It’s been four years since Harvey Weinstein’s crimes came to light, kick-starting the #MeToo movement, which rippled through industries and institutions from Hollywood to the U.S. women’s gymnastics team to the Supreme Court—in some cases leading to convictions and appreciable change, in others to a dispiriting reification of the status quo.
In this issue, Nancy Jo Sales reports a story of alleged sexual misconduct at her alma mater, Phillips Exeter Academy. Nancy Jo has written for Vanity Fair for 21 years—such blockbuster pieces as “The Suspects Wore Louboutins,” which became the basis for her acclaimed book The Bling Ring and Sofia Coppola’s 2013 film of the same name. Her writing and documentary film work revolve around community, whether she’s exploring celebrity subcultures or the self-selecting world of dating apps. She spent years reporting among teenagers and young adults for her book American Girls, experience that gives her the exact right tools to excavate a decades-old story of misplaced trust and murky accusations at a school that, like so many contemporary institutions, is wrestling with a history of crossed lines when it came to dynamics of power.
Only Nancy Jo could do justice to this story, for reasons that become clear in the telling. And when she says, while recounting a surreally convoluted series of conversations, that she feels as if she’s in a Beckett play, she is not exaggerating. Throughout this theater of the absurd, her voice remains a calm and authoritative presence—asking pointed and poignant questions about whether, ultimately, her voice matters.
In fashion, autumn signals new beginnings, even or perhaps especially in our world of delayed reopenings. We could imagine no better cover subject for this month than Regina King, whose performances in front of and behind the camera this past year have marked a new chapter of artistry in a storied career, and who also managed to light up the red carpet time and again when there wasn’t even a red carpet to speak of. I was probably not the only person hoping that her triumphant opening of the Oscars broadcast in April was going to segue into a one-woman heist movie. She could’ve pulled it off. Here, on the occasion of her new movie, The Harder They Fall, she talks with Jesmyn Ward about the decades of work through which she has built not only an iconic career but a treasured community. And a resplendent portfolio of luminous actors from around the globe reminds us further of the power and range of women onscreen at this moment, from Camille Cottin to Rebecca Ferguson to Sandra Oh.
— Natalie Portman on Britney Spears and the Scent of Love
— Behind Queen Elizabeth’s Surprising Wit
— Are the Literary Jonathans Still Relevant?
— The True Story of a Hollywood Partnership Built and Destroyed by Money, Sex, and Celebrity
— The Best Shampoo Bars to Lighten 2021’s Environmental Load
— Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez Make the Most of Summer’s End
— The Most Influential Pop-Rock Band Ever? The Monkees!
— Prince William and Kate Middleton’s “Normal” Parenting Tips
— From the Archive: Meet the Women Who Domesticated the Rolling Stones
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