missed point in what Blake Lively is saying. And just because you don't like her, you don't like her personality, which in a lot of ways I can understand, does not mean we can throw the baby out with the bathwater when she's saying something that actually is valid and has value for a lot of people and many of whom are survivors of domestic violence. - She was afraid that it would cost her her life. It is what she pulls on every single day when she gathers the strength to keep going. Her resilience, her tenacity. - I have seen women showing up to this premiere, leaving re-traumatized because they didn't know that this movie was about domestic violence. There was not care that was put into your viewers. You featured this as a woman, as a rom-com, as a rom-com, as a DV survivor, I want to watch rom-coms where it is impossibly happily ever after and how it is funny and hilarious. I don't need to be re-traumatized. I don't need to be reminded of how my ex picked me up by my neck and threw me down a staircase, breaking my elbow, my shoulder cracking my ribs. I don't need to be reminded about how many times he almost took my life. I don't need to be reminded about how many times I should have left and stayed and enabled and justified the abuse thinking that I could fix him. I don't need to be reminded because I have it in my memory. It is locked and burned in my mind for the rest of my life, Blake. Women are upset everywhere because we feel invalidated. We feel like something that defines us so largely was nothing more than a PR stunt for you to further your career. And all that I'm saying with all the love in my heart as a survivor is please do better in representing us, bringing awareness, advocating for us and spreading education for us instead of just a $50 million box office movie premiere. That's okay, there's so much here. And this is why when I first started talking about this, I'm like, oh, this is gonna be celebrity drama. I don't know how deeply I wanna go into this, but it actually opens up a lot of different issues with our culture, with trigger warning, culture, wanting to be warned, thinking people are a representative of your community when in fact nobody is a representative of an entire community and we should never task anybody, especially celebrities who are acting in movies with that as a responsibility and holding them accountable to what? A million different people, more than a million. She's claiming a third of women. So a third of women's experience, she's supposed to be helped to account for how a third of the female population interprets her role in this film, her role on the press tour for this film, that does not make sense to me. And I can understand thinking you're going into a rom-com because Blake Lively said, bring your besties and wear florals and then you go in the theater and it ends up being about domestic violence and it's something that you've experienced and you weren't ready for it and it brings up some strange feelings or re-traumatizes you as this woman says, the onus is really on the person going to the movie. You know, I do not go to a movie if I feel like I'm going to be blindsided by something that is going to re-traumatize me and put me down a rabbit hole that's going to set my life in a new path. A quick Google search would tell you what this movie is about. If you didn't know the book, it ends with us by Colleen Hoover. You could have looked up a summary, a synopsis of the book to know exactly what movie you were walking into. I'm sorry that Blake Lively said, bring your besties and wear florals, but also if you want to do that for this film, you could. And if that's what she wanted to go with, with in seeing it ends with us and you were a super big Colleen Hoover fan who really loved Emily Bloom and loved that she was opening up this flower shop and loved that she was a survivor of domestic violence and that she ends up empowering herself. Maybe you would want to dress in florals and go to this movie theater with your best friends to sort of feel this film together and experience it. So I'm just not understanding this level of outrage. It feels like it's been cranked to 10 in the direction of Blake Lively for something that really you need to hold yourself accountable for. We cannot give trigger warnings to every single movie that has something that might re-traumatize somebody or bring up something they don't like. And in fact, many places are trying that now. I went to go watch Gone with the Wind on HBO Max and you click on the movie. This is a movie I've seen a thousand times by the way, but if you hadn't seen Gone with the Wind, if you go to watch it on HBO Max, they play you a three minute warning about all the different features in this film and the fact that there are racist undertones in this films and racial depictions of black people and through this trigger warning of what's in the film, they explain to you almost the entirety of the plot. If I go into a movie and I'm like, "Oh, I don't know what this movie's about. "I'm gonna go sit in the theater "and I'm gonna watch it." And I get a trigger warning that tells me, you know, this movie is gonna feature domestic violence or all this, okay, well, there's that plot twist. I was walking into a movie and I'm watching Lily and Ryle meet one another and Ryle is super charming and a big part of the book from Colleen Hoover is that it is this sort of crazy thing 'cause Ryle was so charming and all of a sudden he turns violent, but guess what, you'll get that trigger warning at the beginning of the movie now because we want to worry about whether or not people are going to be impacted by a film that they can look up before they show up to the theater. And you know, I don't wanna be mean to people who are survivors of abuse. I by no means wanna come off in that light, but think of anything that you can have a trigger warning for and think of now society packaging everything to cushion it for that person who could be impacted by that. Is that the way to go? And if you are a domestic violence survivor or a survivor of anything traumatic or you know, anything that you can think of, just do your own thought experiment here. Is it really for the best