Newsletters: We’ve Taken J. Lo’s Talent for Granted for Far Too Long

We’ve Taken J. Lo’s Talent for Granted for Far Too Long

with Kevin Fallon

Everything we can't stop loving, hating, and thinking about this week in pop culture.

This week:

The J. Lo documentary is kind of a revelation.
Emma Thompson is so freaking good in her new movie.
Yes, I thirsted over that Ryan Gosling photo. I'm only human.
Time to cancel that Netflix subscription!
A photo that might save us all

Put Some Respect on J. Lo's Name

Jennifer Lopez has a new project out, and it is my religious obligation to histrionically champion it.

The thing about Halftime, the Netflix documentary about her career centered around her incredible last few years of success, is that it doesn't make me work hard to do that. It's a damn good documentary, and it makes a damn good point: We don't appreciate Jennifer Lopez's talent enough.

For whatever reason—her tabloid celebrity, dismissal of the rom-com genre, latent misogyny—it's been discounted. Call it narcissism or call it empowerment, now she's demanding the credit that she's long deserved. It's fascinating to see her be so vulnerable and candid about it…and then see raw footage of her working harder than should be humanly possible and absolutely slaying it in order to back it all up.

Lo has, for as long as I can remember, been an icon. It's about time we also think of her as a talent.

Halftime, as its title suggests, spotlights the arduous creative process behind Lopez's explosive 2020 Super Bowl halftime performance with Shakira, with the accolades and awards buzz she received for her performance in Hustlers serving as not so much a parallel storyline, but a victory lap. Any good documentary, of course, needs dramatic tension, and Halftime sets a compelling narrative: Both triumphs were rife with struggle.

Being asked to share the Super Bowl bill was considered a slight. "It was an insult to say that you needed two Latinas to do the job that one artist historically has done," her longtime manager Benny Medina says.

And the Hustlers praise reopened old wounds from the insults she had received for her acting over the years, and, of course, ended in heartbreak: The Oscar nomination she was told by the entire world was a shoo-in to receive didn't happen. Watching that take place all over again is a wrenching experience. (I almost had to turn off the film when the timeline approached nomination morning, it was so upsetting to relive.)

Naturally, the documentary features a checklist of all her history-making achievements: Breaking barriers for Latina actresses with her $1 million quote, proving wrong all those who said "huh?" when she announced she wanted to be a recording artist in addition to acting, and, at one point, having the number one film and record at the same time.

But it cuts all of those superlatives with the cruelty she had been on the receiving end of, in spite of the fact that she was a blockbuster movie star: The way that the attention paid to her personal life and diva rumors overshadowed her career. How the cultural obsession with her curves ended up defining her: "It's hard when people think you're a joke. Think you're a punchline." And how all of that coalesced into an assumption that, whether it was her singing voice or action chops, she has no talent. She was merely famous. "I believed a lot of what they said, which is that I wasn't very good," she says in the film.

It should come as no surprise that Halftime leaves no question that she is, in fact, extremely good. Watching her film Hustlers is spellbinding, and a sequence showing her rehearsing for the Super Bowl that's set to her song "On the Floor" is so transfixing and astonishing that I didn't even realize I was moved to tears while watching it. (Who wants to guess how many times I cried while watching a documentary about Jennifer Lopez?)

Sure, Halftime is a PR piece, but sometimes you have to correct the record.

Granted, I'm already an unapologetic J. Lo fan. (I don't not own her Glo face serum because I once watched an Instagram video of her demonstrating how to apply it while drunk and purchased several bottles.) But I can't imagine watching this film and, if you were a skeptic or one of the people who had contributed to that career-long diminishing of her talent, walking away without a newfound appreciation for her.

For people like me? Well, it just enables our exaltation and amplifies it to insufferable levels. Who cares about R8? Cute of Beyoncé to announce that new album now. (This is blasphemous, and I confess my sins. Everyone knows a Holy Trinity needs three cross points. In the name of the Beyoncé, the Rihanna, and the Holy J. Lo, Amen.)

My favorite part of the documentary is when she talks with remarkable honesty about her feelings being asked to share the Super Bowl gig with Shakira. It's important to note that she never slights Shakira. But on principle, it's another example of her being undervalued.

Yet another through line of Halftime is a recognition that, at this point in her career and life—she turned 50 when all of this was going on—things seemed to fall into place for her in unexpected, yet correct ways.

The double bill really worked. Which has me thinking, who next? Mariah Carey and Céline Dion. Pink and Kelly Clarkson. Brandi Carlisle and Dolly Parton. Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion. Olivia Rodrigo and Alanis Morissette. Ariana Grande and Kristin Chenoweth. Shania Twain and Faith Hill. Brandy and Monica. Christina Aguilera, Jessica Simpson, and Mandy Moore (but they only sing Britney Spears songs). Vanessa Hudgens, Stockard Channing, and Rosie O'Donnell, the All-Rizzo Edition. Nicole Scherzinger and Jessie J, the Why Only Making Hits in the U.K. edition. Dear GOD, no men though. (I could do this exercise for weeks, and it would be the most enjoyable time of my life.)

There's something that really struck me about all of this, albeit taken with a Costco-sized container of salt, as this is an incredibly famous and rich person that a plebeian like me is attempting to relate to. We all—or at least me and J. Lo—are working really hard. We're spending the time and doing the work. But out of the corner of our eyes, we see the other people. They're happy. Sometimes, so happy. They're getting the things we want. They have it figured it out: how to get the thing that you always strived for, that thing you have long since given up on happening for yourself. Why them and not me? Why not Kevin, or…um, for the sake of this metaphor…J. Lo?

