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Love is a beautiful thing, especially when you’re looking at it from the outside. In this column, we’ll look at the celebrity couples (or sometimes friend couples) who give us hope for our own romantic futures, and try to learn what we can from their well-documented relationships. It feels like just yesterday that I was romanticizing The Bear star and Calvin Klein superstar Jeremy Allen White’s smoky relationship with singer Rosalía, but the Hollywood romance machine moves at breakneck speed. Now, White has been spotted kissing actress Molly Gordon in a scene that appears not to have been on The Bear, the show they both appeared on, but rather a spontaneous moment of passion in real life. Could White and Rosalía still be together? Sure—infidelity is a well-known fact—but I feel like the White/Gordon pairing was inevitable! We’ve all seen their chemistry blossom as a real-life romantic relationship on screen, and while Gordon has made some new haters by playing Claire perhaps a little too patiently, I’m definitely not one of them. Sue me!
I’ve been a diehard Molly Gordon fan—Gordonite? Gordonista?—ever since I saw her kiss Rachel Sennott in Emma Seligman’s 2020 film Shiva Baby, and my obsession was deeply validated by 2023’s Theater Camp, a witty and genuinely moving spoof documentary about a performing arts camp in the Adirondacks that the 28-year-old Gordon co-directed and starred in as a goofy, clog-wearing music teacher with the inscrutable but perfect name of Rebecca-Diane. (The image of Ben Platt walking into a room to find Gordon’s character and calling out “Becks-Di?” may never leave my mind.) I have to admit that I like White for her, even though I’m pretty sure her first move would be to make him throw out the two packs of what appear to be American Spirits he’s holding in their kissing photo. (I don’t know, I just feel like she wants to “make you quit smoking”, but that’s not a criticism; acupuncture for girlfriends can save lungs and lives!)
Her 2004 breakthrough work Naming the Money consisted of 100 life-size wooden cutouts of enslaved servants “gifted” from the king of Spain to the king of France. Himid told T magazine that the piece changed her trajectory: “It helped me understand the power of my own ability to decide to create something that seemed almost impossible.” “Making art is making a decision,” she said. Brushstroke by brushstroke, she decided to keep going, to keep making art that explored the seemingly impossible—be it addressing global challenges or embodying the complexity of the figure of her aunt with salvaged pieces of wood. Her work has a quiet power, the kind that not only encourages contemplation but also optimism. Perhaps the answers to our questions are out there for us, her art suggests, if we just listen.
