Roger Ailes exposés: 2
Matt Lauer takedowns: 0
Harvey Weinstein scandal dramas: 0
That ratio is hardly surprising, given Hollywood’s left-leaning biases. The industry is obviously more prone to go after conservative-leaning offenders than they are any of the disgraced titans from liberal outlets who have #MeToo scandals of their own.
Funny, too, how these Ailes indictments are met with initial levels of fanfare and interest while Ryan Murphy (of all people!) is publically berated for his proposed American Crime Story edition of the Clinton-Lewisnsky scandal; that criticism even included the casting of Sarah Paulson as Linda Tripp simply because the actress was too attractive.
Our polictically polarized culture is nothing if not shameless and predictable.
Nevertheless, in the brief teaser for Bombshell, it appears that this feature film could be taking a much more sober tack to (the late) Fox News Chief Roger Ailes’ sexual harrassment ignominy than did Showtime, with its melodramatic (and ridiculously platexed Russell Crowe) miniseries The Loudest Voice.
In this first look peak, tension eerily builds as three women — primetime star Megan Kelly (Charlize Theron, who has been transformed into a Kelly clone), daytime co-host Gretchen Carlson (Nicole Kidman), and fictionalized Fox News producer Kayla Pospisil (Margot Robbie) — each enter an elevator separately…only to greet one another with awkward silence. It’s a more intriguing tone than I was expecting from director Jay Roach, whose HBO political films Recount and Game Change leaned a bit too heavily into caricature.
Ailes, not seen here, will be played by John Lithgow, and Oscar-winning writer Charles Randolph (The Big Short) wrote the screenplay. Co-starring Allison Janney, Connie Britton, Stephen Root, Alice Eve, and Kate McKinnon, Bombshell will make its awards season play when it opens in theaters on December 20, 2019.
