Daily Archives: December 13, 2021

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Bombshell – notes

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Bombshell (2019, Dir. Jay Roach) a story based upon the accounts of the women at Fox News who set out to expose CEO Roger Ailes for sexual harassment. 

Having had enough of her boss’s sexual harassments, Gretchen Carlson files a lawsuit against Fox News founder Roger Ailes. Her bravery triggers a domino effect, culminating into a liberation movement.

This film providesa narrative of INSTITUTIONAL SEXISM, in the same way that we could look at other stories that are concerned with other institutional prejudices – racism, homophobia, Islamophobia etc. In other words, this film presents a version of the story of INSTITUTIONAL SEXISM and MISOGYNY.

This film provides a narrative of INSTITUTIONAL SEXISM, in the same way that we could look at other stories that are concerned with other institutional prejudices – racism, homophobia, Islamaphobia etc. In other words, this film presents a version of the story of INSTITUTIONAL SEXISM and MISOGYNY. It suggests a link between the presentation / representation of the female form and the ideas of a ruling patriarchy (Fox News, specifically Roger Ailes) and perhaps explains why we are presented with the stories we are presented with and how those stories are presented to us.

Essays, Maybelline, Score

Essay score vs maybelline

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Judith Butler describes gender as “an identity instituted through a stylized repetition of acts”. In other words, it is something learnt through repeated performance, Butler suggest that gender is not fixed however it is reinforced consistently through none verbal communication, Judith creates the idea that there aren’t specific aspects or qualities that make you gender specific, but that gender is only a title . You can choose and change your gender, and that whatever you do will not change who you are and who you identify yourself as. Judith Butler writes to identify and break gender stereotypes such as football being a male sport and/or makeup being feminine. As seen in this quote “our gender identities are not fixed objects; they are constituted as a result of our behaviours” and again “Our bodies or sex do not define our gendered identities”. Most people believe that gender is simply divided into male and female, but Butler claims that this is not the case, and that this can lead to misrepresentation. For example, in the score commercial, women are sexualized and objectified, whereas in the Maybelline “boss up” commercial, there are a variety of identities. Butler is a gender theorist who claims that gender is a performance in which everyone is portraying their own gender and that it is a fluid of identity, a term created by David Gauntlett for his own. The usage of identification is not gender-based, and I’ll talk about how gender and identity are represented in the Score and Maybelline commercials.

In contrast to Butler, Laura Mulvey identifies the sexualisation of femininity and female characters compared to male characters that we identify with due to the lack of sexualisation and the addition of development and characteristics shown to deepen their character in a lot of games and movies, Mulvey stated that female characters are forced to identity as passive objects to be looked at and desired compared to men’s representation which is more focused on how “manly” and strong their characters are. She also believes that because the majority of movie directors, game developers, big artists, and key people in the media are men, we view media through their eyes, resulting in the male gaze. An example would be panning the camera on a sexualized female scene in a film, or exaggerations of female body parts in a media game to show more depth to the character. This isn’t to say that male characters can’t be sexualized; it’s simply that female sexualization is more prevalent. If someone substituted a boy for a popular oversexualized female stance, it would still be viewed through the male gaze. The assumption that a sexualized style of seeing strengthens men and sexualized women is supported by the masculine gaze.

As a historical artifact from 1967, the Score hair cream advertisement can be productively examined by considering its historical, social, and cultural contexts, particularly as it relates to gender roles, sexuality, and the historical context of advertising techniques. 1967 can be considered as a period of gradual change in western societies, with legislation concerning and changing attitudes toward the roles of women and men in society, something that the advertisement appears to address. The first wave of feminism can be summarized by a quote: “Sexism was coined by analogy with the term racism in the early 1960s in the American civil rights movement.” Simply put, sexism is the systematic conditioning of men and women to perceive each other negatively, based on the idea that the male is always superior to the female. The Score advert can be similarly linked to this idea because we can see a total of five female figures holding up the male figure giving us the assumption that the male is superior to the females. 

