![\"blakelively\"](\"http:\/\/alertnerd.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/blakelively.jpg\" "\\"blakelively\\"")
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I’ll be upfront: I’m a Blake Lively fan. I love how shrewdly she captures Serena van der Woodsen’s messy It Girl joie de vivre every week on Gossip Girl<\/em> and her slumber party monologuing in The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants<\/em> never fails to make me cry like a small child who has just been denied candy.<\/p>\n And so, you know, I sort of braced myself when I found out she’d been cast as Carol Ferris. Because I knew the resulting internet shitstorm was probably going to be brutal and horrible and enough to make me long for the days when we geeks didn’t have 140-character tools that allow us to instantly register every tiny drop of vitriol we might be experiencing at any given moment.<\/p>\n It was. Of course<\/em> it was.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Let me be clear: I don’t necessarily think Lively is a slam-dunk perfect fit for this part. (I actually suggested a different superhero part<\/a> for her a while back, but I guess no one was listening. Hmph!) A lot of folks have offered up thoughtful commentary about why her youth doesn’t quite make sense for the character, why a 22-year-old might not make the most believable head of an aerospace company, and why the ten-year gap between her and leading man Ryan Reynolds (to me, that’s<\/em> the more problematic casting, but that’s a discussion for another time) presents an unfortunate sort of imbalance. All valid concerns. (Though I would like to ever-so-gently remind the internet that Hollywood has also asked us to believe that 1) Jessica Biel would totally go for Nic Cage<\/a> and 2) Robert Downey Jr. and Michelle Monaghan are contemporaries<\/a>. I can buy Lively and Reynolds as peers far more<\/em> than I can buy either of those scenarios.)<\/p>\n But then…then there are the other<\/em> kinds of internet shitstorm comments, the ones that alternately enrage and flat-out depress me. These comments dismissively posit that Lively is…<\/p>\n 1. Too blonde Comments that fall under categories 1-4 are usually followed up with some variation on, “Well, even though she sucks, I hope we get to see her in the Star Sapphire costume, know what I’m saying?! Hur hur hurrrrr.” (Because, see…it’s apparently not cool to admit you like Blake Lively, but it is totally cool to objectify her and imply that she’s a big giant pair of BEWBS and not much else.)<\/p>\n
\n2. Too skinny
\n3. Too pretty
\n4. Too busty
\n5. Not pretty\/busty\/skinny enough<\/em><\/p>\n