Photo Illustration by Erin O’Flynn/The Daily Beast/Getty Images, Universal Pictures, Twentieth Century Pictures, and United Artists Releasing
When author, filmmaker, and professor Michele Meek first got the idea for her latest book, Consent Culture and Teen Films: Adolescent Sexuality in US Movies, back in 2014, she quickly realized that she might have to wait for culture and society to catch up before it could be published.
“This was before MeToo,” Meek tells the Daily Beast over Zoom. At the time, she was getting her Ph.D. in Gender & Women’s Studies at the University Of Rhode Island and wanted to build off the work she’d done for her thesis, which was all about consent. So when the MeToo movement ignited in late 2017, prompting millions of women to open up about their experiences with sexual abuse and harassment, Meek was moved to see the progress that could be made with widespread awareness.
“I thought it was so great that this topic was in the public conversation,” she says. “I did wonder if the problem might be solved.”