Furthermore, Gauntlett’s concept of identity fluidity, the ability to change how you present yourself in any way you want is known as fluidity of identity. If you don’t want to look a specific way, identity fluidity gives you the power to modify your appearance and how you see yourself as a person. Not only that, but fluidity of identity also entails the ability to shift your behavior to something that is preferred or that may be classified as normal. The ability to change who you are as a person, from how you look to how you act, is known as fluid of identity. Gender, for example, is fluid; you may choose who you want to be. Butler’s theory is supported by this, as he states, “Biological anatomies do not determine our gender.”She concludes that masculinity and femininity are not naturally occurring states, but rather are maintained by humans via daily behaviors, implying that a person is neither born male nor female, but their gender is defined by their daily actions. Gauntlett made a comment about how men and women are shown differently in the media. Throughout the twentieth century, for example, images of aggressive women taking control of their life were progressively replacing those of submissive housewives, as exemplified by the Spice Girls’ “girl power.” Men’s energetic and confident representations were giving way to a more contemplative and emotionally sensitive interpretation of masculinity. Despite the fact that old binary representations continue to appear on magazine front covers, there is now a “great diversity of identities.” As a result of our willingness to adapt to new cultural standards, we do not always have a permanent identity.

This theory is not implied in the score advertisement, but it can be seen in the Maybelline “boss up” advertisement. This is because in the Maybelline “boss up” advertisement, we can assume that the representation of the female gender has evolved over time, and we can make this assumption because the gender roles are suggested to be more equal. Within the advertisement, there is a homosexual male celebrity (Manny Mua) with what appears to be feminine traits, as well as a female character who is represented as feeling like a “boss” after using the product, which is found near the end of the advertisement. This can be used to refute the assumption of set gender roles, as well as the historical notion that men are superior to women.

Maybelline’s commercial is thought to represent the third and fourth waves of feminism. Naomi Wolf coined third wave feminism in response to the age gap between the 1960s and 1970s feminist movements, criticizing and re-contextualizing some of the resulting notions of femininity. When debating feminism, it saw women’s lives as intersecting and exhibited a plurality toward race, ethnicity, class, religion, gender, and nationality. It can be described as a “rebellion of younger women” against what they saw as elder feminists’ prescriptive, aggressive, and “sex negative” stance. The Maybelline ad exemplifies this concept since the female depiction in the ad is neither sexualized or objectified in any manner, implying that she defies the stereotype of what it means to be a ‘female,’ as suggested by the first wave of feminism.

In conclusion, I believe Butler’s definition of gender as “an identity instituted through a stylized repetition of acts” helps people understand how gender is represented more clearly in the Maybelline ad than in the score ad, due to the score ad opposing the idea that gender is not determined by biological genders.

Essays

EXAM ESSAY

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Judith Butler describes gender as “an identity instituted through a stylized repetition of acts”. In other words, it is something learnt through repeated performance.

How useful is this idea in understanding gender is represented in both the ‘Score’ and ‘Maybelline’ advertising campaigns?

