The Flawed Feminist icon is Looming Over Trump’s Trial
Introducing Stormy Daniels in the Light of the Hollywood Filmmaker Erin Lee Carr and Sarah Gibson with “Britney vs Spears”
Stormy Daniels was given the same permission as Mr. Trump by the court, who allowed her to keep their sexual encounter out of the public eye.
“Stormy,” which is streaming on Peacock, comes to us from the filmmakers Erin Lee Carr and Sarah Gibson, who have focused their work on women bruised by the legal system, and they see Ms. Daniels’s story unfolding in that same tradition. Whether viewers will too turns out to depend on more than the revulsion so many Americans feel for the former president — a testament to filmmakers who see beyond their own obvious sympathies and beyond the narrative of ad hoc feminist heroism that has built up around Ms. Daniels to explore some of the mess and contradiction animating her.
Three years ago the two women made a documentary, “Britney vs Spears.”, about the financial and psychological manipulation of the pop singer by men in and out of her family. Ms. Gibson got to know her next subject when they worked together on a comedy show for a hedge fund’s Christmas party five years ago and remained in touch through text. One day, Ms. Gibson was driving in Los Angeles and heard an NPR segment on the trial of Michael Avenatti, the lawyer Ms. Daniels hired with a $100 retainer who stole two installments of her book advance, totaling close to $300,000.
