The Sexual Harassment of Hollywood Men

In this chapter, Lazard explores how three celebrity men’s experiences of sexual victimisation were constituted in the media. These include the cases of actors Anthony Rapp, Jimmy Bennett and Terry Crews. This chapter examines how male victims of sexual harassment and assault have been marginalised in both psychological and popular discourse. Lazard suggests that celebrity men’s visibility in popular feminism and new inclusive masculinities have created the conditions for their participation in #MeToo. The presence of male victims can be seen to unsettle common understandings of sexual violence as something that men do to women. This chapter, however, presents an argument that discusses how representations of male victims in these three cases still draw on and reinforce ideals of heterosexual masculinity as resistant to sexual victimisation.