of our mental fortitude to be warned for everything that might possibly bring up those feelings for us and trigger us in that way? In fact, there's a lot of studies done on trigger warnings, many of which indicate that if you give a trigger warning to somebody before they watch a film and let them know that this is something they might run into in the film, it actually induces anxiety before we know whether or not that person is actually going to be triggered by what they see. So it's not a helpful thing to implement in our movies or in daily society at all. So to get upset about the packaging of this film, the PR surrounding this film, it's just a bit much and it does leave me wondering, do people just want to be triggered? Like is this just the next cycle in, I don't know, cancel culture or just wanting to have something to be up and arms about? Because that's how it starts to feel when every other week we're getting a new story about a new celebrity and then you look into what they did and you're like, oh, okay. Yeah, I could see how that could be seen as bad or a little different. But it's not any worse than like an off comment that a family member makes at Thanksgiving dinner where you're like, oh, shouldn't have said that. But now it's like we're seeing red over it and making TikTok videos that are five minutes long and saying they need to be held accountable or they should never have a movie career ever again 'cause they're a NEPO baby and this is influencing the way they're talking about domestic violence and they don't care about us and this is not a proper representation of our community. Chill, chill. I know it's tough. We've been through tough things. We've been traumatized in our lives. We've gone through hard things and it's tough to have those things brought up. It's even tougher when they're brought up in ways that we're unprepared for. But is that the fault of the person that you are going through certain emotions? Probably not. It's probably not. Sorry, no, don't mean to laugh, but come on now. We can't like maybe prove everything for adult people. Yeah, I saw a couple of good comments in the chat here I wanted to read. This is from Malia Michelle who says, I've been raped, it is triggering. I'm also a 36 year old and I know I can turn off the TV. And Tiffany says, I learned the hard way years ago to Google before going to a movie and I'm not mad at the marketing or director or actors or anyone else. I take responsibility that I should have Googled first. Yeah, and I just don't know like how much farther we can go with this. And a lot of people are commenting. Let me find one. It's not just this, on Malia. She's had this energy for a while. Nobody's expecting perfection. They are expecting being professional. She acts like a little kid. Now, I'll be the first to say, I am not a Blake Lively Stan. In fact, I was talking to Taylor about this before the show and I was like, yeah, it's just something off about Blake Lively. There's something that I don't like about her and there's an energy that she gives off that is just not for me. But if it's for other people, that's okay. I hold the same energy with Ryan Reynolds, which was really my initial thing about Blake Lively. It's just like, I don't like Ryan Reynolds. I don't like his energy. He gives off fakeness to me. Anybody who's constantly trying to have a joke and is always on that comedic edge and nothing's ever serious. I can't vibe with it. So if Blake Lively's really into that, I'm wondering what her personality's like and the more interviews I see of her, the more I'm like, ah, she's not for me. But if other people like Blake Lively, that's fine. And the reality is other people like Blake Lively. And that's okay. Like she doesn't need to be canceled on the other end of what she's doing with this movie. But if you don't like her and you don't like the movie or you don't like the way this story's being told or the things she's saying, by all means, don't support Blake Lively moving forward if that's what you wanna do. But this sort of impactful force that we wanna have on this woman's career over some stuff she said in interviews is just like, it's a bit much. And of course, I think she's trying to mend this a little bit. I think yesterday she posted a little screenshot on her Instagram story of like, hotlines you can reach out to for domestic violence. That was a big complaint with this film that when the film ended, they didn't do that typical thing that you see in TV shows and movies where it says if you are somebody who is struggling with domestic violence or knows somebody who is, here's a hotline you can reach out to. And you know, fair, I guess, but also come on now. Like how many more steps does somebody need to like hold your hand and walk you through in this life that we can't do like a quick Google search after we watch the film before somebody who's impacted by this problem. I don't think all of the onus lies on the creators of pieces of art to do this. And the idea that this movie needs to be wholly representative of every single victim of domestic violence is just totally unrealistic. And I'm sure there's somebody's story out there that they're watching it ends with us and it really does resonate with them. And they're saying, well, that's exactly what I've gone through. The movie wouldn't be as successful as it is if that were not the case. So how many stories are we supposed to like see in a film? In my opinion, it's just, you know, the one story and maybe that resonates with you and maybe it doesn't. And you can critique it and talk about it, but this like hatred being spewed towards her seems unwarranted. - Yeah, it seems like a little bit of misplaced anger or zeal and hopefully we've been clear that yeah, she has been toned death, that she has come off as narcissistic. She hasn't really taken on the burden of portraying this and embodying this character that's gonna mean so much or so many people with as much seriousness as she probably should have. And but having said that, like at making her public enemy number one, funneling all this energy toward her, making her the great villain of this entire book, this entire story is really misguided. And the