In this essay, I will be discussing representation in media. I believe that Judith Butler’s ideas about gender are very useful in understanding how gender is represented in both the ‘Score’ and ‘Maybelline’ advertising campaigns.
Judith Butler describes gender as “performative” and suggests that there can be no gender identity before gendered acts (daily practices, learned and performed based on cultural norms of femininity and masculinity), because the acts are constantly forming the identity and therefore nobody can be a gender before doing gendered acts. Butler argues that the dominance of heterosexuality representation in media maintains typical male and female identities as a social norm. This is harmful for individuals who “deviate” from gender norms and is harmful to those who participate in this heteronormative culture because it limits their capacity to empathize and create. She critiques the notion that gender exists inside the body and suggests that these gendered identities are realised through our desires, sexual contacts and physical expressions of love – they are not a fixed object and are created as a result of our behaviours. Similarly with Butler, Liesbet van Zoonen sees gender as dependent on social and historical context. She suggests that the meaning of gender is a “discursive struggle and negotiation, the outcome having far-reaching socio-cultural implications.”
None of these ideologies are associated with the ‘Score’ advert, which seems to be more connected with Laura Mulvey’s ‘male gaze’ theory – the idea of how typical, heterosexual men viewing media, sexualise and objectify women.
The ‘Score’ advert shows that if you buy their product, then you can attract lots of women. This is suggested in the strapline: “Get what you’ve always wanted” and the dominant signifier of a man surrounded by women. The costumes for the women are incredibly revealing and sexualising, and have connotations of voyeurism for heterosexual men. In the advert, the women at the back are gazing lustfully at the man – which insinuates that most women look at men wearing the product like this. Another woman, on the right, is looking proud, as though she is showing off the man and the final woman, on the left, is looking directly at the camera, which could connect the advert with the potential purchaser.
The ‘Score’ advert is an artefact from 1967, a period of slow transformation in western cultures with laws about and changing attitudes to gender roles, sexuality and the historical context of advertising techniques in society – something that this advert can be seen to overcome. Feminist critical thought was becoming much more prominent at this time, which later brought many changes including a greater acceptance of birth control, divorce, abortion and homosexuality.
This period is often termed as “second wave feminism” – set after the first wave of feminism, which was influenced by organisations such as: the British Women’s Suffrage Committee (1867), the International Council of Women (1888) and others who, in early part of the 20th Century, worked to get women the right to vote. The second wave passed many laws that helped women get more reproductive rights and equal pay in the work force. It also liberated women and changed their mindset. However, the second wave of feminism overlooked other aspects of diversity – their focus on sexism did not extend to include the consideration of intersectionality, resulting in a predominantly white woman’s movement.
Media is a loudspeaker that magnifies power relations, and it can either reinforce or expose those who have political and social power. Diversity in media matters because it brings attention to an otherwise underrepresented community and gives a voice to the otherwise voiceless. When a given minority or disadvantaged group is portrayed in the media in a positive light, stereotypes can be dismantled, and this is especially important for younger generations who are more directly exposed to this.
In his investigation into the fluidity of identity, David Gauntlett noted how the representation of gender in the media was beginning to break down the old binary definitions and was now offering a more diverse range of identities. Women, who were simply stereotyped as housewives and passive in the past, were now represented as empowered and assertive. Instead of the physical and combative masculine identity, men could now be seen as sensitive and introspective without any ridicule. In “That Boss Life”, Manny embodies the merging of masculinity and femininity. He wears typical masculine clothes, but his speech and actions are quite feminine and he is also confident in his identity to use mascara.
None of this diversification came into place until third wave feminism began in the early 1990s. It was a response to the generation gap between the feminist movement of the 1960s and ’70s – challenging and changing some of the definitions of femininity that grew out of that earlier period. In particular, the third wave sees women’s lives as intersectional (the realisation that everyone has their own unique experiences of discrimination and oppression and people must consider everything and anything that can marginalise people such as: gender, race and class).
Whilst ‘Score’ completely ignores third wave feminism ideologies by having an exclusive cast of white characters, ‘Maybelline’ follows these ideologies by including a black woman and a homosexual man – showing how as time moves on, diversity becomes more common.

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Score Vs maybeline essay

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Judith Butler describes gender as “an identity instituted through a stylized repetition of acts”. In other words, it is something learnt through repeated performance .How useful is this idea in understanding how gender is represented in both the Score and Maybelline advertising campaigns?

In this essay, I am going to talk about understanding gender through the Score and Maybelline adverts, and analyze how identity is established in an unrealistic repetition of acts. I am going to conduct a representational analysis of both the score and Maybelline advertising campaigns, and how they present gender and identity to the audience . Butler discusses the idea that gender is a ‘social construct’ and that our gender identities aren’t established at birth. She believes that we aren’t strictly ‘male or female’ but our identities are fluid and always changing, and our identity is shown through constant changes in behavior and personality. She states that ‘What it means to be a woman does not remain the same from decade to decade” implying that our collective expectation of how a woman should act, dress, speak etc, are constantly changing. She also states that “Gender does not exist inside the body” meaning that gender is created through what we present to society. Butler has a modern way of thinking, however stereotypically, society believes that gender is simply just male and female,but this is not what Butler agrees with.

In contrast to Butler’s Idea that gender is a ‘social construct’ Laura mulvey identifies the misogynistic sexualisation of women in comparison to that of a man, through an idea called the male gaze. Mulvey stated female characters are forced to identify with passive objects to be looked at and desired compared to men’s representation which is more focussed on how the characters body language reinforces the features they have. For example when a man is sitting with their legs apart, this is known as man spreading, whereas if a woman was to do this it would be uncalled for. She also believes that directors, bosses, authors, game makers etc, present women in a way that is sexualised through a males perspective, so that they can attract the attention of male viewers and therefore making them more money. For example, the classic ‘damsel in distress’ story comes from the idea that a girl is weak and incapable, and they alway need a big and strong man to save them. The male is almost always presented as the main character, this is done to make men feel empowered and strong, and by saving the girl they may get some sexual reward. However the male gaze does not suggest that men aren’t sexualised by society too, but Laura Mulvey highlights the extreme difference between the sexualisation of men and women to make men feel empowered.

