The Blake Lively discourse shows we have a long way to go in deconstructing the ‘perfect victim’ myth
Within hours of the news breaking that Blake Lively had filed a complaint against her It Ends with Us co-star, Justin Baldoni, for sexual harassment and launching a smear campaign against her, the internet fell prey to perfect victim stereotypes, using them to discredit her without proof.
Lively’s complaint against Baldoni contains serious allegations, including claiming he made her uncomfortable and behaved inappropriately on set. She accuses him of improvising intimate scenes, discussing his “sexual conquests” in front of her, walking in on her while she was undressing in her trailer, and refusing to fulfill her requests for a closed set when she was filming a birthing scene, among many things. His behavior resulted in a meeting with Lively, Baldoni, the studio CEO, a producer, and others, in which Baldoni was asked to agree to stop the behaviors mentioned above and to not retaliate against Lively. However, her complaint alleges that Baldoni responded by hiring a crisis PR team to orchestrate an extensive smear campaign against her.
Although the allegations haven’t been proven, there is evidence that supports Lively’s claims, including leaked text messages from Baldoni’s PR team detailing plans to “destroy” or “bury” Lively and seemingly proving that it planted news stories on outlets like Page Six to paint her in a negative light. Yet, many are already choosing to pay no heed to evidence simply because Lively isn’t “perfect” in their eyes.
Blake Lively’s mistakes don’t invalidate her claims
Within hours of Lively’s complaint going public, countless users on X, TikTok, and other social media platforms immediately began accusing her of lying. A prevalent argument arose that she ruined her own reputation and is now trying to shift blame to Baldoni to restore her image. It’s an argument that Baldoni’s own lawyer has presented to defend his client, claiming that her allegations are a “desperate” attempt to fix her negative reputation, which “was garnered from her own remarks and actions during the campaign for the film.” Others called her a “mean girl” and pointed out how she was responsible for things like promoting her hair care line through It Ends with Us and giving rude interviews. People have been reaching even further into the past, claiming her plantation wedding and participation in a Woody Allen movie years ago invalidates her current claims.
These people are correct that Lively made mistakes, but they’re mistaken by suggesting every mistake she has ever made is somehow relevant to her allegations against Baldoni. Not every outlet that reported on Lively was indeed part of the smear campaign. Countless outlets, including The Mary Sue, reported on Lively’s rude resurfaced interview, her flippant attitude towards domestic abuse survivors, and her disregard for writers on It Ends with Us while offering valid criticism of her actions. While her complaint explains some of her unusual promotion for It Ends with Us, it doesn’t erase the fact that she gave a rude interview on her own accord and was still responsible for some of her careless responses to the film’s domestic violence themes. What many people seem unable to grasp is that two things can be true: Lively can make mistakes and commit actions worthy of criticism while still being a victim.
Even if Lively partially contributed to the negative press on herself, she’s still a victim of a smear campaign because stories were allegedly planted of her, and she had a team of people working to uncover every mistake she has ever made. Meanwhile, claiming her mistakes somehow mean she can’t be a victim of sexual harassment is nonsensical. The two things don’t relate at all. The fixation on Lively’s mistakes ties into society’s long-held myths of the perfect victim. Society’s inability to understand the harm and bias in the perfect victim myth is why women like Lively continue having their character put on trial and are denied belief unless they rise to impossible standards.
When we will offer victims grace instead of demanding perfection?
For decades, society has adhered to the perfect victim narrative. There’s a widespread belief that there’s such a thing as an “ideal” or “socially acceptable” victim. Biases regarding gender, age, sexual orientation, and class often shape these stereotypes. The most typical qualities of the mythical perfect victim are that they are seen as weak/vulnerable, can only be victims while participating in a socially acceptable activity, must be entirely blameless in the incident, and must be abused by an obvious offender. It’s these qualities that lead people to blame a woman for being assaulted because she was out drinking instead of at home engaging in a “respectable” activity or to claim victims of police brutality are to blame because they broke the law, or to claim that a woman can’t be a victim if her abuser is seen as a “great guy” rather than an obvious offender.
Lately, it seems the definition of the ideal victim is growing even more extreme. It seems to have extended to believing that a perfect victim can’t have committed a single wrong or even an act that might be perceived as questionable. For example, it was proven in court that Jonathan Majors assaulted Grace Jabbari. However, many continue to insist she’s not a victim because of a seconds-long video in which she ran after him during an argument. The perfect victim wouldn’t have followed their abuser during an argument, so she’s not a victim. It’s the same with Amber Heard. It was proven in court that her allegations of abuse were “substantially true,” but a well-liked actor like Johnny Depp isn’t an “obvious offender,” so she must not be a victim. Now, it’s happening with Lively. She made mistakes in her life, so now the internet believes she can’t be a victim either.
These illogical conclusions in the cases of Jabbari, Heard, and Lively will only stop when society realizes there is no such thing as the perfect victim. Anyone can be a victim, just as anyone can be an abuser. One doesn’t have to fit a certain mold to be a victim, and one certainly doesn’t have to be flawless. Victims are, arguably, the most deserving of grace in society. Unless one has lived in someone else’s shoes, one can never claim to understand or know all the ways one has been impacted by abuse and how the effects will manifest. Yet, as a society, we’ve gone backward. Instead of offering grace for what we can’t explain, understand, or excuse about victims, we’ve decided to hold them to the highest standards of all.
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