apologized<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\nNone of this appears to have harmed the careers of those involved. Today, Fielding presents the internationally beloved \u201cGreat British Baking Show.\u201d Moyles has an eponymous program on Radio X. And Dyer was until recently a leading star in Britain\u2019s iconic soap opera \u201cEastEnders.\u201d NBC News has contacted Fielding\u2019s and Moyles\u2019 agents for comment. Dyer wrote in his autobiography that he regretted his \u201ctasteless joke,\u201d saying he never thought the magazine would publish it.<\/p>\n
Overt misogyny existed in the \u201890s and, of course, before. But what made the \u201800s unique was its particular tone of cruelty and \u201cnihilism,\u201d according to Ditum. The so-called lads\u2019 mags launched in the previous decade had featured scantily clad women, but also quality factual journalism and humor.<\/p>\n
What changed? The nascent internet, which blasted \u201ca firehose of uncensored, unmoderated content into people\u2019s lives,\u201d she said, from illegal downloads of music and films to extreme, gonzo-style pornography and revenge porn.<\/p>\n
Then came social media, unleashing \u201ca turbocharged version of the media and tabloid sexism we were already used to online,\u201d said Laura Bates, author of \u201cMen Who Hate Women\u201d and founder in 2012 of the Everyday Sexism Project.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Platforms like Facebook and Twitter, launched in 2004 and 2006, \u201cenabled everyday women, not just celebrities, to be targeted with the same slut shaming, body image pressure, objectification and sexual harassment that we\u2019d seen flourish offline in the \u201890s,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
A version of all this was happening in the U.S., of course, where stars like Britney Spears were ogled as teenagers before being harangued and destroyed by those same forces. In fact, Ditum attributes some of the decade\u2019s cultural cruelty to America\u2019s defining event: 9\/11.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause so much of the culture industries are based in Manhattan, 9\/11 had a really direct, traumatizing effect,\u201d she said. \u201cYou have this huge cataclysmic event that no one is emotionally equipped to deal with\u201d and \u201cit feeds into this really apocalyptic, end-of-the-world feeling in the gossip culture.\u201d<\/p>\n
Piers Morgan, then editor of The Mirror newspaper, was quoted in The Guardian four months later saying the attacks had \u201cconcentrated my mind and made me realise\u201d the media didn\u2019t have to \u201csuck up\u201d to celebrities anymore. It \u201cempowered us to put celebrities back in their box.\u201d<\/p>\n
In practice, Ditum said, what ensued was less an era of legitimate scrutiny and more a \u201cnihilistic celebration of destruction\u201d in the media, one where the feeling was: \u201cThe world has burned, and people wanted to see individual women burn within that.\u201d<\/p>\nRussell Brand became a household name in the UK as host of reality TV spinoff “Big Brother’s Little Brother” in 2006. <\/span>Shutterstock file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\nBritain has always had its own particular brand of risque humor, often exporting it to the States, where stars like Brand, who had a brief stint in Hollywood movies, shocked its traditionally more puritanical audiences.<\/p>\n
\u201cBritish comedy has always been bawdy, raunchy and winking,\u201d said Wynter Mitchell-Rohrbaugh, a cultural commentator and podcaster based in Los Angeles. \u201cThe audience takes it in, they don\u2019t think too much of it, but then when you get into real-life consequences, real-life allegations,\u201d such as those leveled at Brand, \u201cit pivots and changes things a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brand was endorsed not only by broadcasters and their audiences but leading politicians keen to cash in on his cultural capital. In 2015, then opposition Labour leader Ed Miliband interviewed Brand as part of his election campaign, something he said this week he regrets.<\/p>\n
Brand\u2019s former employers, the BBC and Channel 4, pledged to investigate their processes and have pulled some of his work. (Channel 4 commissioned some of Brand\u2019s former shows before airing last weekend\u2019s expos\u00e9 against him.)<\/p>\n
Tim Davie, BBC director-general, said it was investigating allegations by Brand\u2019s then-16-year-old girlfriend that a company car collected her from school and took her to the star\u2019s house.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis industry has definitely faced significant issues with regard to a deep power imbalance in certain places, between so-called talent, presenters, and others working on shows,\u201d Davie told a Q&A with staff that was released by the organization\u2019s press office.<\/p>\n
But as much as audiences, broadcasters and celebrities themselves profess to have moved past those bad old days, many within the industry roll their eyes at the idea that things have changed substantively.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know the entertainment industry is absolutely rife, and within that the comedy industry is the least regulated,\u201d said Stevie Martin, a comedian who has participated in WhatsApp groups where women warn each other of industry predators.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
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\u201cThere are so few structures\u201d to protect people, she added, \u201cAnd many people involved in those structures have obviously looked the other way.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Brand\u2019s overt style may not wash now, Martin and others say that the same alleged activity is just better hidden today. It\u2019s more common to hear about men \u201cwho go out of their way to appear feminist\u201d but then act inappropriately in private, she said, \u201cand that to me is more terrifying.\u201d<\/p>\n
And even if there has been a softening of the cultural rhetoric, there has been little change when it comes to metrics such as rape conviction rates in Britain, with charges brought in less than 2% of reported cases, according to the charity Rape Crisis England & Wales.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe continue to like to cling as a society to the notion that things have changed and are constantly getting better,\u201d Bates said. But \u201cI think we have a lot of the same problems in 2023; we just struggle to recognize them when they are under our noses.\u201d<\/p>\n
She added that \u201cit is baffling to see so many people talking about how normalized sexism was in the media in the 2000s as if this is now a different era.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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