Much has been said about the recent film adaptation of She Said: its cultural importance and cinematic quality, but also its allegiance to the newsroom thriller sub-genre. Films like Spotlight and All the President’s Men, where the crusading newspaper reporters overcome corruption and secrecy to expose an institutional abuse of power. It’s all very American, all very pro-Fourth Estate, and all very, perhaps… twentieth-century? A throwback to an earlier vision of newspapers as the true arbiters of justice?
But in 2022, as traditional newspapers compete with social media, streaming platforms, and online echo chambers for attention, are journalists the most apt heroes in unravelling the thorny issues of a #MeToo mystery? Or is it time that we move to a survivor-centered narrative to better understand the complex injustice behind gender-based violence in our institutions and our everyday lives?
As an author and rape survivor myself, I’ve often wondered how best to use suspense to keep readers engaged, while also reflecting the lived reality of sexual violence. But I am certainly not alone among contemporary mystery novelists addressing #MeToo, the media, and justice for survivors.
Choose Your Protagonist
In my latest novel Complicit, the protagonist Sarah Lai is approached by a New York Times journalist, asking about a famous male producer she once worked with – before her own film career dramatically ended. Jessica Knoll’s popular Luckiest Girl Alive (recently adapted into a Netflix film) is narrated by Ani Fanelli, herself an ambitious journalist, whose own suppressed story of high school sexual assault is unraveled during the filming of a documentary about her alma mater. In Jordan Harper’s haunting Everybody Knows (out in January 2023), the protagonist is a cynical publicist tasked with burying bad press for Hollywood clients, and journalists are operators who can be bribed or manipulated in the PR game.
In all of these, the media, the victim-survivor, and the perpetrators (often concealed, but always a looming presence) form a triangle of intrigue that threatens to obscure or reveal the truth to the wider world. Journalists have long played a role in the noir genre, serving as a catalyst for uncovering a long-hidden crime. But like Gillian Flynn’s flawed journalist anti-heroines, the female protagonists of these more recent mysteries are often writers or otherwise savvy in storytelling and the power of the media — while at the same time retaining a more personal understanding of #MeToo. And the protagonist’s character arc – from one of silent, bitter cynicism to a moral reckoning – accompanies the imminent threat of the truth finally being revealed.
Contrast these with the real-life ‘newsroom thrillers’ most closely linked with the #MeToo movement. Ronan Farrow’s non-fiction bestseller Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators leans hard into the espionage genre, complete with a Hitchcockian title and jacket design. Farrow himself is at the dogged journalist at the center, evading Weinstein’s nefarious tactics to derail the developing expose on him. She Said: The True Story of the Weinstein Scandal by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey is more measured and survivor-focused, often poignantly capturing the impact of sexual assault and intimidation on women – as well as the cultural and historical context of #MeToo, sandwiched between Trump’s election and Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination.
Since both books are written by the journalists themselves, the central perspective is very much theirs. But what can a survivor-centred narrative offer? And how does the source of conflict shift, according to a story’s protagonist?
In a #MeToo narrative, the perpetrator (or the forces that protect him) naturally appear as the antagonistic force. But in a journalist-centered narrative, this is more overt: an external conflict. The most dramatic moment of She Said the book is the confrontation with Weinstein himself in the New York Times offices. (This moment is deflated in the film, with its cinematic decision to relegate Weinstein to the sidelines.) In survivor-centered narratives, the initial abuser lurks in the background as a villain – but the real conflict takes place within the protagonist, in deciding whether to openly confess the truth of the past and its impact on her life. In this sense, it is a more nuanced reading of trauma on individuals and how it can contribute to feelings of guilt, shame and complicity.
In the newsroom thriller, the action is driven by the journalist-as-detective, stitching together evidence and rumor. The mystery becomes: what will be revealed? In the survivor-centered narrative, it’s more layered: what has the survivor lived through, and how much will she reveal? It may seem like a subtle distinction, but in the latter, the agency ultimately lies with the survivor, whose perspective we inhabit as she wrestles with bearing witness to the truth. Needless to say, this kind of mystery lends itself well to dramatic structure, with ‘the terrible thing from the past’ being revealed somewhere near the third act. Unreliable narrators (or unreliable sources) can also figure into these #MeToo narratives, allowing authors to toy with societal stereotypes about accusatory women while also delving deeper into issues of victim-blaming and self-blame.
Essential to all these stories is the unavoidable glare of the media – the spotlight that seems to promise fame and fortune, but can just easily exact humiliation and destroy a reputation. But in order for any of these #MeToo stories to appear in the headlines, a trust must develop between journalist and victim-survivor: a human relationship that grounds the story. And for anyone who’s experienced sexual assault or intimidation, trusting a more powerful party is often a challenge.
Lived Experience and Writing #MeToo in Fiction
It was this central crux which I wanted to explore when writing Complicit, switching the perspective from that of a crusading journalist to a silenced survivor. What would it be like to have experienced sexual violence at the hands of a powerful man, and then years later, to share that buried story with a reporter, knowing full well that the world’s attention would be on you?
Misogynistic stereotypes speak of ‘gold-diggers,’ women accusing famous men to seek attention and money, but the reality of ‘going public’ as a sexual assault survivor is very different. If anything, you feel incredibly vulnerable, aware that your own trauma is about to become clickbait on a media platform. This knowledge underscores Complicit, but it is also the subject of my ongoing PhD research at the London School of Economics – and part of my own lived experience. As a victim myself of a high-profile rape in 2008, I have encountered plenty of journalists seeking to interview me over the years. But that first contact with the media is always the most nerve-wracking. And feels the most exposing.