The Score hair cream advert is a historical artifact from 1967, in which gender is presented as strictly male or female, contrasting to Judith Butler’s view on fluidity of identity. The score advert involves 5 women and only one man. The women are dressed in tight, revealing clothing praising the man using the score hair cream. This advert supports Laura Mulvey’s idea of the male gaze: A heterosexual perspective that presents and represents women as sexual objects for the pleasure of the heterosexual male viewer, and to objectify women for the benefit of empowering men. This is shown clearly in Score through the sexualisation of  women , wearing tight clothing to please the men. Furthermore, this supports the idea of constructed identity, meaning the collective idea of society on how each gender should look, act, and behave. This supports the idea that gender roles were fixed in the 1970s, and that men and women were defined by their biological gender, and were confined to a collective identity of how they should act and what they were allowed to do. 1967 marks the time when second wave feminism was introducted, however the score advert much relates to the first wave of feminism. The first wave of feminism; ‘ sexism was coined by analogy with the term racism in the American civil rights movement in the early 1960s. Defined simply, sexism refers to the system in which men and women are brought up to view each other antagonistically, on the assumption that the male is always superior to the female. This is clearly shown throughout the score advert through the body language of the females. They are positioned in a way that implies they are praising the man, almost seeming like they are his slaves.

In contrast to the score advert, Gauntlet presents the idea of fluidity of identity: being able to decide who you want to be, whether that be male or female, and being able to change your identity freely. Fluidity of identity contrasts with the ideas presented in the score advert, as it allows there to be no defined line between male or female. There is positivity in this in the sense that you do not have to follow the strict ‘gender stereotypes’ allocated to you at birth, instead you can change the way you look, act, and dress to shape yourself into the person that you want to be, not what everyone else wants to be. This is supported by the quote “ Biological anatomies do not determine our gender”. She describes that masculinity and femininity aren’t defined by your biological gender, but instead  are maintained by individuals through everyday acts meaning that an individual is not born neither male nor female, however your gender defines you through your actions all the time.

This theory can be applied to the maybelline advert, fluidity of identity can be show clearly through the diversity of characters in the advert. For example, the Maybeline boss life adverts feature a biological male, enjoying things that are categorically feminine. It is clear that fluidity of identity is used here, as stereotypically, a man wouldn’t wear makeup, but he has shaped himself into who he wants to be, regardless of his biological gender. As Well as this, another actor in the advert is a black female, this contrasts to the score advert as all females are white. This shines a positive view on the black community.The maybeline advert demonstrates the third and fourth wave of feminism. Third wave feminism was insiuated by Naomi wolf as a response to the gap between the feminist movement of the 1960s and 70s. She challenges and re-develops some of the definitions of femininity that remained.it presented women’s lives as intersectional and demonstrated a pluralism towards race, ethnicity, class, religion, gender and nationality when discussing feminism. It was described as the ‘rebellion of younger women against what was perceived as the prescriptive, pushy and ‘sex negative’ approach of older feminists. This concept is shown through the Maybelline advert because of the fluidity of identity presented by the man, and the non-sexualisation of the female through the advert. This contrasts to the stereotype of what it means to be a female in first wave feminism.

In conclusion, I agree with butler’s theory that gender is presented through stylized acts rather than your biological identity. It shows a positive light on identity and allows people to be who they want to be, even if it doesn’t fit the stereotypes.

Feminist Critical Thinking, Institution

Bombshell

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Bombshell (2019) is a film portraying the real-life scandal of how the CEO of Fox News, Roger Ailes sexually exploited his female staff.

Roger Eugene Ailes (May 15, 1940 – May 18, 2017) was an American television executive and media consultant. He was the chairman and CEO of Fox News, In July 2016, he resigned from Fox News after being accused of sexual harassment by several female Fox employees.

In a book published in 2014, Gabriel Sherman alleged that, in the 1980s, Ailes offered a television producer a raise if she would sleep with him. Fox News denied the allegation and rejected the authenticity of Sherman’s book. On July 6, 2016, former Fox News anchor Gretchen Carlson filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against Ailes; Carlson’s allegations were the impetus for more than a dozen female employees at 21st Century Fox to step forward regarding their own experiences with Ailes’ behaviour.

Feminist Critical Thinking, Institution

bombshell

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Bombshell (2019, Dir. Jay Roach) a story based upon the accounts of the women at Fox News who set out to expose CEO Roger Ailes for sexual harassment.

