Thereâs actually a very understandable reason that some folks were turned off by Blake Livelyâs It Ends With Us press tour, and specifically her message to survivors of domestic abuse and generational trauma, and it gets to the heart of an important aspect of domestic violence that often gets overlooked. So letâs talk about it.
In It Ends With Us, Lively plays Lily Bloom, a woman whose fairytale romance with Ryle (Justin Baldoni) turns into an abusive relationship when he becomes violent towards her. At the filmâs premiere, Lively was asked what she would like to say to real life victims who might see the movie and recognize their own traumas in it. âI think that youâre so muchâand not to minimize itâbut you are so much more than just a survivor or just a victim,âLively responded. âWhile that is a huge thing, you are a person of multitudes, and what someone has done to you doesnât define you. You define you.â She added that It Ends With Us, âis a story that covers domestic violence but itâs not about domestic violence.â
What this answer, like so much of our conversation about domestic violence, misses is the sense of shame victims of DV often experience. In fact, this is why Lively deserves huge props for bringing a nuanced portrayal of abuse to the forefront with IEWU. I just wish her response showed the same kind of nuance and sensitivity as the film. Iâm sure it wasnât her intention, but the language Lively used in this answer plays right into peopleâs shameful associations with DV.
Saying someone is âmore than just a survivorâ or âmore than just a victim,â implies that thereâs something bad about identifying as a victim in the first place. Or that being a victim is something that must be compensated for. Our culture commonly associates victimhood with weakness, and, even if we donât mean to, sometimes our language reinforces those connotations.
IT ENDS WITH US, from left: Blake Lively Justin Baldoni, 2024. © Sony Pictures Releasing / courtesy Everett Collection©Sony Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection
