So the wife and I just saw “Bombshell,” the new film about the whole Fox News-Roger Ailes-Megyn Kelly shit storm.
I didn’t have high expectations entering the theater, but it was pretty exceptional work. Charlize Theron, in particular, owned the screen, and if she’s nominated for an Academy Award you’ll hear no complaining from this website.
Anyhow, the flick sent me back in time to 2016—before the lawsuits were out, before women were standing up, before it all. When I, eh Tweeted this while working out on a treadmill at my nearby gym …
The backlash—well, it wasn’t wonderful. There was this. And this. And this. And this. I received hundreds upon hundreds of furious Tweets and Facebook messages. Things turned quite ugly, and it was the first (of many) times I simply walked away from social media for a few days. I needed the break.
But now, nearly four years later … I’ve gotta say … um … well … it still was a shit Tweet, because it put the onus on the women while ignoring the pressures they were clearly under. But—based upon everything we’ve learned—Fox News did, in fact, urge its women to wear shorter-than-short outfits. Fox News did emphasize skin and sex appeal.
Fox News did urge their on-air folks to, dammit, dress like hookers.
It sure did.
I regret the Tweet. It was sloppy and lacking any level of nuance. It ignored all the shit women in television go through on a daily basis. I hate that I wrote it, and learned a valuable lesson.
So … yeah.
