And then she started dating Ben Affleck again. The next year, she performed at the Super Bowl halftime show, claiming space for her songs - once dismissed as pop fluff - at the very center of American culture in 2021, she’d sing at the presidential inauguration, joining the ranks of the country’s greatest musicians. In the fall of 2019, Lopez walked the Versace runway in a version of the (in)famous green Versace dress she’d once donned at the 2000 Grammys, prompting an effusive response on social media and in the press. American culture is currently obsessed with redeeming once-maligned women, but Lopez’s engagement with her own history as a public figure is unique. Suddenly, it was cool to love Lopez - and rather than resting on her laurels, she capitalized on the critical acclaim to launch a fascinating PR project: reclaiming and rehabilitating the earlier phases of her career, which weren’t always well-received by the public. Her efforts began following the release of 2019’s Hustlers, a film often cited as her career-best performance, and another project she produced. Lopez knew viewers were ready to see her have it all, because she herself laid the groundwork for it. The film earned $11 million at the still-depressed box office, while also streaming on Peacock.
If Lopez has historically endeared herself to the audience by playing “relatable” characters, Marry Me asks audiences to root for her: J.Lo, the A-lister, the megastar, the icon. In Marry Me - which Lopez produced as well as starred in - she not only plays a rich woman, she plays a famous and powerful celebrity, designed to remind viewers of the star herself. Darcy.) But that’s not the only difference. (Think Elizabeth Bennet, who can’t inherit property, marrying the uber-rich Mr. Characters like Maid in Manhattan’s Marisa Ventura, a maid who finds romance with a senator, or The Wedding Planner’s Mary Fiore, a wedding planner who falls for a well-off client, don’t challenge the traditional rom-com framework: a woman marrying a wealthier man. The character is a far cry from Lopez’s previous rom-com roles, which have exclusively been working-class women - parts that draw on her background as a working-class kid from the Bronx. The message is clear: Kat Valdez wants for nothing, because Kat Valdez is really, really, really rich. The camera pans over a sea of purses as assistants announce more presents - an opulent diamond necklace from a jewelry designer, a whole stove from a fan. At the opening of Marry Me, Jennifer Lopez’s alter-ego Kat Valdez sits in her palatial Manhattan apartment, surrounded by mountains of gifts celebrating her impending nuptials.
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