My stranger rape in Belfast, Northern Ireland made the local news within hours of my assault (an experience I explore in my debut novel Dark Chapter), whereas the assaults perpetrated by Weinstein were suppressed into silence for decades. In writing Complicit, I wanted to imagine what it would be like to keep a trauma that heavily guarded, because you felt no one would believe you. Would a journalist appear as a lifeline to speaking the truth? A source of danger, not to be trusted? Or somewhere in between?
This state of not knowing whom you can trust is, of course, a ripe scenario for the thriller genre. But the trust element is especially loaded in the case of sexual violence survivors. By sharing our story with a journalist, we are giving them the opportunity to represent us and our painful experiences to a public audience – and in the process, giving up control of our own story.
Visibility and Vulnerability
I’d largely finished writing Complicit when I read She Said and Catch and Kill. I was relieved that these non-fiction accounts didn’t replicate my novel’s survivor perspective, but helped to corroborate a journalistic process I’d imagined in fiction – one where a survivor’s visibility was strangely linked to her vulnerability. Becoming visible as a victim of sexual assault renders you emotionally vulnerable. Yet She Said portrays an interesting power dynamic in the journalist-survivor relationship: the journalists Kantor and Twohey can’t publish their story without enough survivors officially choosing to ‘go on the record.’ They need the credibility of a named source to render their expose genuine enough to the public. In that sense, survivors retain a power which they themselves can’t even see. Or recognize.
But recognition is really what lies at the heart of these #MeToo narratives: recognizing the abuse for what it was, recognizing your own perspective as valid and worthy. In the film version of She Said, the famous Hollywood sources (Rose McGowan, Gwyneth Paltrow, Ashley Judd) are portrayed one way: aware of their media power, ultimately deciding whether or not to play ball with The New York Times. But the non-celebrity sources are the given the more poignant storylines, these lives lived and repaired quietly in the shadow of trauma.
However, centering the journalists’ perspectives ultimately sidelines these survivors. Real-life Weinstein survivor (and his former assistant) Rowena Chiu is portrayed tragically in She Said the film: at first, as a young woman (Ashley Chiu) carefree and optimistic, and later traumatized, crying in a hallway, ultimately attempting suicide. A downbeat, articulate older version of Rowena (Angela Yeoh) narrates her experience to Jodi Kantor (Zoe Kazan). From these few minutes of screentime, we see a life ruined by Weinstein. But in reality, Chiu went on to have an impressive global career working for McKinsey, Price Waterhouse Coopers, and the World Bank. She also became a mother of four and a formidably eloquent speaker about her experience, none of which you see on screen. (I have since spoken on several panels with Chiu, given our shared experience as ‘public’ Asian sexual assault survivors.)
“[In the film] it is difficult to identify the emotional motivation in my story arc,” admits Chiu. “One minute I can’t even speak freely to my husband, and the next minute, I’m agreeing to meet Jodi in a café, without any explanation for the change of heart.” A weighted personal decision for a survivor thus becomes a simple plot point in a newsroom thriller. And her survivorhood and agency are downplayed to create the classic image of the silenced, abject victim.
Justice Through Journalism?
Real life is always more complex than the rousing thrillers targeted at mainstream audiences. We like to cheer for the plucky protagonists who challenge insurmountable odds. The journalists in She Said, Spotlight, and Catch and Kill appear as brave individuals determined to break through a brick wall of corruption. This may be true, but all these reporters were also working for institutions as established as The New York Times, The Boston Globe, NBC News and The New Yorker.
In reality, such entrenched bastions of the media are incredibly intimidating to your average member of the public, particularly someone who has already experienced abuse or trauma. So when approached by a journalist, many survivors understandably harbor a genuine fear that their very private, painful story will be exploited as media ‘content’ in a very unequal power dynamic.
The institutional might of The New York Times is on full display in She Said, from the iconic headquarters, with its floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Midtown Manhattan, to the in-house lawyer overseeing everything, to the remarkable research budget which sends Kantor to California and London to chase down their story. But it was exactly this media clout which was necessary to bring down an abuser as influential as Weinstein.
The newsroom thrillers portray the journalists as altruistic, even naïve, in their quest for the truth. Yet Kantor, Twohey, and Farrow eventually won The Pulitzer Prize in recognition of their work exposing Weinstein, an undeniable boost to their careers. Meanwhile, many victim-survivors have had their own careers and lives irreparably damaged by predators like Weinstein. To them, exposing the perpetrator decades after the trauma is a small, incommensurate form of justice – and often does not result in a material boost to their lives. The reward, primarily, is emotional.
As my protagonist Sarah muses at the end of Complicit: ‘It is no longer just my story to bear… I’ve passed it on to everyone who comes into contact with it, who will leaf open the page to his article or click on that link seeking the salacious details. It is no longer just my burden.’
So when we speak of justice through journalism, we acknowledge the responsibility that comes with rendering abuse visible. #MeToo narratives, whether non-fiction or fiction, require a partnership between individual journalists and survivors to expose a protected predator. Without trust, without recognition, this partnership cannot exist. And as much as we’d like to resort to familiar thriller tropes, for survivors, this kind of media justice lies somewhere between revenge and recovery.
