Chris Evans, Mask Off
I was scrolling earlier when I came upon a post by someone who is feeling very betrayed by Chris Evans right now. The post was about how stupid they felt that Chris Evans was not the man he had pretended to be, that recent events had proven he was a PR fabrication and they felt like a fool for falling for it. I went looking for the source of this pain, trying to figure out what Evans had done to be denounced as a fraud and a liar. I admit, I was surprised when I figured out it was his recent marriage.
Now, I'm not linking back to the post or reblogging it because I'm not interested in calling anyone out or making them feel bad for feeling bad. If you're feeling betrayed by the news that Chris Evans married someone much younger than himself, I'm not going to assume it's simply because you're mad it wasn't you. I believe that plenty of people feel that the age gap between Chris Evans and Alba Baptista is problematic and indicative that he is not the woke king he purported to be. But I would like to offer a different perspective.
My parents had a twenty-two year age gap. When they met, my father was 48 and my mother was 26. Plenty of people looked askance at the age gap between them, wondered why in the hell either of them would want to be with the other. But they were madly in love and happily married until he died twenty years later. And she never remarried, said until the day she died that she just couldn't find anyone who could follow my dad. So age gaps don't weird me out unless one of the people in the relationship is clearly being exploited. For example, hanging around a teenager until she's legally old enough to date. Two adults meeting, falling in love, and getting married doesn't set me off even if there's what others think of as a problematic age gap. I've seen firsthand that it depends on the people in the relationship.
None of us in this fandom know him, or his new wife. None of us know what their dynamic is and we cannot infer that she is being exploited based solely on the fact that she is sixteen years his junior. (I promise you, despite the 22 year difference, my dad was not in charge of my mom.) We only know his public persona, the carefully polished version of himself that he shows to the world for marketing purposes. Chris Evans' persona is very appealing, but it is curated, as is everyone's, really. We all put the good stuff on social media and hope no one puts our bad stuff on theirs.
My point, I suppose, is that having any real opinion on Chris Evans' personal life is evidence of a parasocial relationship that you might want to reevaluate. There is no good to be found in valorizing celebrities; they're just screwed up humans like the rest of us and will always ultimately disappoint you. Also, just because we may find the actions and behaviors of others uncomfortable or problematic, doesn't mean they've actually done anything wrong. He's not a paragon and never has been. He's a celebrity living his life and unless he's hurting anyone, what he does is really none of our business.
