Summer Rerun | The ‘Jenny from the Block’ Video: A Historical Analysis

Pop Literacy

The episode originally aired July 23, 2019.

Jennifer Lopez turns 50 this month and is at the top of her game: dancing her way through an international tour, engaged to baseball superstar Alex Rodriguez, and managing to be one of the few massive pop stars with lots of loyal fans and relatively few haters. But it wasn’t always thus. Her career hit a precarious point in 2002—when, yes, she was churning out hits, but the tabloids were constantly on her tail and media coverage spewed vitriolic hatred at her very public relationship with actor Ben Affleck (and even blamed her for his career nosedive).

This is all perfectly encapsulated in the historical artifact of the “Jenny from the Block” video, a very 2002 combination of tabloid culture, Bennifer at their most Bennifer, J Lo putting God first and staying real in a tiny fur coat, and an excellent use of a newsboy cap. In this episode, we pick through the wreckage of a pop star at the height of her powers, on the precipice of a precipitous fall; and we celebrate the graceful recovery she’s made over the past 17 years.

Discussion points include:

• The “Jenny from the Block” video
• Ben Affleck’s reflections on the Bennifer era
• This very mean take on the “Jenny from the Block” video from the International Business Times
• Paper’s analysis of the video
• The “I Luh Ya Papi” video
• Pop Star Goddesses