The Women of Hollywood’s Golden Age: Their Epistemic Injustice and the Impact of Education Today by Hayley Campbell

Degree Programme: MEd PGCert DipLCM

Lights! Camera! Action!

Casillo (2018, p.53) quotes Marilyn Monroe who described Hollywood as:

“a place where they’ll pay you a thousand dollars for a kiss and fifty cents for your soul.”

– Monroe, 1974: p.53

The Golden Age of Hollywood is the period between the 1930s and 1950s, its films described as a valuable, historical resource (Dobbs, 1987). Contradictorily, Miller (2023) says this period’s film industry personifies the absolute lack of opportunity for women simply because of gender. Heldman and Haggard (2017) study the normality of sexual harassment within the entertainment industry against women and although Meade (2021) writes this period in film frequently referred as ‘idyllic’, Hollywood was extremely harmful toward women, often facing cases of assault, harassment, and violence. Beyond direct abuse, sexism was common, with women expected to look and act in a ‘certain way,’ on and off screen, having little to no creative control, and career aspiration and opportunity extremely limited and difficult to obtain. Some women faced other obstacles like race, as during this time, Hollywood strengthened the myth of people being of colour as inferior, diminishing the severity of racial injustice faced by this community (Scott, 2015).

Fricker (2007) explores the idea of epistemic injustice, an act of wrong done to someone, specifically in their capacity as a knower and, how it takes two forms – testimonial and hermeneutical. She suggests that when we consider the idea of epistemic injustice, we can think of the idea of “distributive unfairness in terms of epistemic goods such as information or education” (p.1). There are clear examples how Fricker’s ideology relates to women during Hollywood’s Golden Age of cinema. These examples include the portrayal of stereotypical characters, lack of opportunity in roles behind the camera and, the sexual coercion that women were subjected to by the male figures in power, being accepted as just part of the audition process. When it comes to injustice toward women, the managing tycoons of the Golden Age are a fine example.

In this paper I intend to examine what exactly happened to some of Hollywood’s best-known leading ladies, before elaborating Fricker’s definition of injustice and how her philosophy applies to ‘Tinseltown’ during this period.

Behind the Spotlight

Tham (2021) reviews the 2018 documentary ‘This Changes Everything’ by Tom Donahue which highlights the female discrimination and gender inequality in Hollywood. He writes that discrimination takes two formats – representation and recognition. Regarding representation, it is argued roles for women were written by men so they represented a ‘man’s idea’ of what a woman should be; Huwiler (2026) supports this by writing about the gender imbalance in production with at least 85% of writers at this time were male. Ramirez Trelles and Lopez-Figueroa’s (2024) claim the industry set unrealistic expectations of what women should be, specifically during this period; women were objectified and given very-little speaking time.

Haskell (2016) highlights Hollywood was not interested in writing roles for women who were ambitious and intelligent. Instead, they ensured women were seen as the lesser sex, at their best when in the midst of emotional scenarios and their least womanly when pursuing knowledge and career. Smoljo (2023) defines the three-character types typically available to women:

  1. The ‘dumb blonde’: the attractive and desirable woman, predictably clueless in her actions, preferably blonde and blue eyes. This was exemplified on screen by blonde superstars such as Marilyn Monroe in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953), Jayne Mansfield in The Girl Can’t Help It (1956) and Betty Grable in The Beautiful Blonde from Bashful Bend (1949).
  2. The ‘femme fatale’: the mysterious and deceptive woman who is irresistible to men but often dangerous to their surroundings, preferably dark-haired. Actresses typically cast here include Rita Hayworth playing the titular role in Gilda! (1946), Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity (1944) and Lana Turner as ‘Cora Smith’ in The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946).
  3. The ‘screwball heroine’: confident, hard-working and stubborn but usually forgoes her personal aspirations, giving into the love of man and domestic life, to have her ‘happy ending.’ Leading ladies such as Carole Lombard, Katherine Hepburn and Claudette Colbert embodied this persona in some of Hollywood’s biggest hits at the time including My Man Godfrey (1935), Bringing Up Baby (1938) and, It Happened One Night (1934).

The sexual exploitation of women during the Golden Age was rampant. Blakemore (2023) writes of Harry Cohn, head of Columbia Pictures during the era’s peak. Cohn used his position by promising stardom in exchange for sex and flaunting his powerful stance in Hollywood, meant he usually got it. Blakemore confirms reports that Cohn or ‘White Fang’ as he was fittingly nicknamed, kept perfumes and stockings in his office as “payment” to aspiring actresses for sexual favours and, had a special dressing room directly connected to his office, solely intended for prey.

