Clint Eastwood’s latest film, Richard Jewell, focuses on the media circus that developed following the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games bombing. According to reports, the movie focuses on two characters: Richard Jewell, who worked as a security guard at Centennial Park in Atlanta, and Kathy Scruggs, the journalist who broke the story that initiated the media circus Jewell faced.
Vox reports on the events of that summer: Jewell was working when he found a backpack he suspected contained explosives during the Atlanta games. After alerting the police, Jewell helped clear the area before three pipe bombs exploded. He was then hailed as a national hero until The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that the FBI was investigating him in connection with the bombing, news that was first reported by Scruggs.
He was never charged with a crime, but for months afterward, the news media circled Jewell’s home and interrupted his life. Over time, it became the general consensus that Jewell had been mistreated by the media and three months after the bombing, the U.S. attorney issued a letter clearing Jewell’s name, Vox reports.
While Jewell’s experience with the media was not Scruggs’ fault, Eastwood’s film suggests that it was. Eastwood’s portrayal of Scruggs is of a twisted, heartless journalist who is willing to sleep with sources to get the scoop. And Scruggs passed away in 2001, leaving her unable to defend herself against this misogynistic and inaccurate portrayal.
“I worry about Eastwood’s version of Kathy. It would be so easy to play Kathy as a love interest, as something less than the competent reporter she was. Movies often reduce complex people to types. This leaves little space for nuance,” Scruggs’ editor at the time the story broke, Bert Roughton, said in a September Atlanta Journal-Constitution opinion piece.
In a letter to Warner Bros., Clint Eastwood, and others associated with the film, Cox Enterprises (the parent company of the
Atlanta Journal-Constitution) demanded the studio add a disclaimer and issue a public statement saying "some events were imagined for dramatic purposes." Cox claims both the newspaper's actions and Scruggs’ work were wrongfully depicted. The film currently ends with a disclaimer stating “the film is based on actual historical events. Dialogue and certain events and characters contained in the film were created for the purposes of dramatization.” A lawyer for Cox noted the irony of the situation, saying: “It is highly ironic that a film purporting to tell a tragic story of how the reputation of an F.B.I. suspect was grievously tarnished appears bent on a path to severely tarnish the reputation of The
A.J.C., a newspaper with a respected 150-year-old publishing legacy,” attorney
Martin Singer said in the letter. Warner Bros. was quick to respond, claiming that the film is based on credible material.
“There is no disputing that Richard Jewell was an innocent man whose reputation and life were shredded by a miscarriage of justice,” Warner Bros. said. “It is unfortunate and the ultimate irony that The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, having been a part of the rush to judgment of Richard Jewell, is now trying to malign our filmmakers and cast. ‘Richard Jewell’ focuses on the real victim, seeks to tell his story, confirm his innocence and restore his name.”
Singer wrote the letter on behalf of Cox Enterprises not only to address the portrayal of Scruggs but to also point out the misrepresentation of the role the paper played in exonerating Jewell.
“Not only does the film omit the highly significant fact that the AJC’s reporting discovered the logistical impossibility of Mr. Jewell calling from the payphone, the film actually substitutes that true fact with a false and fictional narrative in which Mr. Jewell’s lawyer (not the AJC’s reporters) is depicted unearthing the logistical problems,” Singer said in the letter.
AJC editor Kevin G. Riley told Variety that those who knew Scruggs were disturbed by the film’s portrayal. Riley felt that the movie perpetuates harmful stereotypes about female journalists, including that female reporters are open to sleeping with sources.
“I think this letter makes it clear how seriously we take the misrepresentation of our reporters’ actions and of the actions of the newspaper during that time,” he said. “We have been clear about how disturbed we are in the film’s use of a Hollywood trope about reporters…and how it misrepresents how seriously journalists concern themselves with reporting accurately and ethically.”
Wilde responded to the controversy surrounding her character in conversation with Variety earlier this week at the Gotham Awards. She emphasized how she heavily researched her role and thought it is a “shame” that her character has been “reduced to one inferred moment in the film.”
“It’s a basic misunderstanding of feminism as pious, sexlessness. It happens a lot to women; we’re expected to be one-dimensional if we are to be considered feminists. There’s a complexity to Kathy, as there is to all of us, and I really admired her,” she told Variety‘s Marc Malkin.
While Jewell’s story clearly deserves to be told, it was wrong and unnecessary for Eastwood and others to defame Scruggs, who did not even live to see her name maligned or cleared.
Richard Jewell opens in theaters on Dec. 13.