I love media and pop culture, but it’s not often I really get too invested in celebrity couplings. “Hollyweird” marriages aren’t built to last, and there’s no sense getting too attached to them, is the general thinking. Except that the marriage of Paula and Robin actually was. Theirs was a real, pre-fame relationship that’s been going strong for over 20 years (they’ve only been married for eight but dated for years before that) and started when they were teenagers. But, I’m giving away the bullet points, so now, without further ado, the ten reasons why they shouldn’t split and should really try to work it out…
1. Their Relationship Was Real. So many of Hollywood’s “couples” feel market-tested and put together with a focus group. Their p.r. teams get together and talk about how it’ll be good for their careers if the relationship happens or doesn’t happen. There are “good” celebrity couples driven by positive press (Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel feels like a match-made in magazine heaven, even if they probably don’t love each other in a genuine way). And then there are trashy tabloid couples just desperate for another 15 minutes. Paula and Robin are neither. They didn’t shy away from press coverage, but they sure weren’t together because of it.
2. If They Weren’t Famous, They’d Probably Be Together Forever. If this was one more couple living in some dingy apartment in California, they’d never divorce. Women wouldn’t be throwing themselves at Robin, and men would like Paula but they probably wouldn’t consider it their mission in life to get with her. She’d be just one more hot girl, not the hot girl. And they should both remember that since this fame won’t last forever. Why not be with the one who loved you before you were famous? [Would Beyonce have ever gotten with Jay-Z if he weren’t famous? Would Mila Kunis have looked at Ashton Kutcher twice?] Along that same line of logic…
3. Anyone Who Dates Them Now Doesn’t Want to Date the Real Them. All these men on social media are professing their love of “Paula Patton.” Groupies at concerts think they’re “in love” with Robin Thicke. Not one of these people would know who either of them is if they weren’t famous. It won’t surprise me if Paula starts dating an actor like Idris Elba or Michael Ealy and Robin dates a much younger “aspiring” singer who’ll use him to break into the business, but the connection will never be the same with people who might be driven by motives other than love. Again, try to rise above the conventional trappings of fame and all the predictable mistakes. [Kerry Washington and Zoe Saldana both dumped their longtime boyfriends/fiancees when they got famous, and are now in more predictable celebrity marriages that will probably last six years tops.]
4. “Think of the Children.” This was a common phrase associated with why not to get divorced, and I notice that absolutely no one on the internet (which seems to be downright gleeful over this separation) has mentioned the negative effect their separation will have on their three year old son Julian. It’s funny how all the family values folks (and I’m talking about everyone from the more traditional white conservatives to the Tyler Perry crowd) don’t seem to care at all over the dissolution of this couple and the struggles their very young son will face. In fact, the child is ignored and their own personal prejudices take precedent.
5. Don’t Let the A-Holes Win. A lot of people on the internet are just hateful. They just generally hate everything and anyone who might be richer or better looking or more successful or just flat-out happier than them. Needless to say, they are really enjoying this news. You can practically hear the Morlocks salivating at the prospect of seeing an Eloi couple brought low. [If you don’t get that reference, google the H.G. Wells novel The Time Machine.] They don’t care about Paula and her “self-respect.” They like seeing a divorce and general misery spread around.
6. Don’t Let the Racists Win. People cannot imagine a couple like Paula and Robin working because they don’t live in a world where really any interracial couple “makes sense.” They keep saying things like “well really, who couldn’t see this one coming?” and they’re making it sound like it’s because of his rumored infidelity (we’ll get to that later), but that’s just a cover. To them, a couple like Paula and Robin don’t represent themselves or their values, so they have no worth and may actually be somewhat threatening.
Paula and Robin are by far the most public celebrity interracial and aren’t ashamed to actually–gasp!–talk about themselves, unlike all the other interracial couples who act like they’re criminals in hiding (Zoe and what’s his face, Aisha Tyler and her anonymous husband, and Halle and Olivier act like they’re sneaking around…with someone they’re married to). This is also why a lot of people straight up hate Paula and Robin.
7. Don’t Let Racist Black Guys Win. Bullet point six is more general (could be white conservatives I’m talking about, none of whom really love this couple) but one look at a message board, twitter, or Facebook makes it look like some black guys with a serious axe to grind against wm/bw couples thinks that Paula is their personal property, and Robin somehow stole her from them. Like some guy with a twitter account who drives a bus in Detroit is right around the corner from snagging Paula now that Robin is out of the way. It’s childish, it’s 2014, it’s time to evolve and get over this mentality that is so anachronistic it probably surprises a lot of people that it’s still so prevalent yet is almost never talked about. [If you try to downplay this exists and is so widespread, please see “the internet” for further clarification.]
7. A. Don’t Let Racist White Women Win. Are there some white women who aren’t crazy about Robin and Paula too? Yep. They may not be as vocal about it, and might try to be a lot more subtle with it, but it’s there. They might say things like “Well, really who couldn’t see this one coming?” Although, unlike with the black guys who make Robin the object of their scorn, they might try to pretend they really care about Paula and just don’t want to see her with a guy “like that.” “Like that” really meaning a white guy who’s into black women.
8. Makes Robin Look Really Bad. We really have no idea if the cheating rumors are true or not (my gut says that the white chick after the VMAs is lying for publicity, but the woman in a nightclub in Paris is perhaps the real deal). We will never know. However, that doesn’t stop people from thinking they know to a dead-certainty, and calling Robin a “scuzzy sleaze bag pig.” He takes the “blame” for this failure even if we really don’t know if Paula cheated or they’re breaking up for an entirely unrelated reason. He’ll be hurt by this big time, but…
9. Really, She Looks Bad Too. Being the “wronged woman” is a tricky, double-edged sword. People sympathize with you on the surface, but they kind-of judge you too (call it The Hillary Clinton Syndrome). A lot of comments are siding with Paula…but they’re also whispering that she had an open marriage, calling her a fool, saying she was an idiot, has a cocaine problem (because of some bubbly interview she gave), talks about how “whorish” some of her photo shoots are, and all but calling her a jezebel too. The people who really would “respect” Paula for walking out on a man who cheats on her are the same ones that probably don’t respect her for other reasons. Marginal respect and tolerance from people who don’t really like you is worthless.
Ultimately, this is a picture book couple who will now have to date other people…potentially, a lot of other people, and Paula will look like just one more Hollywood actress who can’t make a marriage work. She’ll be lumped in with “all the other ‘Hollyweird’ couples,” fairly or unfairly.
10. We Wouldn’t Be Talking About Them At All if They Didn’t Help Each Other Get Started. All these men are saying they “love” Paula and would never treat her that way if they were married to her (easier said than done, “show me a man with a beautiful woman and I’ll show you a man who’s tired of her,” as the saying goes). Well they wouldn’t even know her if Robin hadn’t pushed for her to pursue acting and stardom. He even helped get her cast as the lead role in Idlewild (her breakthrough role) since he knew Outkast (the stars of the film). The same goes for women “in love” with Robin since he’s said that he might be dead if Paula hadn’t saved him from partying too much.
I don’t know, maybe I’m just a starry-eyed romantic pretending to be a cynical, acid-tongued blogger, but if there’s at least one celebrity couple who deserves to give the rest of us hope, whelp, it’s them.
Work it out guys, because I don’t think George Clooney and whoever he’s dating this week are really going to save our faith in modern romance.