Sadly, the world continues to find evidence of such exploitation as, The Epstein Files have disclosed the manipulative practices across all sectors. For example, Braun (2026) enlightens readers to the exercise of power Epstein had overboard members, professors and administrators in US higher education institutions releasing details of emails between Yale University professor David Gelernter and Epstein, where the professor describes a student as ‘a v small good looking blonde’. Marquis (2026) also explores Epstein’s influence in US higher education referring to emails between the infamous financier and academic from Stanford University, Nathan Wolfe who sent Epstein a dinner invitation noting that he’d be accompanied by ‘a couple of hottie interns’. Within Hollywood, Bekiempis (2024) writes how Epstein used the tactic of name-dropping of stars such as Leonardo DiCaprio and Cameron Diaz, to impress or intimidate the people in his company. Bekiempis outlines comments made from Epstein survivor, Johanna Sjoberg, confirming he would drop such names after a phone call, but she never actually met this people. In the same report however, Sjoberg also shares a conversation she had with illusionist David Copperfield at a dinner hosted by the financier and how he questioned on whether she knew that girls were getting paid [by Epstein] to find other girls.

Some of Hollywood’s most legendary leading ladies couldn’t escape the male supremacy as Solis (2017) shares stories of five significant icons who were abused:

  1. Tippi Herdren, one of celebrated director Alfred Hitchcock’s favourites, who only had the courage to  publicly make allegations against him, 50 years after.
  2. Maureen O’Hara, whose name was dragged through the mud by those men she refused advances from, in attempts to thwart her reputation and career.
  3. The Wizard of Oz star, Judy Garland who was sexually, emotionally, and neglectfully abused by studio executives from childhood.
  4. Marilyn Monroe who compared Hollywood to ‘an overcrowded brothel, a merry-go-round with beds for horses.’
  5. Child star Shirley Temple, who confessed to an incident of when she was just twelve, an MGM producer exposed his penis to her.

Underrepresentation wasn’t only shown on screen but also in production job roles, especially those credited. Morris (2020) uses a study by US university North Western in Illinois, proving female representation was at a staggering low during Hollywood’s Golden Era. Sharing statistics from this study conducted by Luís Amaral which analysed 26,000 movies produced between 1910 and 2010, which was conducted across all genres of film to measure how many women worked as actors, screenwriters, producers and directors. The findings showed that between 1910 and 1920, women actors made up approximately 40% of film casts; for movies that were made, women wrote 20%, produced 12% and directed only 5%. By the time the Golden Age was in motion, acting roles for female actresses were cut by 50% compared to the 10 years prior and, producing and directing roles were near zero. Rach (2020) also uses Amaral’s study to explain how the ‘Studio System’ format defined how Hollywood was run with the five leading studios (namely Warner Bros., Paramount, MGM, Fox and RKO Pictures) being controlled by men making male dominance mainstream and women receiving fewer and fewer jobs.

Being a woman at this time in Hollywood was not easy but for women of colour, it was harder still. McLean (2011) gives extensive lists of industry professionals the studios had on their rosters at this time and despite acknowledging the lists as diverse, their shared trait is that all those listed, were white. Mislan, Grant and Broussard (2017) state during the 1930s, mainstream Hollywood removed, sidelined and devalued black women and their cinematic voice. Freeze Dried Movies (s.a.) highlights significant challenges for women of colour facing systemic barriers and stereotyping, limiting the storytelling opportunities available to them. The 1934 Production Code was a strict mandatory enforcement of moral censorship in Hollywood and the enforcement of only added to this, reflecting societal biases and harmful stereotypes, making it extremely difficult for these women to find significant work.

It is clear that women in Hollywood’s Golden Age suffered a huge amount of injustice simply because of their gender. Renna (2018) lists some of these injustices including sexual exploitation, which using Fricker’s work can be defined as a case of identity power being exercised by those senior studio executives; typecasting of women being the ‘blonde bombshell’ or ‘femme fatale’, and racial profiling of African American women only being cast in minor roles like the ‘maid’, exemplify Fricker’s idea of prejudicial stereotyping. Today mental health is recognised and diagnosed in a medical capacity but in the Golden age, a woman having a mental health issue like addiction and/or substance or alcohol abuse meant they were considered weak due to the lack of societal knowledge about the topic; the fact that it didn’t discriminate against even the most famous of stars like Judy Garland, highlights a type of hermeneutical injustice toward the female acting community.

