The #MeToo Literary Biopic

The latest issue of Adaptation has been published and includes an article by Katrijn Bekers and myself entitled ‘The Woman Writer on Film and the #MeToo
Literary Biopic’. You can read the full article here.

Denise Gough and Keira Knightly in Colette, a #MeToo literary biopic

In this article, we examine the representation of female authors’ lives in English-language biopics and the relation to feminist contexts. We identity four categories of such films: the patriarchal literary biopic, the second-wave feminist literary biopic, the postfeminist literary biopic, and finally the #MeToo literary biopic, a new category of films that has recently begun to emerge. By analyzing the films Colette (2018) and Wild Nights with Emily (2019) in more depth, 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.