SKEMA Business School, U. Côte d’Azur (GREDEG), France
The #MeToo social movement, generated in 2017 by the disclosure of sexual abuse allegations against Harvey Weinstein in the Hollywood film industry, brought the entire sector under global scrutiny for gender-discriminatory practices. This study investigates the impact of #MeToo on both producers’ and audience’s responses. Using data sourced from the IMDb and the Numbers database, we argue and show an increase in the number of female actors in leading roles within traditionally male-dominated movie genres as a visible mitigating strategy to offset potential economic and reputational repercussions arising from the #MeToo social movement. Furthermore, while the initial reaction from audiences was favorable towards such increased numerical representation of female leading actors within male-dominated genres, thanks to their heightened awareness of misconduct, this sentiment gradually shifted towards negative over time as the momentum of the #MeToo movement waned. This negative reaction can be attributed to role incongruity within those movie genres.