I will use the work of Fricker (2007) to elaborate on the term ‘epistemic injustice’ before applying to the context of Hollywood’s Golden Era further.

Epistemic Injustice

The idea of Fricker’s book (2007, p.1) is to “explore the idea that there is a distinctively epistemic kind of injustice”. She defines it as “a wrong done to someone specifically in their capacity as a knower” (2007, p.1) and subcategorises this into two types. Firstly, testimonial injustice which “occurs when prejudice causes a hearer to give a deflated level of credibility to a speaker’s word” (2007, p.1), expanding on how power plays a leading role. Fricker (2007) says testimonial injustice involves the exercise of power done either actively or passively. She explains how these two modes of power are dependent on each other reasoning that with exercise of active power, comes reaction based on the power imparted in a passive manner from one social agent to the next. Fricker (2007, p.10) uses the term of “dyadic power”, how infliction of power on one party has substantial influence on the actions of another. She explains this can be either agential power, coming from one particular agent or, purely structural perspective coming from a collective of societal biases and beliefs that have innate influence and standardisation amongst others. Fricker (2007, p.4) employs the term “identity power” which allows one to exercise power over another through shared conceptions within society. For example, African Americans being seen as the ‘inferior’ race because of their skin colour or, men being more logical, as women are too emotional or hysterical in certain circumstances.

Fricker (2007, p.16-17) explicates that “identity power is an integral part of the mechanism of testimonial exchange because of the need for hearers to use social stereotypes as heuristics in their spontaneous assessments of their interlocuter’s credibility.” The speaker’s credibility is evaluated based upon society stereotypes and identity and, is applied to either inflate (credibility excess) or deflate (credibility deficit) the speaker’s credibility. Usually, cases of credibility deficit result in testimonial injustices with society being seen as the ‘listener’ and the reliance on stereotypes based on identity prejudices, will diminish or dismiss the speaker’s testimony, unfairly. Fricker recognises that testimonial injustice can occur without prejudice based on the hearer’s perception of the speaker’s behaviour, for example, avoiding eye contact being presumed as insincerity rather than a personality trait.

The second type of injustice she examines is hermeneutical injustice. She explains that this type “occurs at a prior stage, when a gap in collective interpretive resources puts someone at an unfair disadvantage when it comes to making sense of social experience” (2007, p.1). She gives different examples to explain this including a woman who is sexually harassed before harassment was perceived as a defined act and without knowing this, she lacks the ability and knowledge to recognise this as her experience, denying her opportunity to communicate it as a wrongdoing. The act of sexual harassment was not officially declared as illegal in the United States until 1980, around 50 years after the Golden Age of Hollywood. One has to ask that because such acts were not wrong in the eyes of the law, does it mean they are not considered as a wrongdoing at this time? The term of “hermeneutical resources” (p.6) can define these gaps of shared social interpretations and so groups who are of the disadvantage are seen as hermeneutically marginalised. Fricker describes that the key harm in these cases is “someone suffering from a situated hermeneutical inequality: their social situation is such that a collective hermeneutical gap prevents them in particular from making sense of an experience which is strongly in their interests to render intelligible” (p.6). Fricker uses a case study of a depression sufferer as a victim of hermeneutical injustice, due to lack of knowledge and understanding of mental health as a whole; this lack and prevention of understanding has resulted in what she terms as a “hermeneutical gloom”, therefore constituting “this as a wrong done to her in her capacity as a knower” (2007, p.149).

Fricker (2007) defines two types of hermeneutical injustice – systematic and incidental. She differentiates the two by stating that in systematic cases, “hermeneutical marginalisation is ‘persistent and wide-ranging” (2007, p.158). With incidental cases, she claims they come from “a one-off moment of powerlessness” (2007, p.156) rather than structural inequality of power. She imparts incidental cases are still serious as they still have massive repercussions on a person’s life and these cases “help reveal the place of hermeneutical injustice in the complex of social injustices” (2007, p.158). Fricker (2007) introduces the idea of a hermeneutical lacuna, simply defined as a ‘gap’ which affects both parties involved in the wrongdoing. Using her example of the sexual harassment case, the lacuna here is the lack of knowledge and understanding of unwanted sexual conduct held both by the harasser and victim meaning both parties have a ‘cognitive disablement’ (p.151) of their understanding of this experience. Had the legality of sexual harassment conduct been official at this time, this woman could have been seen as a victim of this crime as opposed to just a woman who was being dramatic and overly emotional.

