How Did Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively Find Themselves in the Center of a Culture War?

During the 50th-anniversary special of SNL on Sunday night, Ryan Reynolds made a quick joke referencing the ongoing legal drama between his wife, Blake Lively, and the director and co-star of It Ends with Us, Justin Baldoni.

Tina Fey asked during a Q&A, “Ryan Reynolds, how’s it going?”
“Great! Why, what have you heard?” Reynolds responded.

And that was it. Reynolds participated in the grand SNL tradition of making light of a public scandal—his joke barely eliciting more than a chuckle from the audience.

That is not, however, how conservative media is spinning it. Over on Rupert Murdoch’s Page Six, the headline reads: “Fans slam ‘SNL’ for making light of Blake Lively, Ryan Reynolds’ legal drama with Justin Baldoni during anniversary special.” Fox News went with: “Blake Lively, Ryan Reynolds’ ‘SNL’ appearance slammed as fans accuse couple of ‘manipulating the public.’” The Daily Mail predictably escalated the rhetoric: “Furious fans call out SNL for trying to do ‘damage control’ for Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds amid Justin Baldoni war.” The Daily Mail even tried to turn Kevin Costner into a body-language expert, running the headline: “Kevin Costner’s reaction to Ryan Reynolds’ Justin Baldoni joke on SNL50: Anniversary goes viral,” claiming Costner “grimaced” in response.

This is part of a broader trend. These conservative tabloid rags have been consistently sympathetic to Baldoni, mirroring the smear campaign that his PR crisis team initially launched to damage Lively’s reputation around the release of It Ends with Us.

But why? Why has Baldoni become a rallying figure in the right’s never-ending culture wars? He’s getting the full Johnny Depp treatment, despite the sympathy toward him being almost entirely disconnected from the actual facts.

I won’t rehash the entire saga, but here’s the crux: Blake Lively had such a miserable experience filming It Ends with Us that she refused to resume production after the actors’ strike unless certain on-set conditions were met. Baldoni signed an agreement to those conditions.

That should have been the end of it—if not for Lively’s refusal to promote the film with Baldoni and the PR campaign he launched to go on the offensive. His team was clearly worried that Lively would disclose the conditions he had agreed to. Those conditions only became public because of the lawsuit—and the subsequent New York Times article covering it—which was a direct response to Baldoni’s calculated smear campaign. Meanwhile, Baldoni has repeatedly but unsuccessfully tried to counter the narrative, even using out-of-context messages from Reynolds and a bizarre account of Reynolds confronting him in his apartment over mistreating Lively.

Maybe Lively isn’t the nicest person in Hollywood—she wouldn’t be the first actress labeled “difficult”—and maybe Reynolds’ omnipresence is wearing thin. But based on everything in the lawsuits (and I’ve read them all), the real story here is that Lively and Reynolds used their power to demand better working conditions on a set where Baldoni (and a producer) repeatedly made Lively uncomfortable.

And yet, even in response to a throwaway SNL joke, conservative media is cherry-picking social media reactions to paint Reynolds and Lively as manipulative bullies. For what? For advocating for better working conditions?

Baldoni is a performative feminist with a man bun—the type of guy anti-woke scolds would normally ridicule. And yet, the right has chosen to back him, seemingly because Reynolds and Lively are more aligned with the political left. It’s ultimately another senseless culture war, driven by the right’s reflexive urge to embrace troubled outcasts as long as they’re in conflict with the “Hollywood elite.” Why is it even necessary that everything be made political?