Time named The Silence Breakers their Person of the Year for 2017, grouping the women and men in media and across other industries who came forward with stories of sexual assault and harassment and deciding they deserved recognition for their bravery and influence. In that same vein, the Associated Press has named “Hollywood accusers” their Entertainer of the Year.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the Associated Press Entertainer of the Year is an award determined through a poll of “members of the news cooperative and AP entertainment reporters.” Some of the other contenders who received a notable number of votes were Jimmy Kimmel, Gal Gadot, Kendrick Lamar and Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee.
The poll also determined that allegations of sexual assault were also the top news story of 2017. The Associated Press clearly wanted to acknowledge the way accusers have influenced a sea change in the cultural climate happening, but maybe “entertainer of the year” wasn’t the best way to describe it!
“Influencer of the year” also sounds bad, I guess. It’s almost like abuse in media has never been openly dealt with before to such an extent, and we don’t even have the language to appropriately describe this reckoning that is destabilizing the old order!