When Male Self-Styled “Allies” Pose a Threat: A Theory (and a last call for sale subscriptions)

When men congratulate themselves on being allies, they often become complacent about the threat their behavior actually poses to women.

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When Blake Lively was working on the set of It Ends with Us, director and co-star Justin Baldoni allegedly improvised unwanted kissing scenes, discussed his sexual history with her (including encounters he described as non-consensual), and entered her makeup trailer while she was undressed without invitation. He also badgered her about her weight (saying he was worried about his back—he had to lift her during one scene).

After Lively sought changes on set that would make for a safer work place, Baldoni set out with his P.R. team to destroy her reputation, as a recent New York Times piece documents in detail. (Baldoni is now suing the paper.) A report commissioned by Lively for her complaint filed with the California Civil Rights Department on the entirety of Google’s search index for her name found that more than a third of the results also mentioned Baldoni. This is highly suspicious, given the length of her acting career and her being more prominent than Baldoni. It’s pretty clear that the “media environment was being manipulated,” and the text messages that went back and forth between Baldoni’s team members about how to “bury” Lively leave little doubt about it. One of them wrote: “And socials are really really ramping up. In his favour, she must be furious. It’s actually sad because it just shows you have people [who] really want to hate on women.”

No argument here. Of course, as the team who also developed the smear campaign levelled at Amber Heard, and destroyed her reputation in order to preserve Johnny Depp’s following her allegations of abuse against him, they were no stranger to this phenomenon. The himpathetic protection racket that resides in the general public needs only moderate encouragement to down a woman who threatens a famous and beloved man’s legacy. Lively was quickly decried as selfish, clueless, and difficult.

Picture credit: SONY, via People

But there’s still a puzzle here that demands to be explained: in Justin Baldoni’s case, he has long styled himself as a card-carrying feminist, via a Ted Talk and his podcast (The Man Enough) and even a #MeToo roundtable featuring interviews with female survivors. He maintained in said Ted Talk: “there is never an excuse” to “hurt a woman, physically or emotionally.” He added, “We men have to step up and figure out how we can be better allies.” This is also a common theme in his interviews. Is this pure cynicism and hypocrisy, combined with moral grandstanding? It is a front to paper over his manifestly sketchy behavior?

I don’t think so. I think the answer lies in the way the concept of an ally encourages moral complacency.