Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling won golden popcorn trophies at the 2005 MTV awards for their epic smooch in The Notebook.
When the English romance writer Laura Wood was brainstorming ideas for her second novel, Let’s Make A Scene, she kept returning to a particular nugget in pop culture history. On a phone call with her agent she got straight to the point: “I told her, ‘I can’t stop thinking about the Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling’s kiss at the 2005 MTV Movie Awards,’” Wood recalls in an interview.
And because said agent is also of a similar age (elder millennial) and a follower of celebrity culture, “suddenly we’re talking over each other to list our favourite micro moments: When Rachel hikes up her bustier before she runs across the stage; the way Ryan’s chewing gum. It’s just one of those things that’s almost ingrained on your memory – you know?” Wood says.
Oh, I know.
Being a serial Notebook viewer (never mind a Canadian), the McGosling MTV Movie Awards Best Kiss has been living rent-free in my brain for – checks notes – 20 years this summer. The two actors won the golden popcorn trophies for their epic smooch in the romantic tearjerker, but it was the unexpected re-enactment during their acceptance speech (also a public outing of their IRL romance) that earned them a place in the Lip Lock Hall of Fame.
With photographic clarity, I can see them sauntering up to opposite sides of the stage, removing their matching black blazers to reveal a classic aughties going-out top (on her) and a Darfur T-shirt (on him). He beckons her with his index finger, she strides confidently across the stage and leaps up into his arms for a kiss so rapturous that even Lindsay Lohan cannot contain herself. Full credit to the producer who thought to cut to Lohan’s reaction – an “Oh my god” spit take that would have birthed one million memes had it happened in more modern times.
But maybe that’s the point, and part of the enduring appeal. “The Kiss” is, to be sure, the ultimate mid-aughties time capsule – complete with Maroon 5 soundtrack. But as I watched the clip back the other day, what really struck was how it signalled the end of an era: A lusty last call of celebrity culture before the Internet ruined everything.
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Which is funny since the Internet is probably the only reason that so many of us remember a two-decade-old interaction with such searing clarity. That year, 2005, was the first year MTV’s annual awards show was presented in partnership with then-new platform YouTube, which really took off when Tom Cruise jumped on Oprah’s couch – an over-the-top declaration of his love for Katie Holmes, but also an inflection point now that previously ephemeral moments could be uploaded, manipulated, dissected and shared.
In these early examples of virality you can see both the best and the worst of our new digital discourse, which turned Tom Cruise into a furniture-scaling punchline, but earned Gosling and McAdams romantic icon status that continues to accrue on TikTok and Instagram – a nostalgia itch scratch for some and popular with Gen Zers who have no memory of celebrities before digital surveillance.
“A huge part of why the kiss hit so hard was that nobody knew they were dating until that moment,” says Lisa Whittington-Hill, a culture critic whose book Girls, Interrupted examines the birth of toxic celebrity culture that was bubbling beneath the surface even as Rachel and Ryan sucked face.
Soon famous people would be at the mercy of TMZ, toxic gossip bloggers, the predatory paparazzi. (Someone – quick! – warn Lindsay Lohan). And also an increasingly volatile public, suddenly able to indulge our cruellest impulses with the click of a mouse and the cover of anonymity.
“Everything got really vicious in the second part of the decade, and the Rachel and Ryan kiss is just before all of that,” Whittington-Hill says. “They feel like people who are just having fun and not taking themselves too seriously, not worrying about how they might get picked apart on the internet.”
Enter social media: A place where regular people were posting updates about what they had for dinner, but for famous people (now known as brands), Instagram and Twitter were tools for reclaiming control. Stars (and their PR teams) could communicate directly with their fan bases and cancerous gossip culture went into remission.
Only the rules had changed. Twenty years ago a celebrity’s power sprung forth from their otherworldly status. Stars were not just like us – that’s what made them twinkle. But none of that distance played on the new platforms. Who wants Gwyneth Paltrow made up on a red carpet when we can watch her making breakfast for her husband in her PJs with aspirational bed head? Or Kylie Jenner sharing the specific dimensions of her boob job order – because apparently the new thing is getting real about what’s fake. Of course, it’s all fake, or at least highly performative, a word that now implies not just a public facing act, but also a layer of artifice. (Google Blake Lively #strollergate. Or maybe don’t).
The McGosling kiss was also a planned performance – you don’t execute that kind of choreography without at least discussing your stage marks beforehand. But it wasn’t trying to be anything otherwise. Nobody questioned whether the relationship was just a showmance to boost their careers. Nobody called “slactivism” on a privileged white celebrity wearing a Darfur T-shirt (not all aspects of internet discourse are innately terrible and useless).
Today we’d be questioning whether Gosling chewing gum was an act of staged nonchalance. And also pointing out that the whole “Best Kiss” category feels a little bit ick in the first place (I’m looking at you inaugural nominees Robert DeNiro and teenage Juliette Lewis for Cape Fear).
Okay, so maybe the internet didn’t ruin everything, but looking back on that kiss inspires longing that goes beyond whichever half of McGoz you may have been crushing on. “It just feels like a simpler time,” says Laura Wood, who got to work on her novel (out this week) as soon as that phone call with her agent ended. The book is not a dramatic retelling of Gosling and McAdams’ entire relationship, which lasted two years plus a couple of glorious aftershocks. But the two main characters are co-stars who eventually fall in love and win an award for their kiss.
“When I sat down to write that scene, it just felt like oh my God, this is so much fun.”