Having elaborated Fricker’s definition of epistemic injustice, I shall now apply this to the women of Hollywood during the Golden Era.

The Plot Thickens…

Gaddis (2018) discusses how women were viewed in Hollywood’s Golden Age, as commodities rather than human beings. She explains that during this time actresses who experienced sexual abuse and misconduct remained silent out of fear their careers would be over before they started and/or being ‘blacklisted’ within the industry. This issue is still standing today as Sherman (2018) discusses an interview with Harvey Weinstein’s former assistant who shared that the use non-disclosure agreements literally bought a woman’s silence as a protection for the corporation and their ‘assets’, namely those high-profile figures like the head studio executives, who abused their position of power.

Getlen (2018) discusses the abuse Marilyn Monroe endured when she was trying to ‘make it’. Monroe often told stories of men who held her down to attack her during parties in Hollywood. Getlen quotes Orson Welles who remembers one particular celebration where “she was surrounded by men and one reached out and tore off her top, revealing her breasts.” Getlen (2018) also shares that high-up studio executives sexually exploited Marilyn; one of Monroe’s friends confessed she had an ‘agreement’ with the 69-year-old chairperson of 20th Century Fox, Joe Schneck, engaging in sexual favours upon his command. In exchange, he made THE call which culminated in her first Hollywood contract with Colombia Pictures; the president being the aforementioned Harry Cohn. With Marilyn at Columbia, Cohn continued with his predatory ways and when it came to renewing her contract, he gave her an ultimatum – either she has sex with him in his office right there and then or, her contract would not be renewed; Monroe refused Cohn’s advances, and her contract was not renewed.

Cases like this solidify Hollywood’s practice of the ‘casting couch,’ where the exchange of sexual favours for acting roles was deemed acceptable and typical (Welsh, 2022). This is a clear case of Fricker’s theory of ‘identity power’ through the exertion of hierarchised male dominance, using their gender, status, and position to take advantage of actresses’ aspiration to ‘make it,’ to satisfy their own sexual gratification. Mejia (2014) summarises Monroe’s career and upon analysing the roles she played, a common thread appears defined by these keywords – ‘excessively sexual’, ‘dumb blonde’ and ‘bombshell’. Applying Fricker’s work, we can see that Marilyn Monroe’s resumé is a clear example of prejudicial profiling. Despite being the first high-profile woman to speak publicly about sexual abuse, Monroe remained to be viewed as these characters off screen, meaning anything she claimed, was never taken seriously. The exercise of power made by male studio heads in Hollywood shows that from Fricker’s point of view, her credibility as a professional was severely diminished. Monroe eventually started her own production company to escape the typecasting enforced by the male-managed power studios (Wilcox-Lee, 2014). Applying Fricker’s work to Marilyn Monroe’s case, one can determine that the exercise of power, actively and passively and, being unable to escape her onscreen counterpart of the ‘dumb blonde,’ her credibility as a speaker was deflated making her a victim of testimonial injustice.

Lopez (2018) writes how many women like Bette Davis and Joan Crawford were frequently given periods of suspension after attempting to speak out against the treatment they were receiving from studios and the men running them. Lopez details how enforcing these suspensions only supported the false claims that these actresses were petty, serving as evidence of their “unprofessionalism.” Leathers (2022) tells how Bette Davis was the first woman to speak out against the maltreatment and strictness of films she was being forced to do. She purposefully broke the terms of her contract with her studio in an attempt to develop her career and broaden her skills as an actor. Inevitably, she was served with legal papers from her studio and when the case was taken to trail, the defence’s opening statement called the starlet ‘a rather naughty young lady.’ This condescending language made by a white man in an official court of law, is a clear example of how Bette Davis was a victim of credibility deficit, and with the opposition using language that is typically directed toward a child, as evidence in this case. The choice of words ‘naughty young lady’  being used by the defence shows a clear exercise of power to make this female starlet be viewed in the same way as a child who had done or said something she shouldn’t have to her parents and needs to be punished; the defence’s language weakens the importance of her testimony and her credibility, simply because she is a woman and he is male. Injustices like this branded women, like Bette Davis as difficult to work with in the business and similarly to that of a ‘naughty child’ her punishment resulted in periods of suspension from her work.

