Jennifer Lopez’s ‘Maid in Manhattan’ Producer Flipped Out When They Saw ‘Jenny From the Block’
Jennifer Lopez’s first relationship with Ben Affleck faced a lot of backlash from the media. Some of the choices they made back then didn’t help matters, accidentally encouraging the vitriol that came their way. One producer even called out Lopez on some of their decisions.
Jennifer Lopez’s ‘Maid in Manhattan’ producer thought her infamous music video was a bad idea
The 2000s weren’t a great time for Lopez and Affleck. Although they found love with each other, it came at the cost of their image and reputation. The pair have spoken at length about the hatred that came their way just for being together. Unfortunately, their romance coincided with the emergence of tabloid culture.
However, the couple accidentally fed into the frenzy with their “Jenny from the Block” music video. The famous shoot featured Affleck and showed their relationship in all of its glory for the world to see. In a 2003 interview with Comic Book Resources, Affleck shared that the music video was intentionally parodying the Hollywood lifestyle. But with its message going over many viewers’ heads, “Jenny from the Block” only made the couple’s situation worse.
“I thought to myself, here’s a really good example to hold up this particular pop-culture phenomena to the light and ask, ‘What is this thing that we kind of collectively engage in? This group voyeurism. The act of paparazzism that takes the very mundane and through the grainy prism of a long lens casts this other light on it to make it look more glamorous and more sexy,’” Affleck said. “Why does it fascinate people?”
One of the many who didn’t care for the video was Lopez’s Maid in Manhattan producer Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas. Goldsmith-Thomas is Lopez’s longtime business partner, having worked with her on many other projects like Hustlers and Second Act. When she saw her client’s “Jenny from the Block” video, she also felt it might’ve been made in poor taste. Especially with the video being released the same year as Maid in Manhattan. Lopez played a modest housekeeper in the 2002 feature, which clashed with the glamorous lifestyle the singer depicted in “Jenny from the Block.”
“Jennifer and Ben were asking for it with that video,” Goldsmith-Thomas told InStyle back in 2018. “I told her, ‘I’m selling you as a maid, and you guys are driving around in Bentleys?’ But now it’s 16 years later. I’m sure Ben Affleck is more mature too.”
How Jennifer Lopez would’ve done ‘Jenny from the Block’ differently
In her more mature years, Lopez agreed that her music video should’ve gone in a different direction. But when she was younger, the Unstoppable star genuinely didn’t think the video would cause the controversy it did.
“We were so ourselves,” Lopez told Variety about herself and Affleck. “And we never thought that people would take offense or be angry at us for kind of living out loud and making a cool video. We were so naive.”
She asserted that if she could change anything about the video, she would’ve gone back to her roots to shoot the song.
“‘Jenny from the Block’ should have been me back in the Bronx kind of walking around the neighborhood,” she said. “That’s what that video should have been.”
However, she didn’t regret the video. Despite being infamous at the time, it’s a piece of work that’s still talked about to this day.
“Even though it wound up turning out ugly for us in the media, it was very defining for me in my musical trajectory. Some very beautiful, iconic images came out of that video. It’s the one thing, no matter where I go people still go, ‘Hey, there’s Jenny from the block,'” she said.