story itself was so popular as a book and then as a film because it did for many victims, resonate and for many women ring true, ring home and it made you sit in the reality of like, wow, this can happen. I understand it's taking a more immersive look at how you can find yourself in a situation like this. And I think it's unfortunate that all of this has become about Blake Lively instead of being about the issue of domestic violence and that we can't sit in that reality and ask ourselves the things that the film and the book are presumably wanting us to ask about how does one come to the point where they commit domestic violence? How does a woman find herself in that situation? I've also seen a few comments from men who have been self-versed of domestic violence by the way. So that's I think also worth messaging, worth thinking about. But you know, a good story, a gripping story, a story that's true to life and true to reality shouldn't have that impact on you and make you think and hopefully change your perspective or create an opening in your heart, in your soul, whatever, to reflect and to hopefully make a difference and bring this issue home to a lot of people. And I think a lot of that is just being unfortunately lost in making it all about Blake Lively. And she's the great villain in this story instead of domestic violence itself. This is kind of sad. Yeah, and then there's this sort of like broader claim about the film and maybe even the book. Some are splitting the book up from the film and saying the film is not an accurate representation or the way of the PR around the film is it's sort of separate from the book. But there's this accusation that it's glamorizing or romanticizing domestic violence. And I really need somebody who believes this about the film or about Blake Lively to unpack this for me. How one is romanticizing or glamorizing domestic violence through this film or through the way that she's talking about it. She says, I don't wanna minimize the impact of domestic violence, but it does not need to define you as a person. A statement that I wholly stand by, not only in regard to domestic violence, but in regard to trauma of any kind as a whole. And that's not to mean that we don't feel it, that we don't unpack it in our lives, that we don't deal with the feelings that come from it, but that it does not need to define us for the rest of our lives moving forward. What about that is romanticizing or glamorizing domestic violence? And I remember when I was 14, the Fault in Our Stars, that movie came out. And for those of you who are unaware, The Fault in Our Stars was a young adult novel written by John Green that focused around these two characters, Hazel and Augustus. Hazel had cancer and she met Augustus who was in remission from cancer. And they have this really beautiful love story. And I won't spoil how it ends. But the film for that movie came out in 2014. I was so excited. I love The Fault in Our Stars. I read the book, front to back several times, go to the theater. And then the controversy after that was like, how dare John Green write this book, allow it to be adapted into a movie, it glamorizes and romanticizes cancer. And I just don't understand the accusation. Is it because we have the idea of domestic violence or of cancer enmeshed with this idea of romance because you have people falling in love and dealing with the tumultuous nature of a relationship that involves things like cancer and domestic violence? Is that what you feel romanticizes the outcome? Is it because you think Blake Lively is downplaying the idea of domestic violence when she says that there are multitudes to a person, including the trauma that they experience and everything after and who they are beyond that violence and that trauma? I'm just not getting the accusation. And I can get that if you're a young person who read the book or didn't read the book and you go and watch the movie or you watch The Fault in Our Stars, you might think, I could see a young person thinking like, "Oh my gosh, that's so beautiful." Like what a beautiful life it is to like have this traumatic event of cancer and fall in love with somebody and then all the deep love of losing somebody or in the domestic violence sense. I'm not sure how you can romanticize that unless you're pretty like ignorant and wants to experience that outside of watching the film or think that it's something that's not that bad outside of watching the film. When the film makes it abundantly clear, I feel how bad that experience actually is. Y'all are gonna have to explain that accusation to me because it is one that I've seen over and over with films and books that cover heavy topics, especially when they're interwoven with things like comedy or romance or fun of any kind. But I'm just not understanding how she has romanticized or glamorized, meaning that you are sort of communicating to people that this is something good or at the very least not something bad through this film and through her rhetoric on the film. Yeah, that's one that I didn't get. I didn't get it in 2014 with "The Fault in Our Stars." I don't get it with this film either. And in a lot of ways, I could see somebody being a victim of any sort of trauma, be it cancer, be it domestic violence and then having a movie like this pop up and you have these maybe unresolved feelings from what you've gone through and the movie reignites that and you wanna direct those feelings towards somebody or you feel like it wasn't dealt with properly or you feel like it wasn't a totally accurate representation of you and your experience. So you find the person to direct that towards and in this case, it's Blake Lively because let's be honest, she doesn't have the greatest personality and she's not covering this in the best way. So it's like, ugh, might as well, but I don't know. It seems a little overblown. There's some valid criticism mixed in there, which I feel like we covered throughout this and hopefully we got it all. I'm sure there's more clips, but not all of it is all that valid. Anything else you'd like to add on your subjects, Taylor, before we take it to your super chats on this? - Not much. I mean, we talked a little before