From glorifying domestic abuse, bullying, and fat shaming other women, making tone deaf comments about the cycles of abuse, and selfishly centering herself in a story that is about very deep rooted and traumatic themes. People have a lot to say about Blake Lively these days, and rightfully so. What’s so frustrating about this entire situation to me is how the conversation has completely shifted away from how impactful this story is, and that there are hundreds of thousands of victims of abuse out there who can have had their lives completely changed by seeing this movie. To quote Justin Baldoni, the question that’s always asked is, why did she stay? That is the wrong question. What we need to be asking ourselves is, why do men harm? That is a powerful narrative that people need to be hearing and discussing. Yet this is not the conversation being had, largely in part to how awful and tone deaf the marketing for this movie was. Hollywood needs to learn how to market movies that talk about these very sensitive and deep rooted topics so that the people going through this that need to hear it most can actually see that and feel seen. I always say that in today’s age, creative work and marketing are two halves of the same whole. Because even if the creative work itself is powerful and impactful, it doesn’t matter if you botch the way you communicate that message to an audience and it isn’t able To move anybody. And in fact, it even has the potential to do more harm than and good. It is for that reason that I wanted to do a deep dive analysis of the marketing behind it ends with us. And there are five main questions I want to try and answer today. Number one, what exactly started this controversy and what caused it? Number two, when did this happen? Because the timeline is very complicated, yet very important. No.3. Who is in the wrong here and why? Number four, how can we assemble the missing pieces of the story? Because frankly, there are a lot of holes that need to be answered. And 5, why does this matter? Because although the people are talking about it from a drama perspective, what’s important to me is how this has completely misconstrued and diverted attention away from the important topics of themes of this film. Domestic violence. Welcome back to Nikki at night. I am your host, Nikki Reardon. And thank you so much. This is episode 6, I think, and we officially hit a top 50 list on Spotify for music podcast. So thank you so much. That is absolutely insane. I think we could hit, like, a top 10 by the end of the year. It’s an ambitious goal I am setting. So please, please follow the podcast on Spotify, follow it on Apple Music. And with that, let’s dive into it ends with us, because this book, Is a very deep and impactful story. So it is. Although not based on a true story, it is inspired by Colleen Hoover’s life and her own parents, where her father was very abusive towards her mother. This book came out in August of 2,016, but it became a number one on the New York Times best seller list in 2022, largely impacted, in fact, by book talk and how this book completely blew up on the internet almost six years after its initial release. In fact, this book became so popular it was not only the number one book in 2022, it became the number one book in 2023 also, with the No. 2 being the sequel book. It starts with us in 2,019. Justin Baldoni wrote a letter reaching out to Colleen Hoover after reading this book personally, saying that how much the book meant to him and how important he felt this story was to be told and to reach as many people as possible, and that he actually wanted to produce the film. So Justin’s production company, Wayfarer Studios, produced the film, and later on, after this film was made, it was bought by Sony and Sony has the distribution rights. Also is in charge of all the marketing and press behind it, which is very important, as we will discuss later on, because most of this controversy really stems from when it became about the press tour of this movie and some of the things that Were being said and done on said press tour. And it’s important to know that the creation process and then who was doing this. Like, marketing and press are not the same group of people. Um, because I think you start to see, again, a shift and again, me talking about why this timeline is so important, um, this is one of those reasons, but we’ll dive into this later on. So who is Justin Baldoni? Well, Justin Baldoni is an actor. Again, I talked about how he also owns his production company, and he both directed and starred in this film. He has a podcast called Man Enough, where he deconstructs toxic masculinity. And this actually all stem from a very viral TED talk he had done in the past, I think in 2,016, where he talked about his experiences with his own wife. Also found it a little bit weird that this was a movie about a woman in an abusive relationship who also was born to two parents who were in an abusive relationship, and this movie is being directed by a man. It just feels like the type of thing where, um, it. It should be a woman, and it should be somebody who has experienced that in some way. Although I will say, um, all of the screenwriters, I believe, are women. All of the stunt coordinators and intimacy coordinators, we’re all women. So there was this, like, very, you know, intentional and. And thought, Out experience to surround these people with as much women as possible. Uh, because the female perspective is obviously so important in a story like this. And I will say, um, Colleen Hoover, the author, picked Justin Baldoni specifically. You know, like, again, he had wrote a letter, and they had talked about it, and she, and multiple times in this, said that she really felt like he was the person to tell this story. And at the end of the day, this is a story that is, you know, loosely based on her life and her experiences and is her book. So I don’t really know who I am to question that, but it just felt a little bit weird to me. Next is Blake Lively, who is also a producer in this movie. Um, I would like to say she’s not an executive producer, which is an important thing later on, as there’s a lot of discussion about how she oversteps this boundary. Um, and I think Blake Lively was certainly an interesting choice for this movie, as we will see some of the controversy having online. Now, there was so much things she’s done in the past that were, like, number one, getting married on a plantation where there were nine former slave captains. The guests had to sleep in. That were literally called Slave Street. Um, there was also a lot of t word and transphobic comments from the past. And even more fascinating to me, Like, specifically based on the themes of this movie that I haven’t seen people talking about, is when 80 allegations against Harvey Weinstein came out for sexual assault. This is a direct quote from Blake Lively. That was never my experience with Harvey in any way whatsoever. She told The Hollywood Reporter in 2,017. I think that if people heard these stories, I do believe in humanity enough to think that this wouldn’t have just continued. I never heard any stories like this. I never heard anything specific, but it’s devastating to hear. And later on in this interview, yes, Blake does, you know, go on to speak about the importance of, like, believing women, but only after this caviar and only after being like, well, if this happened, I feel like it wouldn’t have continued so long, which I think it’s just a very privileged take to have when you’re an already famous actress and, you know, all these people on set are there to cater to your needs because you are the star of. Of said film. Um, and that, you know, like, your experience of that is, is people are obviously gonna listen to you and believe you, um, because you also have a platform that would, you know, not allow them to, you know, not believe you. Um, but it was just weird to me again, when, again, this is literally a movie about a domestic violence and sexual assault. And then also, she was the In a star in a Woody Allen movie who has had multiple alleged, you know, like, sex predator claims towards him, especially towards children. And, like, again, is somebody with this past the person to choose for this movie? In my eyes, no. But, again, this is Colleen Hoover’s production. Um, and she had said that she could not have seen anybody else besides Blake Lively being this character, and that she felt Blake was really perfect for the role of Lily. And, again, that’s not my decision to make, but I think it’s important that these things were kind of ignored in the beginning, um, and end up going circling back to bite this movie in the ass later on. So later on, we see a feud between Blake and Justin break out, and the cause of this to this day is unknown.