Case Post-Mortem: What This Case Means To Me
It used to be, that there were like, 3 Billionaires. And we didn't really know them except that they would occasionally build a public ice rink in a major city for us other-halvers to use.
Now there are hundreds of them and they all want publicity, and we don't get anything out of the deal except to get to watch their shiny phallic rockets fire off into the sky and to stare wildeyed at their disgustingly gaudy head-of-state libraries.
Elitism is everywhere now. It has established itself and it is building defenses. We actually have people lobbying the idea that if we give a $900M tax break to that one guy who is already worth $40 Billion, that somehow magically the great doors will open and trickle down money will flow and they're gonna hire thousands of workers and spend money on contracts to build huge warehouses. They just didn't have enough money to do it until now(?)
It's almost as if people think it just didn't occur to Elon(or pick random obscenely rich person) that he could spend his money, and that all he needs is a nudge. NO, the reason why Billionaires have the money they do is because they have deliberately chosen avarice as their creed. They have deliberately chosen NOT to spend their money. Not even on their families, their wives, their children, their employees, the economy, and least of all their communities.
And it's getting worse.
What Is The Point I Am Getting To?
This Case. ... Blake Lively is an elitist. In her mind she's the entitled one. She's the creative one. She's the famous one. Any project should count their lucky starts that she deigns to stoop down and get hands on with all aspects of the production. She has all the money and all the power.
Where for most people who think about Justin Baldoni, and others like him, what they see is a man who spent money on the rights to a film adaptation of a book. "Rights", so that he had the right to make this film. And then he put in his time, and his energies, into making it come to life. He's the creative one, because it belongs to him to create this film. As it should be, because It's right.
By contrast, the pathology here, between Blake and Ryan, is they don't see Justin Baldoni as the creative person he is. They don't even see him as just an obstacle they need to get past. They see him as the enemy. The fact that Justin didn't immediately cede control of the film to Blake...That he couldn't recognize her "creative brilliance" and hop to it, and step aside, means HE has the problem. "What's going on with this guy, why won't he get with the program? There Must be something wrong with him. He's one of those Creeps isn't he? He's a Clown...He's EVIL."
They are so epically delusional, so conceited, that they see goodness as evil because it won't acknowledge their primacy as the elite people they think they are.
Why this case was important to me, is because the last decade or so has been a show of rich and powerful individuals running roughshod over the 99%, and most importantly, getting away with it, in public. We as humans are very much monkey see, monkey do. We see people committing evil deeds, we see how selfish and brazen they are with it, we see that there is no longer any consequence for that behavior, and sadly a not insignificant number of us have begun to do evil, in turn.
Blake Lively is not a one off; denialism has begun to spawn these types of people. The fact that Blake is seemingly getting off scot free is only going to spur it on, and it will only get worse. Time will tell what consequences we will bear for allowing that to happen.