We don't want to stir up anything, but we feel it's our duty as reporters of popular culture to raise questions when celebrities post mysterious artifacts to their social media accounts.
Exhibit A: Jennifer Garner. Not only did she upload an image of herself, transformed by the power of makeup and hair into a man, but she gave absolutely no explanation about the reason for the transformation, hilariously captioning it, "new year new me" and revealing, only through a series of hashtags, the context for the look.
From what we can gather, the makeup was by Rick Baker for a movie in 2011 that never happened because Garner was pregnant.
Her third child, a son named Sam, was born in February 2012, so we can deduce it was him. But more questions remain.
If it turned out she had just fallen pregnant, surely she could have gone ahead with the movie anyway? Surely she would not be showing until the 6 month, because, hey, Garner has the stomach muscles not to show until then?
Or did Garner decide not to go ahead with the movie because 2011 was also the time her then husband, Ben Affleck, was busy directing and writing Argo? The movie for which he would end up winning the Oscar?
Is this entire Instagram post an extremely subtle, yet nonetheless elevated dig at the fact that while Garner had to halt her career for the sake of a growing family, Affleck was off doing what he loves? We would not put such a sophisticated manoeuvre past Garner, who is sunny and cheerful and witty and a veritable master at dropping cryptic morsels about her challenging marriage without ever seeming bitter.
Let us pause to consider historical context.
When Affleck won for Argo, he famously said of Garner in his acceptance speech. "I want to thank my wife who I don't usually associate with Iran. I want to thank you for working on our marriage for 10 Christmases. It's good. It is work but it's the best kind of work and there's no one I'd rather work [with]."
While doing promotion press for a movie, in 2015, Garner made the statement that it was her turn now. "I've been home for a long time," she told reporters. "It's my turn and I'm going to go to work this spring. I think I'll work the spring and summer, maybe the fall too, as long as some of it's at home."
"You'd be amazed how we figure it out," she continued. "I've never been away for more than I think four days. I sit down at the beginning of the movie and say to the people making the schedule, 'Let's look at this.' Then I figure out where I'm going to take the kid and when I can get home."
It was a year later, in March of 2016, and in the wake of the Affleck and Garner split, amid reports of his repeated infidelity and lapses into alcoholism, that Garner appeared on the cover of Vanity Fair for a sit-down interview. There were many pearls to gather from the piece, including the following reveal from Garner about her sleeping habits, post-split.
"I used to think I would never watch television on my phone, but there I am, because I am sleeping next to my daughter." Garner tells me she and Violet have become temporary roommates. "I'm happy to have her; she's happy to have me."
Could the subtext of this quote be, "Ben, our children are traumatised because you wrecked our family"? We may never know.
Final quote, from the same Vanity Fair interview, from which you may draw what you will.
"Last October, when Affleck started his new film, Live by Night, which he is directing and starring in, she says, "I wasn't part of it. It was starting and it was a hard day for me. I got the kids to school, and I went home and went to bed. I haven't had a lot of those days."
We see you Jennifer Garner. We see you in your moustachioed goofiness and fun-loving, mum-flavoured cheerfulness, and we see that no matter what curve balls life, in the shape of Affleck throw at you, you're more than able, with that spine of steel, to process it with class, grace, and teeny tiny little missiles of eyebrow-raising burns.
We see you and we salute you, Madame.
