The Rise and Fall of Blake Lively: Media Bias Against Women

By Alicia McCormack

January 2023: Blake Lively is revealed to be taking on the leading role in It Ends With Us, the highly anticipated adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s bestselling novel. Lively is the media’s sweetheart and adored by the public. She has built her brand as an extremely beautiful ‘it girl’ who is rich and famous and best friends with Taylor Swift, but also funny and relatable, someone you might be friends with. She and her husband Ryan Reynolds are a Hollywood power couple and there are threads and articles dedicated to their roasting of each other on social media. Lively is at the height of her popularity and this is the chance for her to be the face of a blockbuster film increasing her audience and appeal.

One year later: Blake Lively is a ‘mean girl’. She is a ‘bitch’, she has no talent, she has been difficult and toxic for years, she has a fake persona, she is problematic, she stole director Justin Baldoni’s movie and relegated him to the basement at the premiere, she accused him of sexual harassment and tried to destroy his reputation because she didn’t get her own way [1]. It’s hard to not hate her. Everywhere you look there is an article, a YouTube video, a TikTok, a Reddit thread, a podcast, deep diving into how awful she is. Clips from over a decade ago have resurfaced and further tarnished her image [1]. She has received numerous death threats [2]. People have had enough of her, but they also can’t get enough.

Lively’s case is not unusual – it is part of an ingrained pattern for women in the public eye [3]. Women are not allowed to exist in a grey area. They are one or the other. They are placed on a pedestal and idolized, expected to embody an ideal of perfection unattainable by a human being. All it takes is one transgression for the pedestal to crumble and for the star to fall into a pit filled with the countless others crucified by the court of public opinion. People seem to enjoy finding fault in everything a former favourite does a little bit too much. However justified they believe it is, there is a certain kind of pleasure in knocking someone off their high horse – even if you’re the one who put them up there.

A few years later, the tide turns and people wonder how anyone could ever have treated anybody like that and promise that it will never happen again, that we will do better next time. Megan Fox was blacklisted in her twenties and labelled ungrateful and difficult for speaking out about how she was sexualized as a child on set [4]. Britney Spears was stalked by paparazzi until the constant surveillance severely damaged her mental health. The world then watched her breakdown with enthusiasm [5]. Viewers loved Sinead O’Connor’s tearful performance in her music video for Nothing Compares to You. But when she did ‘too much crying’, too much complaining, speaking her mind and making mistakes, that she was rebranded as a ‘crazy bitch’ [6].

Famous women arguably face even more harm nowadays. As well as mainstream news and tabloids, the availability of information on the internet and platforms such as TikTok, Instagram and YouTube have given a rise to amateur journalism. Anyone can put any uninformed opinion they have out there for the whole world to see and gain supporters that spread the message further and further until it becomes part of daily life for the person involved. The harassment of ‘keyboard warriors’ as well as mainstream media was an instigator of the tragic suicide of Caroline Flack in 2020, who is now commemorated as an angel by the same people who mercilessly targeted her [7].

There is crucial pattern here that’s important to learn from. This is not to say that Blake Lively is in the right or wrong in this situation. The fact is – we don’t know. It’s important to remember that celebrities are not only people, but people we do not know. Neither version of Blake Lively that has existed in the public imagination is real. Every clip is a snippet of a larger dynamic and influenced by our own biases. No one knows what exactly happened except for Lively and Baldoni themselves. Lively may have made mistakes but that does not necessarily prove her sexual harassment allegations are fake. The need for a ‘perfect victim’ is crippling to women who have been mistreated. The reception to the case shows that Baldoni is allowed to say or do questionable things and still be deserving of attention and support, whereas any missteps by Lively discredit her entire story.

It is disheartening to see how we continue to exploit and ridicule personal struggles for entertainment, and how women are branded as ‘witches’ with minimal facts. Despite numerous examples of intense media scrutiny and public discourse having catastrophic effects on women’s wellbeing, the same mistakes are repeated over and over. Reporting on celebrity events obviously has a place but developing impassioned personal feelings about people you don’t know, and situations you can never fully understand, is somewhere we have been before and must move on from.

Sources

[1] Twohey, M. McIntire, M. and Tate, J. (2024). ‘We Can Bury Anyone’: Inside a Hollywood Smear Machine. The New York Times. [Online]. 22 December 2024. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/21/business/media/blake-lively-justin-baldoni-it-ends-with-us.html

[2] Wattret, M. (2025). “People really want to hate on women”: What the backlash against Blake Lively for her Justin Baldoni complaint warns of modern misogyny [Online]. The New Feminist. January 2025. https://thenewfeminist.co.uk/2025/01/people-really-want-to-hate-on-women-what-the-backlash-against-blake-lively-for-her-justin-baldoni-complaint-warns-of-modern-misogyny/?amp=1

[3] Whitfill Roeloffs, M. (2025). Justin Baldoni vs Blake Lively Feud Explained: Lively, Reynolds Say They’ve Received ‘Violent’ Messages. [Online]. Forbes. 21 February 2025. https://www.forbes.com/sites/maryroeloffs/2025/02/21/justin-baldoni-vs-blake-lively-feud-explained-lively-reynolds-say-theyve-received-violent-messages/#

[4] Valenti, M. (2020). Unfortunately, The Sexualization Of Megan Fox As A Teenager Is Not Surprising. [Online]. The Pavlovic Today. 23 June 2020. https://thepavlovictoday.com/unfortunately-the-sexualization-of-megan-fox-as-a-teenager-is-not-surpr

[5] Arcieri, J. (2023). Chasing Britney: Celebrity journalism, mainstream media and the failed pursuit of covering Britney Spears. [Online]. Center for Journalism Ethics. 2 October 2023. https://ethics.journalism.wisc.edu/2023/10/02/chasing-britney-celebrity-journalism-mainstream-media-

[6] Cassidy, A. (2023). Sinead O’Connor: Rebel with a cause. [Online]. Image. Last Updated: 27 July 2023. https://www.image.ie/editorial/sinead-oconnor-rebel-with-a-cause-777516/amp

[7] McIntyre, N. Al-Khalaf, L. Murray, J. and Duncan, P. (2020). Caroline Flack: scale of negative media coverage before death revealed. The Guardian. [Online]. 21 February 2020. https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2020/feb/21/caroline-flack-negative-media-coverage-before-death-revealed