Did Wes Anderson call out Charlie Rose in The Royal Tenenbaums?

The Washington Post has recently reported claims by eight women that US news host and interviewer Charlie Rose has a history of sexual harassment, which includes groping, indecent exposure and sex-pest phone calls. The veteran TV host was subsequently fired from his shows on CBS, and PBS dropped his eponymous chat show. But might Wes Anderson have surreptitiously called Rose out on his behaviour 16 years ago in The Royal Tenenbaums?

In light of the Rose revelations, it's been pointed out that Anderson's 2001 comedy about a dysfunctional New York family featured a creepy talk show host who bears a striking resemblance to Rose. Journalist Glynnis MacNicol tweeted a still from The Royal Tenenbaums which shows prodigious playwright Margo (played by Gwyneth Paltrow) being groped by Peter Bradley, the Rose-like character, backstage before being interviewed on his talk show. As the caption on the still shows, Margot is 24 years old at the time.

There is parody character of Charlie Rose in the Royal Tenenbaums (2001), and I’ve always assumed this scene was the sly explanation for why Gwyneth Paltrow only every appeared on his IRL show once (1996) pic.twitter.com/1jbfOXZv5M

— Glynnis MacNicol (@GlynnMacN) November 20, 2017

If you aren’t convinced that Bradley (played by Larry Pine) is a dead-ringer for Rose, then the brief glimpse of Bradley's talk show will convince you. We see the show in a moment when the Tenenbaums’ patriarch (Gene Hackman) is watching a television interview between Bradley and Eli Cash (Owen Wilson), and the show's similarity to Rose’s programme, with its trademark all-black background, is undeniable. The DVD of The Royal Tenenbaums also includes a full episode of The Peter Bradley Show (see below), making clear that Anderson is parodying Rose and his long-running PBS series.

If Anderson’s inclusion of a pervy Rose-like host in The Royal Tenenbaums was to intentionally call out Rose’s misconduct, it hasn’t stopped his relationship with Rose being cordial, given that the director has appeared on Rose’s show several times since Tenenbaums’ release. Anderson wouldn’t be the first artist to make reference to the rumoured sexual allegations against well-known celebrities in their work. Seth MacFarlane, for example, has included jokes about Kevin Spacey, Harvey Weinstein and Brett Ratner in Family Guy over the years, long before their sexual misconduct came to light.