going live about how there is a little bit of an element of, just an appetite out there for drama as well on social media and sort of like being able to have this pile on, simplistic narrative. Okay, this person didn't have the right outlook on this or the right opinion or right approach. And it's this really big issue and I have a chance to kind of show my, that I'm on the right side of things and pile on the bad person who's not. And we've seen that dynamic play out over and over again. Of course you can't really, she did have some missteps and it is a serious issue as you can't run too far with that. But I feel like we all kind of know that there is like a undercurrent of that social media cancel culture energy that's sort of surrounding this that is just a little distasteful. And so I guess if there's anything else to add, maybe that. - Yeah, I think that pretty much covers it. And maybe it was, people were ready to bring her down a peg as well, given the sort of like a lore of Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds, they are this sort of like it couple that just like remains and has remained in Hollywood for quite some time and hasn't been steeped in very much controversy. So maybe it was their time on this one. And you know what, sometimes Blake Lively hasn't been in the limelight for quite some time. And when she was, she was a lot younger. So maybe now we're just seeing a side of her personality that's not driving well with people and it's launched a much bigger issue than maybe what it needs to be. - Yeah. - So after all that, do you think her career is over? Will she recover? Does she take a permanent hit? Where are you out with that? - Dude, I don't know about this one. I bet her PR team is working overtime right now. I bet they're all in a meeting right now, drawing on the white, we're trying to figure out how they get out of this. And I don't know that they... I don't know. I think she could. I think she could find her way on the other end of this. I'm sure she'll still be at the Met Gala and all this stuff. It might be a bit of controversy that I think follows her for quite some time and is probably gonna be something that people comment on for quite some time. But I don't know if this is career ending. Just because everything, every bit of controversy we see these days feels so fleeting that I just don't know how anything stays in the zeitgeist for more than a week at a time anyways. I feel like a new movie's gonna come out next week with its own bit of controversy or a new celebrity's gonna say something wrong or a TikTok influencer's gonna post the wrong video and then people will be on the next train. So she better hope. - Yeah. I think she'll be all right. She'll be all right. - Yeah. - But I think you're right though. This will probably follow her for quite some time. Are we ready for Super Chats? - Yeah, we're ready for Super Chats. - All righty. Chicken us off today is AVJR who says good afternoon, Amala and Taylor. How is your day? Just wanted to say hello and bless your day. - Thank you for putting out great videos. See ya and a lot of emojis. - That's really nice. My day is going good. I'm chilling, hanging out. I'm gonna take my dog to the vet later. So that's fun. Get some shots. - Gee bud. (laughing) - This has been such a heavy topic. I wasn't like as a very big vibeshift. - Right. (laughing) - I'm a good afternoon. Thank you. (laughing) Kate Leonard says, first Super Chat and Newish member, but I am a recovering leftist. Thank you for being here for all of us who are/were doing to realize what the leftist agenda is working towards. Hashtag recovering Democrat. - Whoa, thanks. I'm glad that you found our channel and that it's helped you in any way. Maybe realize that leftism is not the greatest ideology. (laughing) - Yeah, thanks, Kate. We're glad you're here. And thank you for your first Super Chat. Always great to hear from people for the first time. Kwazakula Mafeka says, hi, Amala and Taylor. Celtic says he's gonna miss the live, but wanted to dag you about the P.O. box issue LOL. - Retry. - Just return the favor here. Hashtag based quasi. - Thank you very much for returning that and reminding me of the P.O. box. (laughing) - It's in progress, still in progress. (laughing) Bon End says, read the book, loved it, saw the movie before all this apparent drama and loved it. I'm not very active on social media 'cause I was happily unaware of all this before going to the theater. The movie has a good message and a story. - Yeah, and I don't get it wrong 'cause I feel like when we're covering this controversy, it's overwhelming because the people who are talking about are like making video after video after video and it just becomes the trending narrative surrounding this film. I've seen so many women who say they love this book. They love this film. They love what Justin Valdone did with the direction. Clearly there's drama within the cast and there's other things going on there, but that at least with what they saw at the movie theater, they felt like it was a good depiction and what they had imagined in watching this book and a lot of domestic violence survivors saying that it gave voice to their experience. So always remember that, that the controversies never as loud as it comes off. - Totally, and I will say, my wife's a bookster grammar and she said she doesn't usually like romance novels 'cause they kind of are predictable and she likes more nuanced and character development and all that kind of stuff in fiction. But she said she read this and gave it four stars on her books to Graham and actually really liked the book and there was a lot of complexity and great character development. There was emotional and all that stuff. So credit where it's due. I trust her takes on these things. So I'm glad, but again, like I told her the same before, I think that that's where the focus should be is the message of the story itself and not all this drama. So I'm glad Bonant you were able to enjoy that or experience everything independent of the social media craziness. - Yeah, it's so funny. Almost in like the criticism of Black Lively, the real talk of like what survivors should do upon like watching this