Lawrence (1991) conducts an analysis of eight films during the classic Hollywood era highlighting how a woman’s voice is used to authenticate a woman’s submission to men, continuing the invocation of extreme repression of their capacity as a speaker. Lawerence also highlights that advancing technology only aided this through the use of dubbing and voice-over capabilities, allowing the narrative to be shaped to be of patriarchal benefit. There have been several reports of women’s work being taken credit for by men, behind the camera during this time. The statistics of Amaral’s study (Morris, 2020) show the imbalance between women and men securing a professional role behind the camera on set and, Alberge (2024) reviews a book about Mary C. McCall Jr., a talented screenwriter and major power player in the industry except to the male studio heads, who named her ‘the meanest bitch in town’. Alberge details how any material written by women was not seen as worthwhile and historians writing in the 1960s were the ones who erased women like McCall from history, solely focusing on the male directors and studio presidents, immortalising them as the pioneers of Hollywood’s most glamourous age.

Using Fricker’s work, it can be interpreted that the superiority given to men is a clear example of systematic hermeneutical injustice because of the structural inequality of power. Fricker (2007) discusses how structural operations within society control the validity of contributions made within a testimony. Morris and Alberge writings are clear cases of how the societal prejudices women faced of being the ‘inferior sex’ significantly impacted upon the value in which their work was viewed, and whether it was worthy of being brought to life on the silver screen. Additionally, the ethical and moral standpoint of stealing the work of another professional and taking the credit for it can be defined as a hermeneutical lacuna as the gap held by society of not knowing that stealing another’s work, is a wrongdoing. Tietjen and Bridges (2021) write how during the Silent Film Era, women were the dominant figures within the industry; the highest paid director at this time was a woman and, female screenwriters outnumbered their male counterparts ten to one.

But the revenue the film industry claimed, attracted more men. Tietjen and Bridges also explain that when the studio system came into play, they were organised into departments including story, camera and wardrobe which had an ‘assembly-line mentality’ with each employee having a set role as opposed to ‘wearing multiple hats’ like their predecessors; roles characteristically became gendered with men predictably taking over the ‘head’ roles like director and producer. They also report that at this time, studios unionised who classically would not accept female members meaning women producers, editors and camerawomen vanished within a short period of time. The History Collection (2021) write when looking back at history, there are too many instances when a man was given the starring credit when it rightfully belonged to a woman. This report cites that women were traditionally viewed as the ‘homemaker’, the ‘mother,’ and to look beautiful and such a position would not warrant a place in history. They demonstrate this with various examples but within Hollywood circles, they tell the tale of Hedy Lamarr, one of the Golden Age’s biggest stars. In partnership with composer George Antheil, she created a radio guidance system for torpedoes, which paved the way for modern technology such as global positioning systems, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. The writers report that despite a disinterest in the technology, the American Navy (the commanders of which were male) actually stole the idea, gave it a classified patent, and implemented it into its weapon systems in the 1960s. Lemarr and her partner never received any official credit for what was rightfully, their enterprise with her name only being associated as one of the exotic beauties on the big screen at this time.

Hermeneutics also come into play when considering race. Goldberg (2024) elaborates on The Hays Code explaining how it only made Hollywood much harder for African Americans to access the industry. The guidelines banned miscegenation (interracial relationships) and enabled Hollywood to reinforce the prejudiced image of the black community resulting in extremely limited role availability. Those actors who were given a place on screen were usually directed to perform in a prejudicial manner of unnecessary exaggeration. Here we can apply Fricker’s idea of hermeneutical marginalisation where the social status of African Americans being inferior, the norm, and so on-screen it is no different, further cementing this hermeneutical injustice and inequality. Eschner (2017) recalls the experience of Hattie McDaniel who made history as the first Black actor to ever receive an Academy Award, a monumental achievement for any actress but truly significant for one of colour. This woman was awarded the accolade of Best Supporting Actress for her role as ‘Mammy’ in Gone with the Wind, in 1939 and because of the lack of societal understanding and beliefs at this time, McDaniel was unable to sit at the table with her fellow actors and instead, was assigned a small table far against the wall with her escort and agent. Hunkele (2014) discusses some of the typical practices that society enforced at this time including being denied equal access to medical facilities and treatments, barred from living in certain areas across states and, even segregation laws enabled train cars being ‘assigned’ a race, namely ‘whites only’. McDaniel was close to not attending the event, as the hosting hotel had a strict ‘no-blacks’ policy. Only for a phone call made by David Selznick, producer of the movie, applying his excess in credibility, the hotel made an exception. Cultural beliefs toward race, using Fricker’s terminology, is a ‘structural prejudice in the collective resource,’ tainting this immense achievement.

