Russell Crowe carries the load on SHOWTIME’s The Loudest Voice. Crowe channels Roger Ailes, the legendary TV Machievellian genius behind FOX NEWS. Based on Gabriel Sherman’s The Loudest Voice in the Room: How the Brilliant, Bombastic Roger Ailes Built Fox News – and Divided a Country, this 7-episode mini-series chronicles the rise of Ailes as he creates FOX NEWS and builds an audience. The two episodes aired so far shows how Roger Ailes leaves CNBC (and General Electric) and links up with Rupert Murdoch to form a unique new cable channel.
The FOX NEWS coverage of the 9/11 disaster boosted ratings and garnered an intensely loyal TV audience for the new cable channel. Russell Crowe should win an award for his role as the brilliant, but fatally flawed Ailes. Ailes’s treatment of women makes for uncomfortable viewing. His influence with the Bush Administration and the Republican Party grows. In the upcoming episodes, the sexual harassment accusations against Ailes grow despite the settlements Ailes and his lawyers negotiate. These sexual harassment actions bring Ailes’s FOX NEWS reign to an end in spectacular fashion. If you want to see the inside world of FOX NEWS and all the powerful characters, The Loudest Voice captures the creepiness of that world of sex and politics. GRADE: A
CAST AND CHARACTERS
Main
Russell Crowe as Roger Ailes
Seth MacFarlane as Brian Lewis
Sienna Miller as Beth Ailes
Simon McBurney as Rupert Murdoch
Annabelle Wallis as Laurie Luhn
Aleksa Palladino as Judy Laterza
Naomi Watts as Gretchen Carlson
Recurring
Josh Stamberg as Bill Shine
Mackenzie Astin as John Moody
Barry Watson as Lachlan Murdoch
Guy Boyd as Chet Collier
Josh Charles as Casey Close
Emory Cohen as Joe Lindsley
Patch Darragh as Sean Hannity
Lucy Owen as Suzanne Scott
David Whalen as Steve Doocy
John Finn as Jack Welch
We are living with what that colossally reprehensible cretin bequeathed us. I don’t want to watch it—I’ve already seen that movie…very unwillingly!
Deb, I agree with your conclusions. But to see the nuts-and-bolts operation develop at FOX NEWS shows all the mistakes the Democrats made in failing to counter the right-wing propaganda machine.
What Deb said. Haven’t read the book – nor do I intend to – and I am avoiding the series like the plague.
Jeff, I’m curious about how Roger Ailes operated and how he build FOX NEWS into the political machine that can sway millions of voters.
Short answer:
Don’t want any contact with Fox or its creatures!
When I heard that Murdoch started the “Faux News” channel in the USA I had to shiver. I knew some of his newspapers in Britain and to me they were the most horrible things imaginable.
I’m still wondering what kind of base instincts force people to read or listen to this crap.
So when I heard about the allegations re sexual abuse against the founder of Faux News (whose name I hadn’t even known) I saw this as kind of logical …
Rather OT:
I still remember when I had met my wife and she told me she would like to have a subscription to a magazine – I wondered what this might be and she told me:
National Geographic … (of course the Hungarian edition) 🙂
And a few months ago she said: No more subscription to Nat G – they’ve become crappy, just full of idiotic ads!
That was after they were sold to Fox …
Wolf, I’m clearly not a fan of Roger Ailes, FOX NEWS, or Rupert Murdoch but both Ailes and Murdoch knew how to design vehicles for the political messages they wanted to send. Marketing geniuses (although evil!).
I’m finding this pretty well done, and certainly entertaining. Much as I despise these people, it’s always a good idea to keep your eye on the bad guys and know as much about them as possible.
Michael, same here. I’m fascinated by the process Roger Ailes used to build his media empire.
I am sure it is well-done but for the sake of my sanity I will give it a pass.
Patti, there are plenty of creepy moments in THE LOUDEST VOICE. FOX NEWS is a nest of vipers!
La la la, I can’t hear you.
…which is to say I have zero interest in this. At all. None.
Rick, I’m cursed with a curiosity to find out how organizations work. Most people would think that a conservative cable TV news channel aimed at “disaffected” Americans wouldn’t stand much of a chance of success. Yet, FOX NEWS dominated for nearly 20 years. THE LOUDEST VOICE shows how it all happened.
I think it’s always good to keep in mind that Fox News, along with right-wing talk radio, only flourished after the Reagan administration removed the “Fairness Doctrine,” which had always mandated equal time to opposing views on the public airwaves. So in the 1980s and early 1990s, talk radio flourished and primed the pump for Fox News, which could only come into existence after Newt Gingrich pushed through a special citizenship act for Rupert Murdoch. Remember those halcyon days of yore when we expected the American airwaves to be owned by, ya know, Americans? I’ve said it before and I’ll undoubtedly say it again—everything started to go downhill when RR was elected.
Deb, I completely agree. Ronald Reagan changed the political game in America. Gingrich implemented the game plan in the House and now the result is Trump.