film gets pretty lost because now it's all like directed towards Blake Lively and her response and her actions out on the press tour, which is very interesting. - I am the ball people. Brittany Maddox says, "I don't like the push to define myself by my trauma and abuse. I am so much more. I don't want to be looked as victim. I want to be seen by everything else that I am, not by what my abuser made me." - Yeah, I agree with that. It's really interesting that some of the responses, like I said, there's so many different ways you can deal with this and I don't want to minimize the way that other people deal with it or push them off and say that they're dealing with it in the wrong way. But if you are somebody who was leading a life and suddenly you have this horrible person come and commit some sort of traumatic event onto you, who's to say that you now have to be defined by what that person did for the rest of your life and now because of their actions, you have to carry that with you all the time if you don't want to. And there are gonna be those who say, it is something that, as this woman said, permeates my being for all of time and this is just gonna be something that I live with. If that's the way that you want to live with it, that's fine, that's your choice. But if somebody says, I don't want it to be a part of my being and I am taking full control, even though somebody decided to take control in that moment, there's nothing wrong with that either. And in fact, that's a very empowering message, so to spin it as something other than that, can be really harmful. - Number seven, Shaniqua says, "My issue is the way the movie is being promoted. The glamour, flowers, and backdrops, et cetera, for such a heavy subject, a little modesty would have been better." - Yeah, I mean, it's a subjective call is, that's the real thing about it and it is hard to-- - And she florists too, I mean-- - She is a florist in the film. So it is kind of difficult of like, you want women and maybe young women in particular to not only leave this movie with a message about domestic violence, but to also be empowered by this main character. And a lot of people are empowered by main characters by like taking on the certain characteristics. When I watched the Hunger Games and I read those books or whatever, I was Katniss Everdeen and I loved that shit and I was like, "I'm gonna go buy a bow and arrow." We went to Walmart and bought a bow and arrow or whatever. So like, if there's like florals from this film and people are playing up the funness of it and maybe in Blake Lively's messaging, she's saying that life is multifaceted and mixed in with really horrible, traumatic events that happen in your life, there is fun stuff and you make friends. Like Justin Baldoni's sister in the movie, Ryle's sister in the movie, they become good friends through this story or whatever, that life isn't all about that traumatic thing. And I think it's maybe not just two camps of people, but the dominant camps in this argument are like, once a traumatic thing has entered the story or a movie or the marketing, it stops there. Like then everything needs to be serious, there can be no frills, there can be, we must talk about this like, holy seriously, every time we're having a conversation about it and that's the way a lot of people take trauma in their lives. Because this thing happened, it's now something that I carry with me. It's something that permeates my being. We must deal with it in this way. And that's just not the way that everybody views it. And I think it's even more interesting to ask the question, could you have a film that deals with very serious, heart-wrenching, traumatic subjects, but also have it balanced with like a beauty to it. And I think that conversation can get lost. - Totally. And what you're saying that, that's what makes the story so true to life is that juxtaposition that so much of falling in love and getting in a relationship can be all sunshine and roses, but then there's a very dark undercurrent that can be there that doesn't really expose itself until you're in too deep or whatever. And that's really the theme of it. So it's hard to like separate that from the marketing and everything out of the movie. I don't know. I feel like we're like super deep on the aesthetic and depending on you, but I see why it's there. And I feel like that's probably what lends so much weight to the story and what made it successful for people. - And I have to mention like the very title of the book and the story is it ends with us and it's a spoiler alert. This moment where Lily comes to the conclusion that like this history of domestic violence is going to end here. It's going to end with me. I have a child now. This child cannot go through this. This child cannot witnesses. And it's something beautiful born out of something horrible. And the very book cover it ends with us. It's covered with flowers and nobody really had a problem with that when the book came out. Yet now that the movie marketing is, you know, has this spin to it, people have an issue. And I just think it's really about your subjective interpretation of the different elements and like what a flower actually means in this story. And yeah. - Yeah. Bon End, again, says also if you don't know what a movie is about before going to it and you get traumatized, that's 100% on you. - Yeah. It is. I didn't know what saving private Ryan was just to bring up the film that we discussed earlier. Like I didn't know how badly that movie was going to impact me before I watched it. And by the time I was at the end of saving private Ryan, I liked tears falling out of my face. I was screaming at the TV over like different choices that these characters were making. It was the most like heartache. - Up him. - Up him. That was the moment where I'm like, go up there, go up there. And you're even with a warning for that film. I don't think anything can truly prepare you and prepare anybody for what you may or may not experience. So to expect that from the movie maker, it's just like it's not what movies are about or for. - Yeah. If you're a minor, it's on your parents maybe. - Yeah. - Yeah. - Otherwise, yeah. It's pretty much on