Closing Credits

The epistemic injustice that women faced during Hollywood’s Golden Age, certainly earned a leading role when we analyse the extent of it at this time. Unfortunately, it is not just direct recipients of this abuse who were affected, but the practice has had implications on the industry today and education provision informing it. One is the lack of female figures within the industry and the imbalance of male dominance. This itself can be defined as a hermeneutical lacuna as the work of many female talents, like Mary McCall, were not given the prominence and credit earned, in the immediate time after the Golden Age. This has had negative impact on the aspiration of women wanting to pursue a career behind the camera, as they have little to no female mentors to learn from, from this time. Palmer (2017) gives startling statistics that although there have been developments, massive underrepresentation of females in key roles behind the camera remain, citing a study from the University of Southampton explaining overall women only make up 20% of the total workforce off screen, 13% sit in the director’s chair and most shockingly, only 7% in the cinematographer role. The clear hermeneutical marginalisation that still stands, creates the question that if more women during the Golden Age of cinema were justly credited and celebrated for their work, would more young women be inspired to pursue these roles today?

The well-publicised scandal of Jeffrey Epstein is clear example as to how hermeneutic injustice is still an issue in Hollywood today. Geoghegan and FitzGerald (2025) summarise Epstein’s misgivings which included a sexual assault of a 14-year-old girls at his Palm Beach home, running a network of underage girls for sex and soliciting prostitution which resulted in him being registered as a sex offender and, over 300 gigabytes of physical evidence and data supporting his dealings including images and videos exposing multiple incidents of child abuse. Within these files, there are numerous links to Hollywood; for example, Vargas (2026) reports that after Epstein’s conviction for prostitution of a minor in 2008, Woody Allen continued to have social interactions with him at film screenings and high-profile dinner parties which included various media figures and royal family member, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. This report also tells us that Allen’s wife, Soon-Yi Previn, emailed the financier saying that the #MeToo movement has ‘gone too far’ and slamming an underage girl involved in a sexting scandal with Epstein calling her ‘despicable and disgusting’. Other Hollywood names associated with Epstein include Kevin Spacey; Naomi Campbell and Chris Tucker being listed on flight logs of his private jet nicknamed the ‘Lolita Express’. Widdicombe (2020) explains lawsuits have specifically named this aircraft as facilitating instances of sex trafficking. When referring to its interior, he describes it as “a flying 70s sex palace with red velour seats and a generously sized mattress…it is not set up for a business meeting, the only chairs being the lie-flat chairs”. Einbinder (2019) distinguishes that although these high-profile names are listed on the manifests in relation to a 2002 tour of Africa in relation HIV/AIDS projects, does not mean they had any participation in Epstein’s criminal activities, but it does prove of his close connections to Hollywood’s celebrity population.

In addition to this, the #MeToo movement has been a platform for women to ‘speak their truth’ about sexual misconduct they have faced without testimonies being dismissed and affirming that ‘the casting couch’ continues to be part of the Hollywood process. Layne (2021) explains in 2020, actress Alyssa Milano used Twitter, imploring any person who had been a victim of sexual harassment or assault to publicly declare the phrase ‘Me Too’; this prompted 1.7 million tweets within one week using the #MeToo tag.

Reports such as that from Bekiempis (2026) show that there are connections between Epstein and Weinstein despite the movie mogul never receiving a conviction of any incident directly named in the Epstein files. Bekiempis (2026) writes that an accuser told of being informed that one of Epstein’s associates was staying at his house and she would be ‘able to massage’ them. This associate then offered and paid her money to engage in sex and when shown a photograph by her lawyer, the woman later identified this friend as Weinstein as this associate.

