Guest post by Timothy L. Fort, PhD, JD, Eveleigh Professor of Business Ethics and Professor of Business Law & Ethics at the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University.
Given the derecho of events over the past six years, watching the cinematic depiction of the sexual harassment lawsuits against Roger Ailes and others at Fox News can seem distant history. Since then, we have seen other high-profile harassment cases, such as Matt Lauer at NBC News and Hollywood film producer Harvey Weinstein. The horrifying deaths of so many Black men and women, most notably George Floyd, generated intense national attention. A global pandemic, a heated presidential election, and many other news stories can overload any person’s consciousness. They all merit attention and that includes re-focusing scrutiny on sexual harassment.
Nearly 25 years ago while teaching at another university, I taught a case in which a woman was not given an equal chance to succeed at her job. I taught the case to an executive education group of fairly high-level businessmen — and yes, they were all men from a company based in Asia — who unanimously saw no problem with the unequal opportunity because, they said, women should not be at the workplace in the first place. Indeed, when pushed further, they saw no problem with those women who did go to work having to be sexually available to the men. A difficult conversation ensued — “Professor Tim,” they asked, “why are you so angry with us?” Since then, I used the incident for many years to challenge my students how they would respond to a situation so shocking. What would be the first sentence in the subsequent conversation?
Six years ago, I considered discarding teaching the case because everyone knows such a workplace environment is wrong and no longer exists. Then came Roger Ailes. And Matt Lauer. And Harvey Weinstein. And I realized that the problem was still very much here.
Before COVID hit, IU Cinema’s plan was to screen a double feature, pairing Bombshell with Apple TV’s The Morning Show, whose executive producer, Kristin Hahn, would be on campus as the Kelley School’s Poling Chairholder. COVID scrambled that plan; Ms. Hahn was able to be here to screen The Morning Show last fall but COVID precluded the double feature. However, we did not want to give up screening Bombshell.
Of course, one can watch Bombshell within the context of the 2016 presidential election and its players — politically and in the media — that were central to that tumultuous campaign. That narrative will be of interest, but the deeper, and in my view more troubling, dimension of Bombshell is the workplace dynamic that generates a fertile and malodorous culture of demeaning behavior. A powerful and wildly successful (in terms of profitability) boss, complicit employees made quieter by competitiveness, phony reporting mechanisms for those who might want to risk reporting misbehavior, and secretive spying and ploys may have been present at Fox, or at NBC’s Today Show, or in Weinstein’s production sets, but those characteristics can too often be found in other organizations. After all, not only have executives of profit-generating businesses lost their jobs for harassing employees, so too have executives from major universities and other non-profits.
As films go, Bombshell is entertaining. The narrative and the acting hold one’s attention, making it well-worth the 100 or so minutes spent watching. But there is a deeper call within it. And not just one of lamenting the existence of such cultures or even cheering end-results. The challenge of Bombshell is what each of us can do in our organizations, whether we are the boss or an adviser or one of the employees. No matter the swirl of events and breaking news stories, Bombshell (and last fall’s The Morning Show) is a call to vigilance and action.
Bombshell will be screened at IU Cinema on February 22 with a post-film Q&A with Zoe Peterson, Director of the Kinsey Institute’s Sexual Assault Research Initiative, and Brenda Weber, IU Professor of Gender Studies.
This screening was curated by Timothy L. Fort with support from IU Cinema, Kelley School of Business, Kelley School Department of Business Law and Ethics, and the Kinsey Institute. This partnership is supported through IU Cinema’s Creative Collaborations program.
Timothy L. Fort holds the Eveleigh Professorship in Business Ethics and is Professor of Business Law & Ethics at the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University. He received his BA and MA from the University of Notre Dame and his PhD and JD from Northwestern University. Fort has written nearly 80 articles and 11 books, two of which have won the Best Book Award from the Academy of Management for Social Issues, including his Stanford-published The Diplomat in the Corner Office (2016).