you. - Right. - Especially these days at IMDB, you can literally learn absolutely everything that's in the movie before you. - Right. - There we go. - Right. - Nicodemus 1984 says, "Cheers to you both. Blake Lively did nothing different from other movies tackling real drama like war or murder. If there's no movie on domestic abuse, it's wrong. If there is one, that's wrong too." - Yeah. And it's interesting of just like, okay, at what point does a movie become dark enough or intense enough that you're not allowed to do the other things that come with movies? Like a lot of people are really mad at her for selling a hair care line on the end of this movie, which a lot of celebrities do. They'll wear a certain shoe in the movie and you watch the movie and suddenly the shoes on sale or whatever, or they're launching a perfume line at the end of their movie or something like that. At what point do you no longer get to do that for your movie because the movie's too intense? I don't know when you get to do that. And of course, it's a call that we can all generally feel. If saving private Ryan was selling like camo pants at the movie premiere or something, we'd be like, "Ah, that's a little weird." But I can see where that like the lines could be blurred at like what moments it becomes inappropriate to do the things that celebrities do for a certain film release. - Yeah. Chicken Pork Adobo says, "My sister read the book and she and her girlfriends watched that movie the other night and she said, "It's a good movie. Anyhow, I'll watch Alien Romulus." - There we go. - I wanna see that too actually. - We're different folks. I do not miss you. - I don't like scary movies, but I can do Alien. I love the history of that franchise and stuff. - Yeah, I will not watch anything with Alien in the title. I don't think, not for me. I'll watch it ends with us. - They have been hit her miss, to be honest, but they're the only ones who are great. - Yeah. - Terrine A. Davenport says, "I've noticed Blake and Ryan have gotten major hate lately because Deadpool didn't have enough woke ideology and did better than every other movie." - Hmm, I didn't know that. I haven't seen Deadpool, but I know it's like sort of like raunchy, crass, the hero comedy. - Yeah, I mean, the new Deadpool and Wolverine apparently is like doing extremely well with you, Jackman. And I did hear that it was more of like a, you know, Top Gun Maverick sort of energy. Just like, "Hey, we're just here to entertain you and have fun and that's all it." So, you know, props to him for that. But yeah, I'm also kind of on the fence about Ryan Reynolds, particular brand of comedy and his all approach to things. It's got its moments, but it kind of becomes old after a while. - It does, yeah. - But I would watch that one. I haven't seen a Marvel movie in theater in so long, but I might would see that. Andres says, "Hi, Amala, lively should be okay. I don't see the new Tom Hardy movie where he is a biker that does all sort of crimes, like rape and murder, have no backlash, yet she does this movie and everyone is enraged." I guess it's just a way to cancel Reynolds to stop the unwokness of Marvel. - Whoa, so a lot of you thinking this is like a scheme over Deadpool and the unwoking of Deadpool. - I didn't hear about the Deadpool side of things, but I have heard of like, this is all just drama to drive PR for the movie, like in general. That's usually a theme that people go to, but that's a new layer with the Marvel stuff. - That is a new layer. Is it all a conspiracy? I don't know. I gravitate towards people just genuinely feel these things about Blake Lively. And Blake Lively is like the perfect person for this to happen to at the moment. She's like a super rich white lady who's a Nepo baby, you know, it's just like the perfect person who's just like ready to be brought down, whether for some of the criticism it's warranted or not. So yeah. - Toreen again says, "Colleen Hoover is popular "because all her books tackle difficult topics "in a lighthearted and comedic way. "People either love her or hate her because of it." - Yeah, it's just like that's, how life is sometimes. Sometimes things are super dark. Sometimes they're not. And there's dark moments in a broader life and to say that out loud and get criticism for it is kind of crazy. - Alice Iris says, "Law and Order SVU "is way more effed up than this, LOL. "And that's daytime TV, Dick Wolf is crazy." Also, Hoover's books are trash. Joan Dideon Supremacy, XO, XO. - Okay, fair enough. - Strong opinions. - Yeah, yeah, strong opinions on Colleen Hoover. I feel like it's a lover or a hater type thing for Colleen. - Yeah, that's what Toreen said, I guess, yeah. I can prep too, says, "Social media made everyone believe "people care what they think, as so now they share "every opinion as though it's a matter of life or death." - Yeah, I mean, I often see things and I'm like, okay, if social media was nonexistent, this would be nothing. This would literally be nothing. It wouldn't make a newspaper headline, let alone have this many people talking about it at any given moment. And I always have to think about how much things are being magnified by the fact that we have social media and you can't just give your opinion at any moment, which is why these things don't last. They'll feel really big in the moment because everybody's making a video about it. But at the end of the day, these are just passing opinions that people have that are now being amplified because of social media. - Yeah, and you have to come at whatever topic like super hard and be so extra for things to get traction on social media. So you never hear like, I don't feel strongly enough or I'm not willing to like go hard enough to ever go viral on anything 'cause I'm like, I can kind of see that. I can kind of see that. - Right. - If you're like a moderate reasonable person, like, you know, social media is not really for you. You get to see all these crazy opinions. And yeah, the incentive is such though that, you know, you're only going to see the light of day. No one wants to hear someone's just, you know, or sound nuanced, except you, mostly. I don't know if it's a reason people like you do