Rooting for Them

Joan Crawford had her shoulders. Bette Davis had her searchlight eyes. Burt Lancaster had his height. Marilyn Monroe had everything. Most major stars have at least one physical attribute that defines their persona. For Ben Affleck at this point in his career, that single feature is his strained smile. Its contours and the sadness infused in them are the stuff of memes. My favorite is Affleck doing the press rounds for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (a title so dumb I thought I must have misremembered it) when he and co-star Henry Cavill were asked about the film’s savage critical response. In the meme edit, just as Cavill plunges into a rehearsed response, Affleck’s eyes grow downcast and his soul seemingly flees to a deep, dark pocket of his body. All that remains is an echo of a smile with “The Sound of Silence,” by Simon & Garfunkel, providing the soundtrack to this public sorrow. Sad Affleck was born. Over the next almost-decade, his weary grin would show up against the backdrop of Dunkin’ Donuts runs and the Grammy Awards. This year alone, the strained smile — fixed in the middle of his worn face — has spawned not one but two Onion headlines, the second appearing earlier this month, days after rumors of an impending split with Jennifer Lopez surfaced.

Lopez and Affleck’s overly manicured, hypertan romantic history is the stuff of pure early-aughts celebrity hedonism: the pap walks, the music-video appearances, the terrible movies they made together. The 6.10-carat, radiant-cut pink Harry Winston diamond she flashed the first time they were engaged in 2002 (which you can read about in this Town & Country piece on all six of Lopez’s engagement rings; how Elizabeth Taylor of her). They broke up after two years — allegedly because the tabloid obsession with the couple became too intense for him, not for her — only to reunite romantically 17 years later on the other side of two highly publicized divorces, several scrutinized career turns, and, famously, some emails. It all culminated in This Is Me … Now: A Love Story, a genre-defying 2024 musical based on Lopez’s album of the same name, inspired by her triumphant, star-crossed relationship with Affleck.

“Nonsensical. Deranged. So far up its own ass it can’t see the light,” I wrote on Letterboxd after seeing the film in February. “But … for all of J.Lo’s faults as a celebrity and an entertainer, she understands the worth of maximalism.” In both title and content, the trio of projects (there’s a documentary, too, in which Lopez explains that her new music was inspired by Affleck’s past love letters) speaks to Lopez’s understanding of celebrity as pure ostentation. She used millions of her own money to fund This Is Me … Now despite friends and loved ones, including Affleck, warning her against it. Because for Lopez, falling in love and finally wedding Affleck is not just the greatest thing in the world; it’s something that can be polished, packaged, and shared with the fans who have long followed her for excessive displays of emotion (and wealth).

But in the months after the film’s release, the couple’s relationship was put under a harsh glare of speculation. On May 17, People reported Affleck and Lopez hadn’t been seen together publicly in 47 days. (That’s apparently too many days for a couple known for doing this on a very large yacht.) Conveniently, the two appeared together in public soon after, notably wearing their wedding rings at an event supporting their kids in Los Angeles. Days later, paps caught the pair in their car, windows down in Santa Monica, with Affleck in the driver’s seat and Lopez peeking over his shoulder. They’re both smiling, but while Lopez’s grin is archly photogenic, Affleck’s is tentative, tired. Sad. Divorce rumors were only stoked as headlines alleged the two were no longer living together and maybe even shopping for new homes. After all, Lopez had co-chaired the Met Gala and premiered her Netflix film Atlas without Affleck on her arm. So they showed up as a couple at Affleck’s daughter’s graduation and his son’s basketball game, all of which was captured by paparazzi.

What fascinates me is this couple’s nostalgic strategy for navigating gossip. When they first became an item, social media had little influence. Trump hadn’t yet proved the worst, inevitable outcome of celebrity idolatry. Then, as they do now, Affleck and Lopez relied on dramatic, planned paparazzi encounters and “leaks” from friendly sources who would run to People to confess that the couple “is not in the best place at the moment” but affirm that “nothing has stopped their love.” They didn’t resort to the expected Notes-app statement or a relatable posed family photo on the grid. That would be too pedestrian. Lopez believes, as I do, that if you exist in the public eye and have been elevated by the people to the kind of stardom she inhabits, you better entertain. (Ghost singers like Ashanti or not.) Fiercely, extravagantly, and, most important to Lopez, on her own maximalist terms. On an Atlas press stop in Mexico City, a male reporter asked if the tales of her romantic issues with Affleck were real. Her response was terse: “You know better than that.”

Modern celebrity has been in the midst of a major shift for some time. New stars are being cultivated, yet it’s unclear what lasting fame looks like or what kind of long-term brand management will be required to sustain it. But we still have Ben and Jen, who prove that just the veneer of vulnerability and openness still goes far with audiences, heavy emphasis on veneer. Affleck’s cracked smile is what the couple will allow — a narrow, quivering window into the “real” pressures of celebrity romance, captured by telephoto lenses. “I don’t think he’s very comfortable with me doing all of this,” Lopez openly explains in her doc. “But he loves me, he knows I’m an artist, and he’s going to support me in any way he can.”

On May 22, Affleck was spotted solo by paparazzi picking up his son. In the resulting pictures, a blue sweater is thrown over his arm, making it impossible to tell whether he’s wearing his wedding ring. But his face is the bigger tell. Tense with a wide smile stretched across it, he looks unable to contain the panicked euphoria of a man in the throes of potential separation, not reconciliation. Some people are quick to point out that this is just bad PR, a sign that Lopez’s grasp on her audience is loosening, or was never really that firm to begin with. But this is no tragedy. These are figures who work hard to keep themselves both in the spotlight and obscured. Who have spent two decades raising audiences on a steady diet of parasocial satisfaction. Their resilient pap walks are throwbacks to a simpler era of celebrity when Affleck’s little wince could pull heat away from the glare of weak tour sales and weaker Rotten Tomatoes scores. But by now, you know better than that.