Why am I rooting for Ben and Jen but not for Ross and Rachel?

Or, What is and is not interesting to me about celebrity gossip

August 10, 2021

The gossip sites are buzzing with unconfirmed, anonymously sourced tips and weird little clues that erstwhile Friends stars Jennifer Aniston and David Schwimmer, having confessed to harboring separate secret co-star crushes on each other back in their NBC days, are now seeing each other romantically. To which part of the internet sighs, Ross and Rachel, together for real, at last! And to which I say, ehn, whatever.

I know this is grouchy of me. I neither know nor care what David Schwimmer’s love life has been or could be, but I do know that Jennifer Aniston is a Rachel in real life — a celebrity protagonist — and therefore we are supposed to feel some satisfaction that she might at long last get what she wants, after having been treated, as the gossip narratives go, somewhat shabbily by a handful of exes, watching one go through a tumultuous publicized relationship with his true, doomed love (poorly constructed disaster rebuild housing) and having your Insta posts dissected for clues to the secrets of your second, more conscious uncoupling. How about a genuine rom-com happy ending, for once?

I guess. I’ve never found the (gross) narrative that Aniston is ~~a workaholic childless hag who will never find lasting love~~ persuasive; frankly, her love life ups and downs seem from the outside like very, very, very moneyed-up versions of those of pretty much everyone I know, which is to say, I’m good on those, all full over here. And her status as a specific type of cultural protagonist — a thin, casually chic, pretty, white woman with the self-control of the very successful who know the deal going in thanks to her industry insider pedigree (longtime Days fans, you know!) — has never been questioned, and for protagonists, things are expected to work out, generally and eventually. And Schwimmer? Zero investment. I find the Friends angle unpersuasive as well. I don’t owe the tabloid run-off of the sitcom that gave us Fat Monica, “how YOU doin,” and two decades of TBS reruns any space in my crowded heart.

And yet, every new detail I learn about Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez’s rekindled romance thrills me. I am invested. The birthday photoshoot with the callback to THE music video? SOLD. Am I a hypocrite for caring about one celebrity couple’s Second Shot at Love™ and dismissing the other’s? Maybe, but the best part of celebrity gossip is I don’t have to care too much because none of these people will invite me to their weddings or cry on me in public during their divorces so I can just get nosy from a distance and fill in a lot of blanks with my own projection and nonsense.

As Anne Helen Petersen wrote, the first time around, “Bennifer exceeded the unspoken limits of good taste.” (Remember good taste?!) Jennifer Lopez is wildly talented and a successful hardworking mogul and a beaming mother and breathtakingly beautiful, and and and, but she faced an uphill battle to convince the (racist, classist, misogynist) American celebrity machine to see her as a protagonist. The machine, ever twisted, still won’t see her humanity in full, but Lopez is undeniable now. Meanwhile, Sadfleck has been having a real one for the last several years. He’s not been at his best, let’s say! It must be true feelings, because honestly what else could it be?!

I like the part where I imagine Jennifer Lopez opening a ~~flirty email~~ from Ben, back when she had some doubts about trusting The Ball Player, and not immediately recoiling as she imagined Ben sending it from deep in a couch-cushioned shameover fueled by Dunkin’ iced mochas and haunted pre-noon despair, per his contemporaneous brand. Perhaps instead she thought, huh, I do still like him. And I like the part where he sent those flirty emails, if he did, who’s to say, unnamed sources close to the couple maybe? If there is a thing I like it’s uncomfortable strivers with slacker hearts finally realizing their lives will finally be good enough when they finally feel good enough for their lives. It’s possible Ben Affleck has found a way to like himself enough to try again, haters be damned. There’s an arc here that feels like momentum, like growth, not just an attempt to reclaim some past glory. At my age, that is romance.

Narratively speaking, I like it when unfinished business comes back around. So, speaking of haters. Ross and Rachel IRL doesn’t need to play out in the public eye. Their show and fictional romance enjoyed mass popularity and approval. But maybe Bennifer 2.0 does. Celebrity culture consumers and outlets had a role in their relationship twenty years ago, and it wasn’t the supportive cheering squad. Maybe in seeing this second chance narrative as a triumph, there’s a tiny cultural redemption arc happening for us, too.

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