This film provides a narrative of INSTITUTIONAL SEXISM, in the same way that we could look at other stories that are concerned with other institutional prejudices – racism, homophobia, Islamaphobia etc. In other words, this film presents a version of the story of INSTITUTIONAL SEXISM and MISOGYNY. It suggests a link between the presentation / representation of the female form and the ideas of a ruling patriarchy (Fox News, specifically Roger Ailes) and perhaps explains why we are presented with the stories we are presented with and how those stories are presented to us.

5 Filters that help to Manufacture Consent

  • Structures of ownership
  • The role of advertising
  • Links with ‘The Establishment’
  • Diversionary tactics – ‘flack’
  • Uniting against a ‘common enemy’

Key ideas

  • Gate Keeping
  • Agenda Setting
  • Selecting, Shaping, Emphasising
  • Social, Political and Economic Bias
  • Lack of independence, impartiality, diversity

Key words:

  • Media concentration / Conglomerates / Globalisation (in terms of media ownership)
  • Vertical Integration & Horizontal Integration
  • Gatekeepers
  • Regulation / Deregulation
  • Free market vs Monopolies & Mergers
  • Neo-liberalism and the Alt-Right
  • Surveillance / Privacy / Security / GDPR

Exam Prep, Feminist Critical Thinking

bombshell

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Bombshell (2019, Dir. Jay Roach) a story based upon the accounts of the women at Fox News who set out to expose CEO Roger Ailes for sexual harassment. 

Having had enough of her boss’s sexual harassments, Gretchen Carlson files a lawsuit against Fox News founder Roger Ailes. Her bravery triggers a domino effect, culminating into a liberation movement.

This film provides a narrative of INSTITUTIONAL SEXISM, in the same way that we could look at other stories that are concerned with other institutional prejudices – racism, homophobia, Islamophobia etc. In other words, this film presents a version of the story of INSTITUTIONAL SEXISM and MISOGYNY.

Feminist Critical Thinking, Institution

bombshell

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Bombshell (2019, Dir. Jay Roach) a story based upon the accounts of the women at Fox News who set out to expose CEO Roger Ailes for sexual harassment. Follow this link for a brief summary of the plot.

The MPAA rating has been assigned for “sexual material and language throughout.” The Kids-In-Mind.com evaluation includes a couple of implied sex scenes between a husband and his wife, between two women, many references to sexual assault and harassment in the workplace and descriptions of the types of harassment that occurred over many years, and many women wear low-cut and tight-fitting dresses throughout the movie that reveal cleavage and legs to the mid-thighs; many arguments in a work environment, threats of violence, and descriptions of a toxic work environment; and at least 40 F-words and other strong language.

You can understand misogyny (the poor representation of women in the media) in the same way you can understand racism, homophobia, ultra-nationalism and other forms of casual stereotyping, bias and prejudice, that is, through TEXTUAL ANALYSIS and the notion of REPRESENTATION.

As such, this film provides a narrative of INSTITUTIONAL SEXISM, in the same way that we could look at other stories that are concerned with other institutional prejudices – racism, homophobia, Islamaphobia etc. In other words, this film presents a version of the story of INSTITUTIONAL SEXISM and MISOGYNY. It suggests a link between the presentation / representation of the female form and the ideas of a ruling patriarchy (Fox News, specifically Roger Ailes) and perhaps explains why we are presented with the stories we are presented with and how those stories are presented to us.

In other words, it helps to explain the ideas of Louis Althusser in that the ruling ideas emerge from elements of the Ideological State Apparatus (look at the connection between Roger Ailes, Rupert Murdoch, Donald Trump etc) and those ideas shape who we are, what we could be, want to be etc by a mechanism that he calls INTERPELLATION. For a visual representation of this watch the sequence in Bombshell where we see how the presenters are encouraged to dress and the way in which the choice of camera angles are used to reinforce this particular dress code.

Again you can see a visual representation of this in Bombshell, for example, Roger Ailes talks about the media as ‘the most competitive industry in the world’, which means consent to a number of suspect practices.

LINKING WITH PREVIOUS THEORIES:

You can understand misogyny (the poor representation of women in the media) in the same way you can understand racism, homophobia, ultra-nationalism and other forms of casual stereotyping, bias and prejudice, that is, through TEXTUAL ANALYSIS and the notion of REPRESENTATION.

Male Gaze- Laura Mulvey

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Bombshell

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Having had enough of her boss’s sexual harassments, Gretchen Carlson files a lawsuit against Fox News founder Roger Ailes. Her bravery triggers a domino effect, culminating into a liberation movement.

