Do You Remember: Ben Affleck, Ana de Armas, and the Summer of Cringey Paparazzi Pics

The Summer of BenAna brought us pandemic-era paparazzi cringe.

Bennifer is officially no more. The divorce papers have been filed, the discourse is in full swing, and it seems as though the warring camps have gotten their sources hot and heavy for a protracted media battle. Jennifer Lopez sources say that Ben Affleck has a dark side. His team is keen to emphasize his devotion to his family. There’s a Kennedy in the mix, with conflicting claims over whether or not she and Affleck are dating/f*cking/planning a Presidential run. It’s all very dramatic. I wrote for Pajiba that I found the long, slow, and extremely drawn-out end of the Lopez/Affleck marriage to be a big old bummer. It wasn’t a gossip story I took a lot of pleasure in, not when it felt like the press was eagerly goading on a divorce from the moment they reunited. The whole thing felt sad to me. It still does, although the inclusion of a woman named Kick has me wondering if we’ve fallen into the 30 Rock timeline once more.

When it comes to celebrities and their PR struggles, there’s an evidently gendered double standard at play. Far more often than not, the woman is blamed for attracting the press attention. Two famous people date and you can bet that the public will see the woman as the conniving schemer who wants the cameras on her while the poor beleaguered guy was all but dragged onto the streets for the photos. For the two decades plus change of Bennifer drama, Lopez was always the one painted as the fame-seeking social climber who got her claws into the himbo (not that I would ever classify Ben Affleck as a himbo but he did bear that label for a while.) She’s the one who put him in her music videos, who wore revealing dresses and dated a rapper, so clearly she was not to be trusted. Poor Ben must have suffered, right? I see that way less this time around, if only because the Kennedy story has people wondering if Ben’s a cheater and everyone loves to rally against that type. What it has me flashing back to is the relationship Affleck was in before reuniting with Lopez, and how we saw a press-savvy man step into the realm of loved-up cringe.