The first publicised reports against Epstein came in July 2006 (Associated Press, 2026) for multiple counts of unlawful sex with a minor and against Weinstein in October 2017 in The New York Times (Kantor and Twohey, 2017) but there were reports years previous to this, begging the question is why? This is where is Fricker’s definition of hermeneutics apply and how the system which is designed to protect people in power, like Epstein and Weinstein. Kelly (2019) interviewed Megan Twohey who shared that secret financial settlements were made so silence victims of sexual harassment and assault; the concept of this ‘loophole’ in the legal system where offering money to buy is usually given upon the advice of attorneys and allows for the predators to be protected and continue to exercise their, in Fricker’s terms, identity power and credibility excess; Weinstein’s high status, position and financial worth within the Hollywood industry are what enabled him to do this.

Thinking of its impact on education today and using Fricker’s idea of testimonial injustice, the narrative of women’s allegations of misconduct or unwanted sexual advances being discredited, leaving them being labelled as overly emotional or difficult, is not fairly represented in the history books. For example, the book The Classical Hollywood Cinema: Film Style & Mode of Production to 1960 (Bordwell, Staiger and Thompson, 1985) reads as an in-depth analysis of filmmaking through history and how the Hollywood style of motion pictures became the standard on norm on how films are to be created. But they fail to mention and recognise the injustices that women endured at this time while these standards were being defined. They write “in many ways each new [management] system retained much of its predecessor’s organisation” (1985, p.577). From this, one can interpret that the practices and how things were run has filtered down through the ages; the beginning of these injustices like the disregarded testimonies, prejudicial views of character portrayal have continued to be the norm. A review of this book by Polan (1986) describes it as a must-read for scholars within the industry, cementing its content as key when studying the industry despite the exclusion of the severity and common practice of maltreatment against women. Sources like this book, being regarded as key to being educated about the film industry is dangerous, as it will continue to misinform and neglect to educate the full history of film the next generation of film industry professionals.

We can also consider how the hermeneutics have been impacted upon today. Harrington (2025) analyses the impact of certain practices particularly the Hays Code. He describes it as being key in defining the landscape of Hollywood’s cinema from a moral point of view; it allowed the head studio executives to control how a film looked including how females were to be perceived – if they didn’t like it, it was changed to what they thought was ‘correct’. The influence of this code upon the evolution of the film industry has been profound. Being in place for over 30 years meant that storytelling was done so through one approach, from the head male (usually white) studio executive and what HIS idea of a woman’s role should be. This is a significant length of time for films to be measured against and based upon these bosses’ societal views, which at the time of the Golden Age strengthened the notions of inferiority and injustice towards women. Layne uses the work of Luo and Zhang who created a database monitoring script deal; since the #MeToo movement, their database shows significant changes on how women are regarded in the industry including a 35% increase in female collaboration. The #MeToo campaign is an educative tool on how we can make changes recognising and validating the injustices endured in the past. Continued use and pursuit of such movements will only ensure that sexual misconduct, racist views and silencing of women’s voices, will remain on the cutting room floor.

This writing has shown that there is a clear deficit of knowledge when educating about the history of cinema. Continued negation of the mistreatment and systemic barriers preventing women from being treated fairly within educational pathways, will only further fuel the lack of knowledge and understanding of the true history of cinema. Instead of showcasing the glitz and glamour aspects of the industry, status, and appreciation of what was accepted as the norm towards female professionals needs to be acknowledged rather than being continually edited out of the director’s final cut.

References

Alberge, D. (2024) ‘Credit at Last for Female Screenwriter Airbrushed from Hollywood History’ The Guardian, 14th July 2024. Available at https://www.theguardian.com/film/article/2024/jul/14/mary-c-mccall-jr-credit-at-last-for-female-screenwriter-airbrushed-from-hollywood-history.

Associated Press (2026) ‘A timeline of the Jeffrey Epstein investigation and the fight to make the government’s files public’ PBS News, 6th February 2026. Available at https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/a-timeline-of-the-jeffrey-epstein-investigation-and-the-fight-to-make-the-governments-files-public#:~:text=READ%20MORE%3A%20Government%20says%20it’s,a%20count%20of%20soliciting%20prostitution.

Bekiempis, V. (2024) ‘Jeffrey Epstein boasted of spurious celebrity connections, documents show’ The Guardian, 4th January 2024. Available at https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/jan/04/jeffrey-epstein-list-celebrity-name-documents.

Bekiempis, V. (2026) ‘New Epstein files reveal he may have trafficked girls to other despite official denials’ The Guardian UK, 2nd February 2026. Available at https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/02/epstein-files-new-batch#:~:text=%E2%80%9CMr%20Weinstein%20was%20never%20charged,made%20findings%20supporting%20those%20claims.%E2%80%9D.

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