The Post’ta Kadın Gazeteci İmajı ve “Özgür Basın” Miti
The Image of The Woman Journalist and “Free Press” Myth in The Post

Summary/Abstract: Cinema has depicted journalists since the 1930s, specifically woman journalist since the 1940s. Movies help to shape the image of the journalist with recurring archetypes, stereotypes and stock characters, and also build the myths on “the free press." However, there are limited academic researches on this subject. So we aimed to look at both the image of the woman journalist in the movies and how films depict the press as a whole in this article. We have chosen The Post due to the fact that it is the latest movie screened on the woman journalist and it is the first film depicts a woman media owner. Also, the film is based on the real historical success of the free press in the U.S. history. With this regard, since the movie has classic Hollywood narratives and the protagonist suits “hero” archetype, we used stages of “hero’s journey” based on Campbell and Vogler’s studies to designate how the protagonist transforms, and how these transformations define the images of the woman journalist. In addition to that, as Ryan and Douglas Kellner point out, cinema is not independent of the society’s developments, and it reflects the conflicts and desires within the society, and also predicts the future. With this respect, we searched which myths/discourses were established and implied in the movie on the free press according to the diagnostic critique of Michael Ryan and Douglas Kellner. In conclusion, we find that the woman protagonist has transformed in her journey from a “passive” “domesticated” woman who accepts the male dominance and is afraid of standing up against the power and male hegemony to an active, decisive, independent woman, and the ideal journalist. Even the protagonist has some characteristics of the “sobsister”, we see that she makes invalid some stereotypes about it in the end. Besides, Hollywood supports powerful woman images by subverting home-work, love-work conflicts in the movie. Thus, with embodying the free press myth in Kay and Ben Bradlee characters, the film emphasizes the vital role of the press for public’s interests and warns the press about putting distance on the relation with governments without labeling them as “friend” or “despot”. Moreover, with choosing the story of The Post rather than The New York Times, even if Times had published the Pentagon Papers first, the film gives a message on today’s media that it is no longer enough to be the one who publishes the news first; to be able to hold the governments accountable the press should continue pursuing the facts, truths decisively by holding up the principles, and more importantly with cooperating as a whole institution, not by “self-consuming” based on the concern of risking the companies’ interests, good relations with government, risk of oppression or ratings.

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