I
interpreted a segment of this made-for-TV film a few years ago in a U.S.
history class, and it definitely caught my attention. The “so many movies, so little time” factor
kept it off my much-watch list for far too long, but I finally got around to
this affecting suffragist drama.
Set
during the last stretch of the women’s suffrage movement, from 1912 to 1920, Iron Jawed Angels follows Alice Paul and
other young suffragists in their tireless quest to secure the vote for women nationwide. While the National American Women’s Suffrage
Association (NAWSA,) the major suffrage organization at the time, is focused on
state-by-state victories, Alice and her cohorts aim for a constitutional
amendment. The young suffragists are
more radical than their NAWSA counterparts; they stage marches, they picket
outside the White House, they print inflammatory literature, and they get
arrested as political prisoners. At the
center of all their efforts is that shining dream, the full democratic rights
they deserve as American citizens.
This
mostly-accurate film depicts Alice and her fellow suffragists as bold, determined
women who aren’t afraid to fly in the face of societal expectations. I love that Alice wholly bypasses the debate
over what women will do with the vote – temperance, birth control, etc. – and
the issue of whether or not women “deserve” suffrage. She rightly argues that it’s not about women
being more “virtuous” than men or that they’ll use their vote more conscientiously. It’s about their rights as Americans; suffrage
should be a mark of equality, not something that has to be earned. I also really like that the film shows the
strong relationships between the suffragists, especially Alice and her
crusader-in-arms, Lucy Burns. Both are
100% dedicated to the fight, but they’re not eternally dour, humorless agitators,
either. They take brief moments of
respite to talk fashion or go to the movies, and while they address many naysayers
with eloquent, righteous anger, there are other times when they simply have to
laugh at the small-mindedness they encounter.
When Alice is downhearted, Lucy’s the one to reignite her devotion to
the fight, and although they’re kept separate after their arrests, they lean on
one another even when they can’t see each other.
As
Alice and Lucy, Hilary Swank and Frances O’Connor (who played Fanny Price
opposite Jonny Lee Miller in Mansfield
Park) lead the film with spirit and grit.
Other featured suffragists are played by Laura Fraser (Door from Neverwhere!,) Julia Ormond (from Smilla’s Sense of Snow,) Vera Farmiga (who
I always know best from Dummy,) and
Molly Parker (Jackie on House of Cards,)
who’s especially good as the wife of an unsympathetic senator, a woman who’s
finally stopped swallowing the Kool-Aid about her capabilities and realizes how
needlessly subservient she’s been kept her entire life.
One
last thing: I know it’s an HBO
production and they were probably desperate to find some way to take advantage
of the pay-cable factor, but is it really necessary to have multiple scenes of
suffragists bathing? I mean, seriously –
is there any other film about a social change movement that stages more than
one important conversation in the tub?
Kind of tacky, HBO.
Warnings
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