Welcome to modern rom-com week at The Daily Beast’s Obsessed! In honor of two big romance releases this week—The Fall Guy and The Idea of You—we’re celebrating everything we love about the last 15 years of romantic comedies.
Jennifer Lopez has the work ethic of 100 people, 15 horses, three donkeys, and me after two cans of sugar-free Red Bull. That’s why she needs to dance with a cane: She’s a lot of woman to support! Hopping between an action movie about an assassin stricken with maternal guilt, to an album all about your marriage (complete with accompanying short film and documentary, lest we forget), to an upcoming sci-fi thriller about a dystopian universe where AI has taken over would be a daunting task for anyone. And yet, Lopez has persisted, making it look as easy as rocking up to the bodega counter and ordering her preferred meal of ham and cheese on a roll and a bag of chips.
Lopez seems consumed by the need to prove to the world that she can do anything and be anybody. It’s a commendable effort, especially when something like her childhood bodega order can be lambasted online in Reddit threads questioning the veracity of her love of orange drink. For years, J.Lo has been the butt of the internet’s joke, a favorite to pile on whenever carpal tunnel-ridden thumbs need something new to post about. Various threads on X detail all of the “stolen” songs in her discography—a common misconception about the standard music industry practice of using vocals recorded in a demo as backing vocals in a finished song. Other times, a venture at audience connection will be an outright failure, like when her attempt to start the #LoveDontCostAThingChallenge was met with crickets, along with plenty of observations over how loudly those crickets were chirping.
Who can blame J.Lo for going bigger and bolder now that her attempts at modest sincerity are met with such scrutiny? Why cater to the average music-listener or movie-watcher when it will only result in most of them writing it off entirely? Lopez’s resistance has certainly........