This time last year, actors Chris Evans and Jenny Slate made a very flirty appearance together on Anna Faris' podcast "Anna Faris Is Not Qualified". Evans said of Slate, "Oddly enough, I've only known Jenny for a few months, which is insane to say because we're like the same animal." Slate was a bit more blunt: "He's a giant man with huge muscles. He's Captain America."
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The chemistry was undeniable and the internet went wild. A month later it was official – the pair were dating. Captain America and an indie comedy darling! It was too good to be true. We studied every Instagram snap and gushed over every vague but cute compliment. It was like we were a part of their burgeoning love.
But suddenly, after nine months, they broke up. The internet was devastated. The split was said to be amicable and "not dramatic", which is lucky because the pair are on a media blitz to promote Gifted, the film they were making when they met. Awkward.
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Most of the focus has been on the couple's highly publicised relationship. Naturally they only have nice things to say about each other. Slate described Evans as "a lovely person." Evans said Slate is "the best."
With every new interview we are reminded of how wonderful it is that they think so highly of each other. Even though they aren't together we still want to put them on a pedestal.
This isn't unusual for a celebrity breakup, especially when there's a movie that needs promoting. But there's been a strange undercurrent to a lot of the press surrounding this particular split. Even during their relationship Evans and Slate weren't just seen as an unlikely couple. They were a "huh?" couple. And their split only seemed to reinforce the unlikeliness of their pairing.
The opening paragraph of an article in New York Magazine summed this up in three sentences:
"When Chris Evans and Jenny Slate broke up, our worst fears about what is romantically possible seemed to come true. Could two diametrically opposed people (he a superhero hunk and she a comedienne) make it work as a couple? Whatever wishful thinking fans had about the opposites-attract duo was quashed in February when they called it quits after less than a year of dating."
On paper, Evans and Slate seem to have very little in common. Their careers couldn't be more different (apart from both being, er, actors). Evans' biggest role to date has been playing Marvel superhero Captain America. Slate made her name starring in the 2014 rom-com Obvious Child, which turned her into a modern feminist pop culture icon.
Their courtship sounds like the perfect plot for a quirky romantic comedy. Imagine the chiselled jock falling in love with the brilliant yet awkward girl with big brown curly hair, who of course is an ugly duckling just waiting to become a beautiful swan. Sound familiar? It's the plot of 1999's She's All That, which Evans spoofed in the 2001 film Not Another Teen Movie. Evans played the jock.
(Spoiler: At the end of She's All That, the jock and the brilliant-but-awkward girl live happily ever after. Though, not before the girl receives a completely unnecessary makeover.)
Slate admits she knew she and Evans weren't an obvious match before they had even met. In an interview with Vulture following their break-up she said she auditioned for the love interest role in Gifted because she wanted "to show that it doesn't always have to be a bikini model opposite Captain America".
Slate got the role. And for a while she got the guy. But we were still far too stunned by their pairing. It's disheartening to see such a remarkable woman dismissed for not fitting into a conventional archetype of western beauty.
Women are so used to being told that, like Laney Boggs, they have to change the way they look to get what they want. Jenny Slate made her name by starring in a movie where she didn't have to change a single thing about herself to get the guy in the end.
Slate has never been an actor with a carefully curated public image. She's brutally honest with her audience, both in her work and in interviews. Her appearance on Marc Maron's WTF podcast in 2014 went into scrupulous detail about her short stint on Saturday Night Live, which ended after she accidentally cursed live on air. Slate tearfully recounted the pain that comes along with landing your dream job only to lose it almost straight away.
Big Hollywood movie stars rarely talk that way. It's why we fell in love with the idea that she could make it romantically with one of the current blockbuster drawcards. But Slate doesn't need Evans by her side to prove she's worthy.
We latch on to celebrity couples like they're characters instead of people. It's because to us they are characters. All we see are hot people falling in love with other hot people. And then they break up so they can go and fall in love with different hot people. It's repetitive, it's predictable, but we always come back for more. Celebrity media offers us a fantasy storyline and we accept it.
Despite the media's incredulity towards her relationship with Evans and the storylines being read into their breakup, Jenny Slate is meanwhile changing the narrative. We're starting to realise the quirky girl can end up with whoever (or, more importantly, whatever) she wants.
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