In a post-#MeToo world, how should journalists cover the red carpet? Here’s what we’re doing differently this year.
As the sexual misconduct scandals continue to unfold, our gender team is providing updates and analysis in a new newsletter. Today, Bonnie Wertheim introduces us to “The New Red Carpet” — and explains how The Times is covering the Golden Globes red carpet differently this year. Read back issues of The #MeToo Moment here, sign up for the newsletter here, and tell us what you think at nytgender@nytimes.com .
The first time I tried on a floor-length gown, I was 12 years old and on the cusp of “becoming a woman” — or, at least, parading as one for my bat mitzvah. The dress was an iridescent lavender, with rhinestone-encrusted straps and a tulle-stuffed princess skirt. I would wear it in a room packed with peers, family friends and relatives the following year, an experience so terrifying that a stress-induced flu would swiftly follow. But alone in the dressing room, I already felt seen. That some people wore outfits so spectacular on a regular basis — that they made themselves so visible — was unimaginable to me.
I didn’t know the half of it then. Those celebrities, whose beauty and elegance and occasional sartorial slip-ups I’d watched on E! for years, contained secrets their camera-ready appearances never let on. They were beholden to agreements unspoken and explicit, ones upon which their careers hinged and which are now, finally, coming to light.
At The Times, where I work on the Styles desk, red carpet slide shows are a mainstay of awards season. We watch, pick our personal bests and worsts, and publish images that millions of people then judge for themselves. The photographs, at best, reflect a desire for shiny distractions. But there is a complicity to scrutinizing and ranking these women, too.
Their dresses are not a reflection of their own style or their professional achievements. They speak to the larger economy of Hollywood, whose corruption becomes clearer with each turn of the news cycle. Moreover, our habitual participation in the red carpet industrial complex underscores the widely held perception that women’s bodies are available for public consumption.
So we’re switching things up this year .
We’re sending a Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist, Damon Winter, to document the Golden Globes red carpet as a news event (you can see some of his coverage of Donald Trump here). We will have a slate of reporters watching and listening for smart, critical quotes from celebrities, not about what they’re wearing, but about the future they envision for their industry — and the world.
We’ve also published a series of curtain-raiser stories, which contain red carpet observations, as well as critiques and predictions, from journalists at The Times and The New York Times Magazine. Read on.
What the Smiles Concealed
Red carpet photos from awards shows past can now be seen as “a metaphor for the difficulty of confronting or rejecting powerful men who harass or assault,” writes Jodi Kantor, the investigative reporter who, with Megan Twohey, blew open the national dialogue on harassment in Hollywood .
The Red Carpet Is Its Own Economy
Our fashion critic Vanessa Friedman explores the relationship between fashion brands, celebrities and their handlers. (Hint: There’s a lot of money involved.)
The Empty Gesture of Red Carpet Protest
Jenna Wortham, a staff writer at The New York Times Magazine, questions the value of wearing black as visual protest, especially at awards shows, where the participants have little to risk and publicity to gain. (“It feels completely privileged, and a little complicit, to still participate in the larger system that has condoned sexual violence in their industry,” she writes. “Besides, don’t they already wear lots of black on the red carpet anyway?!”)
Will Awards Season Ever Be the Same?
Ms. Kantor wonders if the awards circuit can weather the post-Harvey Weinstein storm, or if it will fall with him.
After #AskHerMore and #MeToo, Time’s Up
Cara Buckley, a Culture reporter and Carpetbagger columnist, explains how women are leading the charge against the industry’s culture of abuse.
The Outfit as Expression
By choosing to wear black on Sunday, the women (and men!) of Hollywood are using fashion to its fullest potential: “Clothes speak as loudly as many words, and they can be weaponized accordingly,” writes Ms. Friedman, our critic.
Follow along with The Times’s red carpet coverage Sunday night on Facebook, Twitter ( @NYTStyles, @NYTFashion) and at nytimes.com/style. Let us know what you think at nytgender@nytimes.com .
