{"id":353318,"date":"2026-05-24T10:21:48","date_gmt":"2026-05-24T10:21:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/som2nynetwork.com\/uncategorized\/documentary-ask-e-jean-is-a-funny-moving-portrait-of-a-fearless-woman\/"},"modified":"2026-05-24T10:21:48","modified_gmt":"2026-05-24T10:21:48","slug":"documentary-ask-e-jean-is-a-funny-moving-portrait-of-a-fearless-woman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/som2nynetwork.com\/?p=353318","title":{"rendered":"Documentary ‘Ask E. Jean’ Is a Funny, Moving Portrait of a Fearless Woman"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Director Ivy Meeropol on the challenges of making a film about E. Jean Carroll, Trump\u2019s most formidable legal adversary.<\/h2>\n
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E. Jean Caroll in\u00a0Ask E. Jean.\u00a0<\/em>(Courtesy of Abramorama)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This film review and interview was originally published by <\/em>The Contrarian<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Ask E. Jean,<\/a><\/em>\u00a0the poignant yet entertaining documentary about E. Jean Carroll\u2014the colorful author and advice columnist who beat Donald Trump<\/a> in court, twice\u2014is\u00a0finally in theaters<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But getting it there wasn\u2019t easy.<\/p>\n

The documentary\u2019s journey began in 2019, when director Ivy Meeropol read\u00a0the\u00a0<\/a>New York Magazine\u00a0<\/a><\/em>article<\/a>\u00a0in which Carroll accused Trump of raping her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room 23 years earlier. The filmmaker was struck by the tone of the piece\u2014devastating, raw, yet full of verve\u2014and reached out to see if Carroll would be willing to participate in a documentary. She received a blunt answer:<\/p>\n

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\u201cI\u2019d rather eat my shoe.\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u201cIt\u2019a classic E. Jean line,\u201d Meeropol recalled over Zoom. \u201cBut that just made me want to meet her and get to know her more.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carroll had been approached by numerous filmmakers, but was eventually won over by Meeropol\u2019s take: She was interested in creating a complete portrait of Carroll, one that also chronicled her remarkable career as a writer during the heyday of the glossy magazine. They spent a lot of time talking before the cameras started rolling.<\/p>\n

\u201cBuilding trust is no small thing, and I take it very seriously,\u201d Meeropol said. \u201cI am pretty protective of the people I\u2019m making films about. \u2026 I\u2019m very collaborative. They don\u2019t get to give notes on cuts, but in terms of \u2018what should we do together?\u2019 It\u2019s a conversation, not me firing questions at them.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u2026 From the minute we\u2019re born, we are confronted with having to look at ourselves through how men are perceiving us.<\/p>\n

Ivy Meeropol<\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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E. Jean Carroll wrote a book in 2025 called Not My Type<\/em> about her legal battle with Donald Trump, framed as a memoir\/reportage of the trials and the public fight that followed. The title is a reference to Trump\u2019s remark that Carroll was \u201cnot my type,\u201d which Carroll turns into a central part of the book\u2019s argument and tone. (Jenny Warburg)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There were obstacles other than Carroll\u2019s reluctance, starting with two high-profile civil trials in which Trump was found liable for sexual abuse and defamation, and ordered to pay Carroll a combined $88 million in damages (of which he has paid $0, while continuing to appeal the judgments, which\u00a0may go to the Supreme Court<\/a>). While those cases were underway, Meeropol had little access to her subject.<\/p>\n

Then came what Meeropol calls \u201cThe Trump Effect<\/a>\u201d\u2014the fear that has taken over much of the entertainment business and made streaming services and film distribution companies reluctant to put their weight behind a project that could provoke the outrage of an increasingly vengeful and instinctively litigious president. Some producers and crew members asked to have their names left out of the credits.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s the documentary character that you dream of\u2014to tell a story like this with someone like her? To me, it was a no-brainer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ask E. Jean<\/em>\u00a0premiered at the prestigious Telluride Film Festival last fall, and initial reviews were positive, but they got no offers. <\/p>\n

Months later, a deal finally seemed to be in the works until the distributor \u201cghosted\u201d the film. \u201cI absolutely felt the Trump effect making this film, on so many levels, in so many instances,\u201d Meeropol said. (Carroll was not available to promote the film because of her\u00a0ongoing legal proceedings.<\/a>)<\/p>\n

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\u2026 Fear \u2026 has made streaming services and film distribution companies reluctant to put their weight behind a project that could provoke the outrage of an increasingly vengeful and instinctively litigious president.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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E. Jean Carroll in the \u201890s, around the time she was assaulted by Trump. (Photo courtesy of Abramorama)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The film, which opened in New York City on Thursday and will\u00a0expand across the country over the next few weeks<\/a>, is drawn from archival footage, videotaped legal depositions, and original interviews with Carroll and her closest confidantes.\u00a0Ask E. Jean\u00a0<\/em>traces its subject\u2019s fascinating evolution from Indiana cheerleader to Montana housewife to professionally fabulous New York City raconteur who hobnobbed at Elaine\u2019s and once worked at\u00a0Saturday Night Live<\/em>. Carroll\u2019s eccentric personality shines through as she recalls some of her wild journalistic escapades, like making out with profile subject William Hurt and writing an unauthorized biography of Hunter S. Thompson.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was always interested in how her early life was very traditional. She was doing all the \u2018feminine\u2019 things,\u201d Meeropol said.<\/p>\n

