You won’t see adverts for Bombshell on the Fox News network, which is both unsurprising and part of the problem. Bombshell details the toxic regime of Fox News boss Roger Ailes (played by John Lithgow), serial abuser of both female journalists and news journalism itself, though the focus is on the women who brought him down, played by Charlize Theron, Nicole Kidman and Margot Robbie. It is a story for our #MeToo/fake news times, but Bombshell is unlikely to live up to its title in terms of real-world impact. Fox remains the US’s most watched cable news network. Last year it drew its largest audience ever.
Bombshell is the latest in a series of films and TV shows targeting the Murdoch empire. Already last year we had The Loudest Voice, a seven-part drama about the rise and fall of Ailes (played by a Golden Globe-winning Russell Crowe), not to mention the Murdoch-esque machinations of Succession. But Bombshell also fits into a wider pattern of ripped-from-the-headlines political stories told in a tricksy, almost comic style, and usually with a liberal slant. The comedy is no coincidence: Bombshell’s director is Jay Roach, who gave us the Austin Powers movies. In recent years he has also been behind Game Change (with Julianne Moore as Sarah Palin), All the Way (Bryan Cranston as Lyndon Johnson) and Recount (on the 2000 US Bush-Gore presidential election).
Director Adam McKay has transitioned from Will Ferrell comedies to similarly topical satires such as The Big Short and Dick Cheney biopic Vice, in which Christian Bale buried himself beneath prosthetic jowls much as Lithgow does in Bombshell (McKay also executive-produced Succession). These are all entertaining movies, but their main achievements seem to be stunt casting and awards nods rather than political impact. You wonder if the approach is working.
Bombshell’s explosive potential is dampened by the fact that its real-life heroes were part of the problem as much as part of the solution. Both Megyn Kelly and Gretchen Carlson toed the Fox line in stoking division, racism and outrage. Kelly once declared that Jesus was a white man; Carlson complained that Glee pandered to transgender people. Meanwhile, Rupert Murdoch is portrayed almost as a hero in Bombshell for his decision to fire Ailes. (For harder-hitting takes, check out docs Divide and Conquer: The Story of Roger Ailes, or Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism.)
It sometimes feels as if liberal Hollywood is taking its cue from the self-important “Film Actors Guild” in Team America: World Police. “If we focus our acting on global politics, we can change everything, and stuff,” says puppet Liv Tyler. Of course, they change nothing. Today’s efforts are often merely preaching to the converted, just like Fox News does.
