'The Loudest Voice' is a huge thumbs-down to Roger Ailes, going into details of his predatory, gaslighting past
Showtime has one of the most anticipated miniseries of the year in the pipeline - 'The Loudest Voice,' which details Roger Ailes's (Russell Crowe) time at Fox News, where he revolutionized news media. Fresh after getting fired from his astral role at CNBC, Ailes joined hands with media mogul Rupert Murdoch to form Fox News and made it the think tank and the voice of conservative America. He delivered the almost impossible goal of putting an entire network on air within a span of six months, became the cornerstone of Fox News, and to the outside world became the patron of "fair and balanced" reporting.
The rise in Fox News' popularity and Ailes's own role in making it the go-to source of news for the Republicans made him a de-facto leader of the new phase of the party. He became untouchable, and every morally questionable action was given a silent pass and his monstrosity continued to grow, along with his sense of entitlement. The Showtime miniseries based on Gabriel Sherman’s book 'The Loudest Voice in the Room: How the Brilliant, Bombastic Roger Ailes Built Fox News — and Divided a Country,' touches on the defining events in the graph that is Ailes’s life, including his interactions and the relationships he built with many world leaders, his political career that was a result of these interactions, and of course, taking the steps to ensure that the news is alarming and addictive, the sexual harassment accusations and settlements that brought an end to his reign at Fox News.
The trailer for the seven-part series 'The Loudest Voice' shows several instances where women working in the Fox News newsroom getting frustrated and helpless because of Ailes's advancements, especially evident in the scenes involving Naomi Watts's Gretchen Carlson. The 1989 Miss America winner, Carlson, was among the first women who filed a lawsuit against the former Fox News Chairman and CEO Ailes. claiming sexual harassment, on July 6, just a couple of weeks after her contract with the network expired on June 23. She settled the lawsuit for $20 million, but he was kicked out of the company thanks to her lawsuit and that of the many other women who came after her.
In one of the trailers, Crowe's Ailes can be heard saying, “I had two Miss Americas, not that one yet," soon after a clip of the two of them hugging and exchanging fake pleasantries. The trailer also features a frustrated, impassioned scream of Watts as Carlson as she finds it increasingly hard to keep going. At one point she says, "He berates me constantly. He is a bully." It is this version of Ailes as the bully in the newsroom that we get to see in 'The Loudest Voice.' We also get a peek into his marriage to Beth Ailes, played by Sienna Miller, we see how he gaslights her, manipulates her and berates her in ways she is unable to comprehend.
Showtime's 'The Loudest Voice' has truly taken a no holds barred approach to narrate Ailes's story, going for the jugular, almost saying giant F you to the deceased newsman.
The show is set to premiere on Sunday, June 30, at 10 p.m. ET.