Representing Shitty Media Men and Casting Couch Culture: Film and Television’s Fictional Reckoning with #MeToo, Sexual Harassment and Assault

    Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Published conference proceedingChapterpeer-review

    24 Downloads (Pure)

    Abstract

    High-profile Shitty Media Men accused of sexual harassment were dramatised in two feature films and two prestige television shows released across a six-month period in 2019: The Assistant (Kitty Green 2019), inspired by former Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein; The Morning Show (Apple+ 2019-), inspired by former network television hosts Matt Lauer, Bill O’Reilly and Charlie Rose; The Loudest Voice (Showtime 2019) and Bombshell (Jay Roach 2019), based on former Fox News Chairman and CEO Roger Ailes. The four dramas were some of the first fictional representations of men accused of sexual harassment and abuse following #MeToo. This essay explores their reflective and reflexive attempts to make sense of the complexity of debates around #MeToo. Collectively, they constitute a cultural reckoning of sorts as the film and television industries grapple with their complicity in crafting and enabling male abusers and the normalised and normative practices of exploitation in casting couch culture.
    Original languageEnglish
    Title of host publicationToxic Masculinity: Men, Meaning, and Digital Media
    EditorsJohn Mercer, Mark McGlashan
    PublisherRoutledge, Taylor & Francis Group
    Chapter9
    Number of pages17
    Edition1
    ISBN (Electronic)9781003263883
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 31 Jan 2023

    Cite this