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Meryl Streep as Katharine Graham in 'The Post' can help fix #MeToo media damage

Journalism is still dominated by men. The film's portrayal of Graham as a serious newspaperwoman is a blueprint for a new kind of news media culture.

Meg Heckman
Opinion contributor
Meryl Streep on the set of The Post.

Journalism is a great plot device, something we’re reminded of once again by The Post, Steven Spielberg’s new film about The Washington Post’s decision to publish The Pentagon Papers. It deserves the accolades it’s receiving for gorgeous sets, snappy writing and a storyline that champions strong news organizations, but that’s not the only reason why it’s important for modern audiences to see.

By focusing on publisher Katharine Graham, The Post has the potential to shift our collective understanding of women’s roles in media, entertainment and civic life. In a refreshing departure from the shallow, oversexualized way Hollywood typically depicts women in journalism, Meryl Streep portrays Graham as a serious newspaperwoman navigating complex social and political challenges. Her role should be a blueprint for a new kind of popular culture, one that helps repair a climate where, as the #MeToo movement has revealed, media companies routinely get away with allowing sexual harassment and assault to fester.

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Movies about journalism abound, but they’re often unkind to the women they feature. Those based on real-life events tend to focus on male protagonists. Fictional stories, meanwhile, often portray female journalists as sidekicks, sexpots sleeping their way to stories, or plucky-but-lonely singletons hoping their next assignment lands them the man of their dreams. Each new cringeworthy example unleashes a flurry of critiques like the ones that emerged about the reporters in House of Cards, the return of Rory Gilmore and, just last month, Netflix’s The Christmas Prince.

There are some exceptions: The Oscar-winning Spotlight included a professional, empathetic interpretation of real-life Boston Globe reporter Sacha Pfeiffer. Murphy Brown, Mary Tyler Moore and, more recently, Amy Adams’ rebooted Lois Lane are fantastic fictional role models for little girls who dream of speaking truth to power and, just as importantly, the little boys who will someday become their colleagues. These examples are, however, notable because they’re rare and too often eclipsed by stories that render women invisible, unprofessional or only around for romance.

Journalism’s #MeToo problem can’t be blamed entirely on a bunch of crummy rom-coms rife with tired clichés. But such tropes are pervasive enough to seep into our thinking about real-life female journalists, subtly affecting the way women in the field are treated by their male bosses, colleagues and sources. They make it harder for female journalists to do their jobs and contribute to a pervasive gender imbalance.

Virtually every corner of modern journalism is dominated by men. Women represent roughly one-third of practitioners, a statistic that’s held steady for decades despite the fact that the majority of journalism and communications majors at U.S. universities are female. Men get the majority of bylines at major newspapers and wire services, deliver most of the news on network TV, hold most top management jobs, are more likely to be quoted in stories and, in many cases, get paid more than their female peers. This creates a profession where, for too many young women, their first job comes with congratulations and whispered warnings about certain men. (For a sampling of the kind of harassment female journalists typically endure, check out the anonymous SaidToLadyJournos blog.)

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This matters because, as movies like The Post remind us, journalism is a vital profession with both huge responsibility and power. When it’s hostile — or even just indifferent — to an entire gender, the work it produces is less likely to accurately reflect society.

The Post takes place in 1971, when most women working for newspapers were clerks or secretaries, so Graham’s gender is very much a factor in the story, but in a way that helps us understand the many power dynamics in play. She’s a woman in a world full of men. But it’s her intellect, not her sexuality, that drives the story. As Liz Hannah, who wrote The Post’s original screenplay, said “it’s a script about two people in their 50s in which no one kisses.”  

In a 2001 academic essay, journalism historian Maurine Beasley called for a more comprehensive accounting of women’s contributions to the profession, writing “we need to ask why only a relatively few women journalists remain in the American collective historical memory … Asking this question broadens our insight into the way society has valued the nature and practice of journalism as well as the work of women in various historical periods.”

Hollywood would be wise to heed that call, and not just because it’s the right thing to do. Nuanced stories about women are compelling and, as the success of shows like The Handmaid’s Tale demonstrate, potentially lucrative. Screenwriters and directors looking for the next great journalism movie should plumb the historical archives for diverse characters — an Ida B. Wells biopic, perhaps? — or push their fictional narratives beyond the cliché. Doing so will lead to some great stories and give us all reason to hope for a more inclusive media landscape in the years to come.

Meg Heckman is an assistant professor of journalism at Northeastern University. Follow her on Twitter: @meg_heckman

 

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