I'm not being glib. It's an emotional thing, to assume you're not going to receive the happiness, let alone the validation, worthy of what you put out into the world, and then to have to convince yourself to be OK with that. Something powerful happens in Halftime. She never stopped doing the work, but she had stopped the delusion she was going to get that. Then, lo and behold, she does (Oscar snub aside).

It's a gorgeous and inspiring testament to that work. To that tenacity. To the armor you have to put up to weather the digs and the judgment, to stay inspired in spite of the failures, and continue to think you deserve to be seen for your greatness even if, at times, you're the only one who does. Maybe, and dare I say probably, one day it will come around. Others will see it, too. And as Halftime proves, there's nothing wrong with demanding that they do.

Give Emma Thompson an Oscar!

Emma Thompson is never not good.

She'll do something that seems like a total lark—doing the kids' movie thing in Nanny McPhee and Cruella, writing a Christmas movie based on a cheesy Wham! song, playing a late-night talk show host in a Mindy Kaling movie—and be utterly brilliant. In the monstrous turd of a film Dolittle, she voiced a wise macaw named Polynesia, and she still, in spite of everything offensively atrocious about that movie, managed to be pretty damn great.

And when she's in things that are supposed to be good, of course, she's reliably phenomenal. I mean, just the sheer number of times she's moved me to shed a single tear that I must wipe with the stretched palm of one hand, as if I had just received a Joni Mitchell CD for Christmas from my husband who was having an affair…

The point of this is to say that it shouldn't come as a surprise when Thompson delivers an award-worthy performance in a new film. But it's a testament to her talent that what she accomplishes in Good Luck to You, Leo Grande manages to somehow present her anew, with that aforementioned brilliance showcased in a novel, refreshing light.

It's not just that you may not expect Emma Thompson to be the star of what is the best sex movie of the year, and perhaps even the best one in a very long time. It's that she finds a kind of humanity and vulnerability in a sex movie that explores the insecurity and shame that is associated with intimacy and pleasure—aspects that Hollywood so often ignores.

She plays a widow cautiously attempting to experience all the sexual activity her long, boring, and chaste marriage never afforded her. She hires a young escort (the titular Leo, played by Daryl McCormack) to help through a checklist of sexual acts she hopes to explore, perhaps even achieving the orgasm that she has never experienced in her life.

What she learns is that sex and intimacy is about more than checking off boxes. The more that becomes apparent, the more that frightens her. It's empowering to want to feel sexually vibrant, but it's also not something that can just be turned on, so to speak. It's a difficult journey, one that Thompson chronicles with her signature charm but also extreme vulnerability. The final sequence alone will have anyone who watches in awe for a long time after the credits roll.

It's a small movie, but one that deserves a lot of attention. Go see it!

My Crushes Really Delivered This Week

I am a brand new person. In an instant, I have been transformed on a molecular level, my soul refreshed—an entire worldview refreshed and radicalized. I had one existence, and it changed in an instant. I saw the photo of Ryan Gosling as Ken in the Barbie movie, and will never be the same.

When I close my eyes, it is not the darkness of my lids that I see, it is tan Ryan Gosling looking like the hot guy at the Brooklyn gay bar that I would be too intimidated to talk to, but will obsess over for weeks as if he's my actual boyfriend. My bank account is now empty and my credit cards maxed, as I have ordered every single piece of decor, fashion, and memorabilia onto which I could feasibly have this image screenprinted.

It has come to my attention that there are some people who do not enjoy that photo, and in response I would like to officially announce my candidacy for President of the United States on the platform of permanently banishing them from society.

The truth is, it's been a banner week for having the most basic of Hollywood crushes. There's not just Ryan Gosling thirsting to do, but Chris Evans has also made several strong cases for collective swooning this week. The clip of him discussing his facial hair that is absurdly, yet extremely sexual and his eloquence talking about the same-sex kiss "scandal" that has followed Lightyear: He's making points.

So congrats to all of us on this sliver of fun from the week.

I'm Buying a House!

This horseshit has come around again. I'm glad it has! I had almost given up all hope of ever owning a home, now that I live in a city where apparently you are required to make at least $160,000 a year in order to afford a one-room apartment.

But oh my goodness, before reading this article I had never considered that if I could just stop myself from my carnal need to watch Selling Sunset, I could pocket $20 and absolutely be able to buy myself a house in no time!

Sorry, Stranger Things Season 4, Part 2! I've got a few Andrew Jacksons in my pocket, which according to this article must be enough to put a down payment on a house.

This Photo May Save Us All

What if we all just stopped stressing about things and spent a few hours staring at this photo? I think it would be how we finally find world peace.

Cha Cha Real Smooth: Don't trust the killjoys who say you shouldn't be charmed by this movie! (Fri. on Apple TV+)

Good Luck to You, Leo Grande: Kevin Won't Shut Up About Emma Thompson Deserving an Oscar season starts now! (Fri. on Hulu)

Real Housewives Ultimate Girls Trip: Chaos! Mess! Thank God! (Thurs. on Peacock)

Lightyear: This movie makes no sense! How did this happen?! (Fri. in theaters)

Spiderhead: Not-great title, not-great movie. (Fri. on Netflix)

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We’ve Taken J. Lo’s Talent for Granted for Far Too Long

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