The Woman Writer on Film and the #MeToo Literary Biopic

Abstract

Abstract This article focuses on the representation of female authors’ lives in English-language literary biopics and how these representations relate to feminist contexts. Departing from previous research on biopics focusing on women (particularly women writers), this article identifies four categories of such films: the patriarchal literary biopic, in which the representation of an author’s life is related to patriarchal values, the second-wave feminist literary biopic, which is related to second-wave feminism, the postfeminist literary biopic, which is related to postfeminism, and finally the #MeToo literary biopic, a new category of films that has recently begun to emerge. By analyzing the films Colette (Wash Westmoreland, 2018) and Wild Nights with Emily (Madeleine Olnek, 2019), this article shows how these films correspond to the #MeToo movement. The #MeToo literary biopic is characterized by (a) excessive attention to difficult publication processes and the disclosure of women’s words, (b) emphasizing the persistent censoring of women’s words, (c) deconstructing the myths surrounding female authors, and (d) underscoring (female) solidarity and empowerment.