Because of various limitations on the production, Meeropol only spent about five days in total interviewing Carroll on-camera\u2014less time than she ideally gets with her subjects, yet somehow enough. <\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes I will interview people for like six hours to get something really good for maybe 10 minutes. This was the opposite. I\u2019d talk to her for two hours, and everything she said was gold,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Arguably the most revelatory material in the film is the deposition footage in which Carroll describes the 1996 assault\u2014and its long, devastating aftermath. Meeropol obtained the videos, which had not been made public, from Carroll\u2019s attorney, Robbie Kaplan.<\/p>\n

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Robbie Kaplan and Carroll. (Jenny Warburg)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Meeropol calls it \u201cthe greatest gift\u201d for the film because \u201cI wanted people to experience this through E. Jean.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the deposition, Trump\u2019s lawyer Alina Habba bombarded Carroll with a stream of irrelevant, hostile questions:\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Were you wearing underwear? What about your handbags from that day? Did you wear a bra? What is your highest level of education? Where\u2019d you go to college? What was your first job? What year did they stop taking your article ideas? Have you ever had acting classes?<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s this incredible chance for us to see what really happens when someone who\u2019s brought a charge of rape or sexual assault is deposed,\u201d Meeropol said.<\/p>\n

Even as she recalls the horrific details of the assault and fields deeply personal, accusatory questions, Carroll is irrepressibly funny. At one point, she is asked how many many men she dated after her second divorce. \u201cIt was such a gorgeous array of chaps,\u201d she says, sweeping her hands in dramatic arcs. \u201cLet me think.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meeropol also uses footage from Carroll\u2019s cable talk show, also called\u00a0Ask E. Jean,<\/em>\u00a0which aired from 1994 to 1996\u2014around the time she was assaulted by Trump. On the program, she doled out sage advice that, we now know, she was not always able to follow herself. In one clip, she tells a rape survivor that \u201cthe woman who best survives a rape is the woman who doesn\u2019t perpetuate and worsen her misery by adding guilt to it.\u201d (Carroll told friends about the attack, but did not report it to police.)<\/p>\n

Meeropol also unearthed a remarkable clip of Carroll appearing on the 1960s game show,\u00a0To Tell the Truth<\/em>, to talk about earning the title of Miss Cheerleader USA. With her trademark wit, she responds to loaded questions from the panelists. (\u201cHow did you get the crowd worked up?\u201d)<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we were doing with a lot of that older archival [material] is showing how insidious the misogyny is,\u201d Meeropol said. \u201cIt really delivered in telling the bigger story that we were trying to get at, which is that from the minute we\u2019re born, we are confronted with having to look at ourselves through how men are perceiving us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s so deep,\u201d she continued. \u201cAnd you get to really see all of it play out through this one remarkable person.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ask E. Jean<\/em>\u00a0also shows how Carroll internalized some of this thinking. As seen in the film, she once called Anita Hill and Paula Jones \u201cwimps\u201d and criticized them for not immediately standing up to their alleged harassers. This attitude even seeped into the pages of her\u00a0Elle<\/em>\u00a0advice column.<\/p>\n

\u201cI told women to suck it up and just get on with it. That\u2019s the silent generation,\u201d Carroll says.<\/p>\n

But a turning point came in 2017, when she read the harrowing accounts from women accusing Harvey Weinstein of rape and harassment.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe surge of #MeToo rose up and just swallowed America, and what happened is women started to write to me to ask E. Jean, should they come forward. How can I sit there silent?\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

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(Abramorama)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The movement inspired Carroll to go public and confront the trauma of what happened at Bergdorf\u2014a difficult task for someone with such a feisty persona.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeing vulnerable isn\u2019t easy for her,\u201d Meeropol said. \u201cBut that is why the depositions are so powerful\u2014because she couldn\u2019t run away from those feelings. To me, one of the most powerful, poignant moments is when after all of it, she has to admit that she still blames herself.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Meeropol, making films that examine political subjects through a personal lens is nothing new. Her first documentary,\u00a0Heir to an Execution<\/a><\/em>,<\/a>\u00a0focused on her grandparents, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were convicted of spying for the Soviet Union and executed in 1953, at the height of McCarthyism. <\/p>\n

\u201cI respond to stories of individuals battling these big power structures,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

More than 70 years later, we are living through another moment of fear and paranoia, when it\u2019s hard to get a political documentary financed and made, much less seen by a wide audience. But that\u2019s the goal for\u00a0Ask E. Jean.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cWe are getting it out everywhere\u2014as many theaters will have us,\u201d Meeropol said. \u201cWe\u2019re taking the film all over the country.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n