When it comes to women who helped blaze the trail for a new wave of feminism, of course Megyn Kelly (Charlize Theron, eerily adopting her persona) is not the first association that comes to one’s mind. Nor even is Gretchen Carlson (Nicole Kidman), the woman responsible for, in essence, single-handedly blowing the lid off Roger Ailes’ (John Lithgow) sexually lewd, predatory behavior over the period (try not to think “blood coming out of her wherever”) during which he served as Fox News’ chairman and CEO. Even so, Bombshell would defy you to think of them as otherwise after viewing it.
Though Fox News was founded in October of 1996 by media mogul Rupert Murdoch (played by Mr. Clockwork Orange himself, Malcolm McDowell), it was Ailes’ distinct understanding of the conservative mind that helped grow viewership into the millions by the early 00s. His all too knowing insight into Republican myopia began with Nixon, when he was plucked by Tricky Dick to be a political consultant of sorts upon being enlisted as his executive producer for TV during the debates. Ailes continued to campaign in this fashion for subsequent Republican candidates Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, making him a natural fit to ascend to overlord of extremist Republican porn. For that is precisely what Fox News has always been.
To the point of porn, Ailes was notorious for offering up his viewers the eye candy required of a twenty-four hour news network: women’s legs. For if a woman was going to be allowed the “male privilege” of being on TV, then surely she must be attractive enough (literally beauty pageant attractive, like Gretchen) to be ogled, therefore hold the interest of the average Republican male viewer–and his God-fearing wife, evidently of the “Christian” belief that all broads ought to look like Stepford wives. Just like Kayla Pospisil (Margot Robbie), an archetypal ideal of the “Fox News woman” (a.k.a. an Aryan wet dream), with her blonde hair, blue eyes and generally Miss America look.
To further add to her cachet, she’s from a Bible-beating, Fox News-revering family, and would do anything to get on Ailes’ radar… not realizing quite fully what that means–though her enthusiasm for the corporation is sure to make her soon find out. And that she does, after manufacturing an encounter with Ailes’ gatekeeper in the elevator and finagling an on the spot face-to-face, not aware of just how easy that is for someone who looks like her. Like giving catnip to a very fat, very languid pussycat. Emphasis on the word pussy, for that’s precisely what Ailes is and wants to see.
It is after Kayla goes down the rabbit hole that is taking the secret back entrance (no innuendo intended) to Ailes’ office that she realizes just what, exactly, he means by “showing loyalty,” a term Gretchen describes to her lawyers as Roger’s ultimate code for “you gotta give head to get head”–a mantra he’s also fond of repeating. And, indeed, all Ailes is sexually capable of in that portly, unwieldy carapace of his is “receiving.” As well as watching and commanding. The way he commands Kayla to show off her legs so he can watch her, appraise her (“it’s a visual medium,” he’s constantly reminding). He wants to see how far she’s willing to go. How much of a “soldier” she’s willing to be. As though she isn’t already enough of one after abandoning Gretchen’s lower-rated daytime show in favor of Bill O’Reilly’s (played by the doppelganger-like Kevin Dorff).
In addition to being still naive about O’Reilly’s own predatory ways, she is also unskilled at knowing how to deal with his irascibility. Something her new co-worker, Jess Carr (Kate McKinnon, the only other Aussie as sought after as Margot Robbie at the moment), an undercover lesbian and Democrat, helps her to navigate. As for those two aforementioned highly controversial characteristics of Jess, it was screenwriter Charles Randolph’s (known for slick dramas like The Interpreter and The Big Short) “amalgamated” interpretation of those he talked to at Fox who were afraid of being openly out that led to her creation. Kayla, too, is a fictionalized product of many women’s stories gathered and researched by Randolph, whose script was rendered to the screen by Jay Roach (not exactly known for political hot potato movies so much as installments in Austin Powers and Meet the Parents). It’s a fitting irony for two men to be behind a film about the sexual abuse of women when considering this is a story about Fox News. They’ve never exactly been “fair and balanced” toward the “weaker sex.”
Yet there’s nothing weak about Gretchen’s long game/vengeance is a dish best served cold approach to taking down the kingpin of one of the most untouchable networks operating under one of the most untouchable corporations in America. Strangely, however, her narrative often plays second string to that of Megyn’s and Kayla’s, with Robbie as Kayla delivering a tour de force performance outside of a restaurant as she talks on the phone with Jess and describes in vomit-inducing detail what happened to her in Roger’s office. Something she only has the courage to rehash once someone as high-profile as Megyn comes forward. It is another intense exchange between these two in which Kayla berates her for not speaking up sooner–for having spared other subsequent women the same horror–that begs the question of: is my responsibility to tell my story–the one I’ve tried to bury for so long in order to survive–to myself or to my gender? When one is a woman, the distinction between what the self is and how it relates to gender seems almost impossible. Men make damned sure of that.
On this note, Bombshell is not only a triumph of performances (including Lithgow’s) but a complex look at the way in which women are forced to compromise themselves in order to ascend in any real way among the power structure. And no, the point of Bombshell is not to attend to complete accuracy with regard to how it all went down (though it does its best to stay true to the facts, “alternative” though Fox News viewers might see them as), but rather, another instance of a film casting a rearview mirror on the recent past to show women how far they’ve come already and yet, at the same time, how much farther they have left to go.
Maybe not working at an “institution” like Fox News–a prime example of company culture being a palimpsest of those at the top–should have been the first step in taking back one’s already little amount of power. For it is the notion that women must compete, be pitted against one another to curry the favor of men (something Ailes was all too fond of promoting) that remains a seemingly incurable sickness in our society. Most especially the faction of women in the conservative boat. The women that would vote for a so-called man all too eager to grab ‘em by the pussy. Little did Trump know, his own non-liberal kind would not only grab back, but rip his greatest champion–the network–out from under him for one glorious moment in 2016. In addition to ripping Ailes right off his perv’s perch. It would feel slightly more vindicating if the latter didn’t get a higher settlement amount from Rupert Murdoch than the sexually harassed women did from Fox News. But then, American justice has never been exactly just. That’s just another fake news item.