it, but. - Appreciate y'all. - Yeah, it's so crazy. I'm like, I see things I'm like, it's not that serious. Like, none of this, to be honest, guys, and I understand it's a very serious topic. But like, what, like, it's not that serious. Like, this is not world ending or whatever. I see influencers, like, left-leaning influencers specifically, who are now just like arguing with each other over TikTok and canceling each other over TikTok or whatever, because it's just like, when every opinion is given, like, 100% validation, 100% respect, it's given 100% priority, you're bound to misstep, and people are going to come to bite you in the ass because they view like every single opinion that you have as this, like, world ending thing. So now these, like, left-leaning influencers are biting each other's heads off online over, like, Palestine versus Black Lives Matter, and they're hopping on TikTok Live and arguing with one another, and people are choosing sides or whatever, and it's just like, oh, now these opinions were meant to hold that much priority in my life. So, take that as a case. - Bloody chill. - Chill, that'd be chill. - Put that on a t-shirt. Timothy W. says, did y'all know that CDC reports that approximately 44% of lesbian relationships have domestic abuse? - This just proves it should be great. - It should just be crazy. No, I have heard that. There's, like, really high rates of domestic violence within lesbian relationships, and that's, I guess, a theme that has been spoken about on the heels of this film, although this film does not broach that topic in any way, shape, or form, but yeah, it's an interesting, interesting stat, truly. - Hedy Peony says, the same with 13 Reasons Why TV Series, my uncle interviewed a sister who had lost her in the similar way. She said she was so grateful for the TV show to show that and brought an awareness for that topic. - Yeah, and then other people were saying, oh, it's a glamorization of suicide or things like that. Yeah, there's just so many different ways to interpret a piece of, at the end of the day, fictional art, and it can help, it can hurt, it can be neutral, very hard to know. - Diva Don says, crybabies with China doll's feelings need to get a life where we have a society of collective Karens. - Does sort of feel like that sometimes. - Sometimes it does sort of feel like that. I try to, like, try to, like, parse through it and find things that are, like, valid, which I hope we did during this episode. I think there were many little valid points of, like, oh, I would have done that differently, or I would have never said that. But when it's just like a cacophony of noise, all in one direction, it's so hard to, like, tone it down for a second, and then on top of that, decide, like, which things you agree with and disagree with, when people are screaming at you all at once. - Yeah, and it's, we're always quick to, it seems, cast it so that, you know, here's the right opinion to have, and you're a good person if you take this side, and then if you don't take this side, then you're the bad person, and you're defending the indefensible, and you're horrible, you see that in politics, you see it in social media all the time, and it seems like those lines are drawn over, every single issue that ever becomes anything, and things are more nuanced than that, and it doesn't foster critical thinking, it doesn't foster a good faith discussion, it doesn't foster us furthering our collective understanding of actual issues, or having, you know, deeper, better perspectives on things, and be more empathetic and be just understanding, despite the fact that the people who usually take the, I'm on the good side of this, are like, this is what it means to be fully empathetic, and if you're not of this opinion, then you're not empathetic, but by taking such a rigid stance and dividing the world into good people and bad people, you're actually making it so that empathy cannot be achieved, and that mutual letter saying it cannot be encouraged, and you're not being tolerant or anything like that, but I digress. - Actually, it's very true. Yeah, you see a lot of it, like even in the comments of today's show, there's been people hopping on and saying that they disagree with what's being said, and they don't feel like this is giving voice to things like that, and that's okay. Just agree, to disagree, we have different opinions on it. I don't, if people disagree with me on this, I don't think they're horrible people for, you know, disliking Blake Lively, or having this criticism for her, and in the same, I would ask that of the people who disagree with my take on this. We just have different perspectives, that's okay. - Whatever, you're horrible. - Terrine A. Davenport again says, hey, A and Tae, can I send you to an invite for an 18th century book release party? It's my fantasy with romance series, fifth book, and you walk into three chapters from book four, Beyond the Balanced Saga by T.A. Davenport, please consider. - Shoot us a DM, DM's open. - DM's open on IG, hit us up. I'm a history buff, so 17th century party. - Yes, sounds good to Taylor. - I'm all over. - No, but that's really cool. Congratulations on your book and series. Cozakule says there usually isn't an easy way to address abused people, but making your life center, a movie slash celebrity is shallow. Please be more than that hashtag #basequads. - Yeah, I think there's, people were just like, this should not be as impactful in your life as it's being made out to be, or like, I see people like crying over the responses. I'm like, whoa, you have other things to unpack here. I think that has nothing to do with Blake Lively on this one. - Right, it's like you're crying about Blake Lively having the wrong perspective on how to heal from trauma when Blake Lively's opinion or words about a movie that she made is affecting you so deeply that you're crying and screaming about it on social media because you've healed from trauma the proper way and she's not saying the right, it's like, not quite sold, I mean, I want to be empathetic and say, you know, this is a sensitive subject and stuff can impact you deeply if you've been through stuff, but especially if you're