E. Jean Carroll has had quite a life. For much of her career, she was known as the spirited advice columnist at Elle magazine, where she wrote the “Ask E. Jean” column from 1993 to 2019. In her youth, she was crowned Miss Indiana University and Miss Cheerleader USA. She also wrote for one season of “Saturday Night Live,” served as the host of a cable show, was the first female contributing editor at Playboy and wrote a biography of Hunter S. Thompson.
And in 2019, she published a book in which she accused President Donald J. Trump of sexually assaulting her in the mid-1990s — an accusation that eventually led to two court cases. And she won both.
In Ivy Meeropol’s new documentary, “Ask E. Jean” (in theaters), Carroll is our guide through her life and work, her decision to speak about the assault after decades of silence and the harrowing experience of going up against one of the most powerful men in the world — twice. Combining interviews, archival footage from her many TV appearances and video from two depositions, the film builds a portrait of Carroll as a feisty woman who is unafraid to speak her mind and to re-examine it, too.
So why didn’t she come forward earlier about the assault? Why would she keep quiet about something so traumatizing? That’s the central question of the film, and in trying to answer it, “Ask E. Jean” becomes about much more than Carroll. Throughout, Carroll discusses this question with Lisa Birnbaum and Carol Martin, the two friends to whom she spoke shortly after the encounter with Trump and who testified in her second court case. (In Carroll’s first case against Trump, she accused him of defaming her over the accusation in her book; in the second case, she accused him of defamation following the first case, as well as of sexual assault.) They talk about her fears and theirs of the repercussions that women often experience after publicly accusing a man of sexual assault. It was better to stay quiet, Carroll believed at the time.
Structurally, “Ask E. Jean” is a bit disjointed in places, a product of trying to marry, sometimes clumsily, a biographical portrait with a chronicle of both court cases as they are happening. (In November, Trump asked the Supreme Court to overturn a $5 million civil judgment that he had sexually abused and defamed her. More recently, an appellate court ruled that Trump could hold off on paying the $83.3 million judgment in the defamation case until the Supreme Court considers his appeal.) But Carroll is a phenomenally compelling subject, and her magnetic, joyful presence at the center of the film holds it together.
Carroll is unafraid to talk about how her own views on men and sex have changed, and the regret she feels about some statements she has made in the past. In one archival clip from the TV talk show “Geraldo,” she appears on a panel of pundits and calls Anita Hill and Paula Jones “wimps” for not standing up to the men they say harassed them, Clarence Thomas and Bill Clinton respectively, who both denied the accusations. Another woman on the panel protests, but she is adamant: They should have been able to defend themselves.
Later, in a deposition, she says that her memories of her own experience bring her shame because she feels as if it was her fault. Even the deposition is harrowing: “If women could see what kind of questions their fellow woman is asked when she brings charges of rape against a powerful man, it would stop a racehorse,” she tells the filmmakers.
So the most illuminating part of “Ask E. Jean” is not really Carroll’s story, as interesting as she is and as important as her court cases have been. The film’s strength is in how it illustrates a cultural shift in attitudes toward women who make accusations against powerful men. As Carroll points out, progress is slow, and women still stay silent for many reasons. But her decision to come forward, she believes, has inspired others to do the same, and that can help turn shame into triumph.
