The Hall of Shame: Reconstituting Dominant Masculinities in The New York Times’ Representation of U.S. #MeToo Offenders’ Apologias

Abstract

ABSTRACT In a powerful journalistic moment of 2018, The New York Times published the article, “After Weinstein: 71 Men Accused of Sexual Misconduct and Their Fall from Power.” It presented one collective effect of the #MeToo movement: a compendium of elite men compelled to leave their jobs due to their sexual misconduct. Shifting from the scrutinizing focus on survivors, the article created a hall of shame that placed the perpetrators and their abridged apologias in the spotlight. Using feminist rhetorical criticism and Benoit’s image repair theory, we argue that, while the article succeeds in highlighting the perpetrators’ occupational disruptions, the apologias reify antiquated understandings of gender and rape culture, illuminating the constitutive power of image repair rhetoric in reasserting toxic masculinity and rape logic in the #MeToo era. Moreover, we intervene in Benoit’s theory, which focuses on delineating the efficacy of strategies by which elites regain their influence. By offering a critical feminist apologiast approach, we compel critics to also interrogate the diachronic rhetorical and ideological scaffolding that benefits the interests of powerful, white, western, hetero-cis-male citizens while rendering the lives of the marginalized precarious and denying them cultural recognition.