2 Hollywood News Stories That Remind Me of India: Blake Lively and the Friendship Team, and Kendrick Versus Drake and Fame Stealing


Okay, I’m taking a leap into NOT my area of specialty, so forgive any mistakes I make in descriptions and correct me! But I find these two stories really interesting.

Blake and Friends

The Blake Lively story is really interesting in general for the way it breaks the 4th wall. She not only filed a sexual harrassment case, she timed a media blitz to go with it highlighting the PR campaign that was already planned AGAINST her. I didn’t say this quite right, basically it sounds like a standard workplace harassment situation, she complained, they had mediation, he broke the terms of the mediation, now she’s suing and has receipts. But what makes it different is that they are famous people and have to deal with not only the actual case, but how the case effects their public personas. Which is why Blake released and made sure everyone saw communications planning to paint her as “difficult” and “unreasonable” and all those other things people say about powerful women.

What I find interesting in terms of Indian film is that it is one of the few times I can remember personal connections being brought into a professional dispute in Hollywood. I don’t think Hollywood is any more or less “nepotistic” than India, it’s just that the coverage isn’t as good. Sooooooooooooooooooo many movie stars are children of producers or cinematographers or friends of producers or cinematographers, or went to a Hollywood high school where they were friends with children of producers and so on and so forth. And then there’s the “nepotism” that I do NOT agree is bad, the “nepotism” that is just being easy to get along with in the work place. If there’s two actors and one is more talented than the other, but also causes a lot of problems on set and no one likes him, hire the one everyone likes who is easy to work with. It’s part of making professional decisions.

Bringing it back to Blake, it’s also a known thing in Hollywood that if an ACTRESS throws fits and is difficult on sets, she is being a diva and difficult and thrown out of the industry. But if an ACTOR does that, it’s a sign of his sensitivity and talent and blah blah. That is very present in this conflict, on the one side Blake is being accused of being temperamental and difficult and so on, but on the other side she’s being accused of using her “unfair” connections to support her professional dispute.

Costars going back almost twenty years, and her husband, and one of her best friends Taylor Swift, are all supporting her. And this is being twisted to be a “bad” thing. That she’s cheating or something by having friends? Or that no one in this industry, or any other industry, ever dares to ask for advice and support from friends and family?

On the other hand, it is 100% possible that I am missing a subtlety here and I have totally the wrong take and this is actually more of a Kangana situation. What do you think?

Kendrick and Drake

Okay, I am REALLY out of my depth with this story, and I hadn’t even heard of these people before it became a huge story. But now it IS a huge story, so I was able to find a summary for dumb dumbs like me. And here’s what I got: Kendrick Lamar is very talented and famous. Drake is less talented and famous. Drake tried to get more famous by mentioning Kendrick in a song. Kendrick was offended just because Drake was clearly using him to get famous and said a little thing back. Drake then went really REALLY hard on trying to get more famous by saying lots and lots and lots of things back. And then Kendrick came out with a massive hit song that was entirely about how Drake was not a good person.

What I get from this is that, ultimately, it’s about using Kendrick. What got him mad wasn’t the whateverness of a song insult, it was the transparent way Drake was trying to climb up the fame ladder by stealing some of Kendrick’s earned fame. This is sooooooooooooooooooooo Indian film! Doing a song “tribute” in a movie to a bigger star that seems like a complement but is really just making you famous, giving an insulting quote about a bigger star just to get your name out there, whatever. And then usually you “win” by making the star actually take notice of you which REALLY inflates your fame. Unless the star manages to do it in a way that just absolute destroys you. I should actually listen to that Kendrick song everyone loves, shouldn’t I?



Source link

Leave a Comment

Scroll to Top
Receive the latest news

Subscribe To Our Weekly Newsletter

Get notified about new articles