LINKING WITH PREVIOUS THEORIES:

You can understand misogyny (the poor representation of women in the media) in the same way you can understand racism, homophobia, ultra-nationalism and other forms of casual stereotyping, bias and prejudice, that is, through TEXTUAL ANALYSIS and the notion of REPRESENTATION.

However, prejudice may also occur beyond the level of text and can be identified as operating at a systemic INSTITUTIONAL intersection of race/class/gender <> power. Such ideas are proposed by Sut Jhally in his work for the Media Education Foundation – ‘Dreamworlds’ which looks at the role of MTV and music videos as a form of institutional / corporate sexism and misogyny

As such, this film provides a narrative of INSTITUTIONAL SEXISM, in the same way that we could look at other stories that are concerned with other institutional prejudices – racism, homophobia, Islamaphobia etc. In other words, this film presents a version of the story of INSTITUTIONAL SEXISM and MISOGYNY. It suggests a link between the presentation / representation of the female form and the ideas of a ruling patriarchy (Fox News, specifically Roger Ailes) and perhaps explains why we are presented with the stories we are presented with and how those stories are presented to us.

Uncategorized

bombshell

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Having had enough of her boss’s sexual harassments, Gretchen Carlson files a lawsuit against Fox News founder Roger Ailes. Her bravery triggers a domino effect, culminating into a liberation movement.

LINKING WITH PREVIOUS THEORIES:

You can understand misogyny (the poor representation of women in the media) in the same way you can understand racism, homophobia, ultra-nationalism and other forms of casual stereotyping, bias and prejudice, that is, through TEXTUAL ANALYSIS and the notion of REPRESENTATION.

As such, this film provides a narrative of INSTITUTIONAL SEXISM, in the same way that we could look at other stories that are concerned with other institutional prejudices – racism, homophobia, Islamaphobia etc. In other words, this film presents a version of the story of INSTITUTIONAL SEXISM and MISOGYNY. It suggests a link between the presentation / representation of the female form and the ideas of a ruling patriarchy (Fox News, specifically Roger Ailes) and perhaps explains why we are presented with the stories we are presented with and how those stories are presented to us.

Institutional Analysis:

A key area of media studies is to look at the role of companies, organisations, businesses, institutions. This takes the form of critical analysis. In other words, it is not looking at from a Business studies perspective – organisation, profit, structure – but rather from a sociological perspective – issues of ownership, power, control, behaviour management. I have made a post on my own blog which you can find here, but central to this kind of approach is Althusser’s notion of ISA’s (Ideological State Apparatus), which is often traced in media production by the way in which media texts INTERPELLATE (hail, call, construct, build, maintain) an ideological identity.

Arguments presented against sexism and misogyny (ie the hegemonic struggle re: Gramsci) are raised through Feminist Critical Thinking and we have looked at early feminist movements as well as 2nd, 3rd and 4th wave feminist critics. We have even looked at theories of gender representation that look beyond binary gender values (male/female), which can termed as intersectionality, which first emerged as Queer Theory.

There’s a degree of irony in the fact that Bombshell, the movie about the fall of Fox News boss and serial sexual harasser Roger Ailes, was awarded an Oscar for make-up and hairstyling. One of the themes that runs through the movie is the objectification of Fox’s female employees, so giving the movie an award for the way its female stars look on screen feels a little jarring.

It’s certainly a superb cast and a stellar set of performances, starring three of Hollywood’s most bankable female stars, Nicole Kidman, Charlize Theron and Margot Robbie. Kidman and Theron respectively play two of Fox News’s most recognisable former news anchors: Gretchen Carlson, the former Miss America and Stanford graduate; and Megyn Kelly, a former attorney whose nightly programme, The Kelly File, vied with that of Bill O’Reilly for popularity during its run from 2013 to 2017. The film centres on Carlson’s 2016 sexual harassment lawsuit against Ailes, then chairman and CEO of Fox News.

“He had either an old-school understanding of the sanctity of marriage or he had a fear of the woman having a protector,” said Randolph. “My source did not know, but said that [the harassment] was sort of a thing that you would get when you were going through a divorce or you would get when you were first there and you were known to be single. A boyfriend wouldn’t prevent him from [approaching]…. But one of my sources, who’s quite a powerful source, said that was something that was discussed internally. That once you were married, you were beyond predation on a certain level.”