A biopic based on true events, about the sex scandal that came to light in the US in 2016. The man at the centre of the incident is Roger Ailes, the former chairman of Fox News.

Before the scandal came to light, Roger was the man behind the Republican Party, helping to elect three Republicans to the US presidency. He built the news station into a political propaganda tool, making $1 billion a year for Fox. It was only when the scandal broke in 2016 that it became clear that he was a nasty man who abused his power and played with women. Rodger had a “well-established” method of sexually harassing women. He usually targeted young girls who were young and pretty, and invited them to his office via a private lift to “talk” to him as if he was a leader who cared about his subordinates. Roger, who has a lot of experience, is able to identify potential weaknesses through personal questions, such as the desire to be recognised for his work, or the fact that he is going through a family change, insecurity and so on.

Once he has got to the bottom of the situation, he starts to use his authority to mislead and threaten in a condescending manner. For example, “You are good at what you do, I will promote you, but you have to prove your loyalty to me”. If the other party hesitates to take a stand, he simply shows his hand: “If you want to make it in television, you’ll have to sleep with me, not only with me, but with everyone I put in your path” …… The plot of Breaking News begins from the perspective of the victim and revolves around three female characters played by Charlize Theron, Nicole Kidman and Margot Robbie.

One of them, Nicole Kidman, plays anchorwoman Gretchen Carlson, who was the first person to be exposed to a sex scandal back in the day. She was once a popular anchor on Fox News and an honours graduate of Stanford University. But during her ten years with Fox, Gretchen could not shake the title of “Miss America” and was perpetually objectified by the opposite sex. On the show, she was subjected to casual comments about her appearance and body by other celebrities, and repeated attempts to change the subject were unsuccessful. When Gretchen complained to Roger about this, she was told to “learn how to get along with men”. Gretchen was then inexplicably replaced and relegated to the worst-rated afternoon show, and her career was in ruins.

Instead of sitting on her hands about this disguised demotion, she spent a year gathering evidence of Roger’s sexual harassment. After being fired from her job at Fox News without cause, she formally sued Roger Ailes. In Gretchen’s view, Fox News had a long history of a “corporate culture” of degrading and harassing women, and she was not an exception to this rule. But what she didn’t expect was the almost unanimous support of the women working at Fox for Roger. For Roger claimed he had been wrongly accused and threatened employees with self-destruction if they spoke up for Gretchen. Under this pressure, every female employee surveyed, especially the anchorwomen, was unanimous in stressing that they had not been harassed by Roger.

However, one female anchor who did not immediately take a stand, but chose to remain silent for a time, was Charlize Theron as the female lead Megyn Kelly, who was already a pillar of the Fox News station at the time. In fact, when Megan first joined Fox, she was subjected to sexual harassment by Roger, which started with verbal advances and slowly developed into demands for sexual favours. Megan managed to push back several times in order to keep her job. To avoid angering Roger, she was aggressive in her work, portraying herself as the standard anchorwoman on Fox News – blonde, long-legged, ultra-right, and without intelligence. After the sex scandal broke, she knew it wouldn’t be easy to bring Roger down, so she never took a public stand.

But privately, Megan also started looking around for the female colleague who had been victimised. She followed the trail and got a list of some of the victims, one of whom was a female employee, Kayla, played by Margot Robbie. This character is the only fictional one in the cast, but her story line is a distillation of what happened to many of the victims of the Fox sex scandal. Kayla grew up hoping to be an anchor at Fox News and was lucky enough to jump at the chance to join the team of the highest rated show.

But little did she know that she would be appreciated not for her ability to do the job, but for her looks and body. It didn’t take long for her to be introduced to Roger for “individual coaching”. In a private office, Roger asked Kayla to get up and show off her body, and then asked her to lift her skirt to reveal her private parts, on the pretext that she had “anchor potential”. She was so impressed with Roger that she couldn’t refuse the request and did as she was told.

From then on, she was called into Roger’s office from time to time and his demands became more and more excessive. There was no way for Kayla to report what was happening in the office to the company, as the person behind the call was Roger himself. She couldn’t just turn her back on the company because no one could win the case against Fox and her career would be ruined. Knowing what had happened to Kayla, Megan realised that she should not remain silent and went on record accusing Roger of sexual harassment as well. This bombshell news-like accusation, coupled with the recorded evidence of sexual harassment that Gretchen had previously gathered, led to Roger Ailes’ complete disgrace and his dismissal from Fox. As it is also based on a true event in the media industry, this Breaking News is inevitably reminiscent of the film Spotlight.

But in reality, the two films are about opposite events – Spotlight is about the ethics and professionalism of media professionals, while Breaking News is about how a veteran media personality like Roger Ailes single-handedly created a workplace environment that was extremely oppressive and humiliating to women.

In terms of the story itself, the relevance of Breaking News far outweighs its artistic value.

The topic of sexual harassment in the workplace has been brought to the attention of more and more people in recent years under the influence of the Metoo movement, and I have previously talked to you about a number of related films and dramas. On the one hand, “Breaking the News” takes a look at sexual harassment from the victim’s perspective, showing us that sexual harassment is not just about physical contact, but also includes prolonged sexual gazes, verbal teasing and innuendo, and the use of so-called “benefit exchange” as brainwashing rhetoric. On the one hand, the film is a retelling of a real-life incident that makes us realise that women in the workplace have to pay a price far beyond the imagination of ordinary people in order to resist sexual harassment, and that even celebrity anchorwomen are not immune to it.

Gretchen in the film, after suing Roger for sexual harassment, was immediately greeted with a wave of questions about her retaliation against him because she was unemployed; Megan had been accused by her own team members of being selfish and not looking out for the careers of others when she was considering speaking out. Then again, the reason the film details the uncomfortable plot of how Kayla was sexually harassed by Roger is to enhance the audience’s sense of agency. When you are in the same position and perspective as the victims, you can only appreciate the helplessness and humiliation they felt at the time.

So from a practical point of view, Breaking the News serves the purpose of giving a voice to women in the workplace – once they encounter sexual harassment in the workplace, everyone can’t help but fall into self-doubt, or become self-blaming, or continue to be brainwashed by others, or choose to stay silent where they are, or simply walk away. In reality, the only way to end sexual harassment in the first place is to stand up and speak out, stop it and expose it. What is also interesting about the film is its title, Bombshell, which means both ‘breaking news’ and ‘sexy’. This double entendre is a clever way of explaining the film’s theme – stop objectifying women or you’ll probably end up with a headline scandal.

Of course, apart from the sexual harassment references, the most intriguing aspect of Breaking the News is the three strong female actors in the film. Before the film’s release, many fans were curious to see what kind of sparks would be created between them. But in reality, the only scene in which the three actresses are seen together is a lift scene. At that time, Gretchen is about to be fired by Fox, Megan is at the peak of her career and Kayla is once again called to Roger’s office. The three go to the same first floor where Roger is, but in very different situations ……

Although the film doesn’t feature the kind of drama we’d expect from a movie queen, when you think about it, that’s probably what the film is trying to convey to us – that Every woman who experiences sexual harassment, no matter how strong she may seem, is an isolated and helpless individual until she speaks up for herself.

Thankfully, Breaking the News is about a change in progress. Those like Gretchen who are brave enough to put their career on the line and stand up for themselves are no longer a helpless minority, I believe.