taking the tack of like lecturing people about how trauma is processed, but you're clearly like exhibiting signs that you haven't fully become well adjusted. It's a little, I don't know. - Right, right, yeah. - Timothy W says Netflix rated twister PG-13 for intense depictions of very bad weather. I'm not even joking, be so for real right now. - That's amazing. - That's interesting, I didn't know that. - Yeah, what were you gonna say? - Funny story, I would go ahead. - I was just gonna say for this film too, like a lot of people were worried about the trigger warning or whatever, when you go, it'll say like PG-13 and it'll say like for violence or curse words or whatever. Do you need more of a warning than that? Or I guess they would argue yes, they need more of a warning, but my goodness. - Yeah, to be fair, twister is, I mean, I guess it's got like, you know, super intense things that could be frightening for children. - Sure, sure. - I was gonna say, like, you know, we went to Europe this past week, we had that vacation, my wife and I, and ended up in Paris and we had been walking so much in so many places and we were just like, so exhausted from like, tourisming for so long that we just went and saw Twisters in a theater in Paris for one of our last days of the vacation and it was delightful and it was another just good old summer blockbuster movie, had some nostalgia to it from the one that came out in the '90s, I believe. But anyways, so I'm all about the Twisters and I didn't need a trigger warning, though. - Yes, it's good to have a little neutral ground film. - It was really funny to watching it in France because like, they don't have tornadoes, like, it's just not on their radar, so like, wait. Yeah, sitting there in a room with people and like, watching it and then of course, Glen Powell's character is like this super like cowboy, you know, bus on the scene with, it's really arrogant, like, blaring country music in this big truck and they're like, you know, out in Oklahoma and I'm like, I grew up in Oklahoma. Sitting there in the theater with all these people from France that have like no concept of tornadoes, no concept of Oklahoma or go like things. I'm like, this looks so, I don't know, it was just weird being outside looking in like that. - Silly. - Merica. Okay, sorry. Zachariah Blake says, is it just me or has your YouTube channel been glitchy? I can only view videos you posted like four months ago. - I don't know. I didn't know about this problem. You guys will have to let me know if anybody else is experiencing this problem. Yeah, we hope it is just you. - And then one more from Andres says, a view from Uruguay, the most domestic and/or sex abuse is made from the women's side. So it's rarely reported since they would be considered less men for not to enjoy it specifically the sex abuse or week to allow their women to beat them up. - Interesting. I wonder how we would substantiate that it's most people if it's unreported. - I have questions, Andres. You always leave me with questions. - That's a well. - And I guess we will have to reflect on that question because that was our last super chat unfortunately. - Always an interesting one to end the show on guys. Thank you so much for watching. Leave your thoughts down below. I know this one is going to encourage some heat because we're stepping in the middle of a controversy that is ongoing right now. So drop your thoughts in the comments down below. As always, if you disagree with me, I encourage healthy debate. So do get out but do so respectfully. And if you like this video, like, subscribe, click the notification button to be notified every single time I post a live for you guys, which is every single day, we're not alive. A video for you guys, every single day. Tomorrow's video is up out. All right, four, oh CNN being laughed at on the Stephen Colbert show. Very interesting clip. Plus we'll show some of CNN's best work and by best I mean worst guys. Thank you so much for watching. Here's one more from Chris Wildfire. He says, "DB survivor think Blake producer handle with care. Justin changed book ending, OG and different. He heard what survivor said, Red Book thinking wrong because cover has GV scenes, wrong promoting hair, P-D-T-S." - Products. - Oh, okay, there's a lot here Chris that I am- - You have to decipher it. - Because this is it in the character. - Oh, I just retracted it. - Oh no, Chris, it's gone. I can't even decipher what your message was, but I think you said that Justin handled things better by listening to DV survivors and switching things up as he reflected on the things that they said. And I think he made that very clear in his press tour. I think he did handle this with grace and a softness that maybe Blake Lively was missing. And that's a criticism that we can stand by when it comes to Blake Lively's response to this, but also, different strokes for different folks. It's a good thing they're both on the movie together. Okay, one more from Andres says, "It's not reported that the men talk between themselves and the stories are told so it's no legal repercussion, but socially we all know about this." Ah, okay, so it's anecdotal, but many anecdotes. It would be fair and say that this could be possible, that it could be far more, but just going unreported. There's a lot of crimes in which that is the case. And domestic violence is a tough one for men because they can't always be vocal about the fact that they're experiencing it due to the stigma. And maybe that's something that we can talk about at a later date on this show. I'm sure it will pop up as we're constantly having conversations like this. Guys, I don't need to do the whole closing again. Just, I'll see you tomorrow in the video about CNN. And if you want to see me live, we'll be back Friday, 1 p.m. Pacific, 3 p.m. Central, 4 p.m. Eastern. Bye, guys. See ya. [BLANK_AUDIO]

Actress Blake Lively is in hot water for the way she has been promoting her new film “It Ends With Us” which deals with the sensitive issue of domestic violence. Should this be the end of her career, is this all being overblown, or somewhere in between? Let’s talk about it. 

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