#25 Another era
13/08/20 11:45
So, Mrs America should be exactly my jam. It has all the right ingredients – a period drama, created by a Mad Men writer, steeped in feminism, bursting with incredible actresses and great outfits. It stars Cate Blanchett, a goddess. Everything about it suggested it would be my festive-spiced, gold-flecked, plum conserve. Obviously, I was keen to tuck in.
The credits are very funky. In my head, the title is sung by Childish Gambino, but the opening choon is, in fact, a disco version of Beethoven’s Fifth, with accompanying psychedelic animation, and it sets the tone nicely – deeper and more complex than you might initially suppose. That famous opening motif was allegedly described by the composer as ‘fate knocking at your door.’ In Mrs America, she’s probably carrying a basket of homemade bread, and a petition.
Cate Goddess Blanchett plays Phyllis Schlafly, a formidable conservative activist whose chief achievement was helping to ensure the Equal Rights Amendment failed to pass. Having a heroine with such dubious credentials is a bold move, and it pays off, because it allows us to look at this story from an unexpected perspective. Furthermore, Phyllis isn’t a monster; she’s driven, articulate, with a faint and very feminine (feminist) tinge of exasperation. Of course, Blanchett is divine in this role – perfectly put together, terrifyingly composed, with a curtain-twitch of frustration behind that wide smile. There’s a horrifying moment in the first episode, when she returns from a trip, bone-tired, and her husband initiates an enthusiastic bout of sex. She doesn’t share his enthusiasm, but guess what? He’s not pro-choice in that regard. Phyllis’s husband is played by John Slattery, aka Roger Sterling, which helps us assume he’s a loveable rogue. A rapey loveable rogue. It’s an uncomfortably canny piece of casting.
Anyway, there’s much to admire about Phyllis, but she’s a bitch to her devoted spinster sister, and a bossy cow to boot. Her acolytes and hangers-on are all varying degrees of conservative and right-wing, sometimes veering towards openly racist, but she puts up with it because politics. Phyllis is a politician to her core.
Let’s move over to the left and look at the other side of the debate. Here we have a Vogue’s gallery of feminist icons and civil rights advocates – Shirley Chisholm, Betty Friedan, Flo Kennedy, Gloria Steinem, Bella Abzug. All the performances are wonderful – so many great hotel room scenes of them all stalking about, pointing cigarettes at each other and shouting. To be in the room where it happens at that vital point in history is energising and empowering. Except, of course, they aren’t in the room where it happens. That’s another room down the corridor, full of men. If they ever get in that room, it’s just to take notes.
The struggle is real, but sometimes the women are too busy fighting about how they should be fighting to fight effectively. You could say Bella Abzug is the Blairite to Shirley Chisholm’s Corbynista. And Phyllis Schlafly is a Thatcherite. It’s the perennial struggle of ideology versus cold, hard pragmatism. And the latter often gets the job done, however much you might wish it were otherwise.
I think, in the end, that’s why I didn’t love the show as much as I thought I would. Because it depressed me. In Mrs America, Shirley Chisholm was pitching to be the first female – and Black - nomination for President of the United States. Hillary Clinton finally managed it, nearly 50 years later, but even she didn’t win, in the end. There was ‘something about her’ that put people off. I’m delighted by the idea of Kamala Harris as VP, but let’s not forget that doddery, handsy, gaffe-prone Biden beat her, and Elizabeth Warren, in the primaries. There was something about them, too.
Watching this series, I was initially surprised and heartened by how forward-thinking people were – I imagined the 70s as pure Gene Hunt, making jokes about tits and telling women to stay in the kitchen. Of course, it wasn’t like that – it was deeper and more complex. But, in many ways, it doesn’t feel like we’ve come very far since then. The idea of a woman, Black or White, being ACTUAL President still feels like an impossibility. The ERA was never ratified. Mrs America reminded me that the feminist tide was once sweeping in; it feels like it’s going out again now.
So it wasn’t quite my jam. Not Marmite; more of a slightly tart lemon curd. But then, as Phyllis Schlafly says, sometimes women blame sexism for their failings when they didn’t try hard enough. Maybe I should make more of an effort.
The credits are very funky. In my head, the title is sung by Childish Gambino, but the opening choon is, in fact, a disco version of Beethoven’s Fifth, with accompanying psychedelic animation, and it sets the tone nicely – deeper and more complex than you might initially suppose. That famous opening motif was allegedly described by the composer as ‘fate knocking at your door.’ In Mrs America, she’s probably carrying a basket of homemade bread, and a petition.
Cate Goddess Blanchett plays Phyllis Schlafly, a formidable conservative activist whose chief achievement was helping to ensure the Equal Rights Amendment failed to pass. Having a heroine with such dubious credentials is a bold move, and it pays off, because it allows us to look at this story from an unexpected perspective. Furthermore, Phyllis isn’t a monster; she’s driven, articulate, with a faint and very feminine (feminist) tinge of exasperation. Of course, Blanchett is divine in this role – perfectly put together, terrifyingly composed, with a curtain-twitch of frustration behind that wide smile. There’s a horrifying moment in the first episode, when she returns from a trip, bone-tired, and her husband initiates an enthusiastic bout of sex. She doesn’t share his enthusiasm, but guess what? He’s not pro-choice in that regard. Phyllis’s husband is played by John Slattery, aka Roger Sterling, which helps us assume he’s a loveable rogue. A rapey loveable rogue. It’s an uncomfortably canny piece of casting.
Anyway, there’s much to admire about Phyllis, but she’s a bitch to her devoted spinster sister, and a bossy cow to boot. Her acolytes and hangers-on are all varying degrees of conservative and right-wing, sometimes veering towards openly racist, but she puts up with it because politics. Phyllis is a politician to her core.
Let’s move over to the left and look at the other side of the debate. Here we have a Vogue’s gallery of feminist icons and civil rights advocates – Shirley Chisholm, Betty Friedan, Flo Kennedy, Gloria Steinem, Bella Abzug. All the performances are wonderful – so many great hotel room scenes of them all stalking about, pointing cigarettes at each other and shouting. To be in the room where it happens at that vital point in history is energising and empowering. Except, of course, they aren’t in the room where it happens. That’s another room down the corridor, full of men. If they ever get in that room, it’s just to take notes.
The struggle is real, but sometimes the women are too busy fighting about how they should be fighting to fight effectively. You could say Bella Abzug is the Blairite to Shirley Chisholm’s Corbynista. And Phyllis Schlafly is a Thatcherite. It’s the perennial struggle of ideology versus cold, hard pragmatism. And the latter often gets the job done, however much you might wish it were otherwise.
I think, in the end, that’s why I didn’t love the show as much as I thought I would. Because it depressed me. In Mrs America, Shirley Chisholm was pitching to be the first female – and Black - nomination for President of the United States. Hillary Clinton finally managed it, nearly 50 years later, but even she didn’t win, in the end. There was ‘something about her’ that put people off. I’m delighted by the idea of Kamala Harris as VP, but let’s not forget that doddery, handsy, gaffe-prone Biden beat her, and Elizabeth Warren, in the primaries. There was something about them, too.
Watching this series, I was initially surprised and heartened by how forward-thinking people were – I imagined the 70s as pure Gene Hunt, making jokes about tits and telling women to stay in the kitchen. Of course, it wasn’t like that – it was deeper and more complex. But, in many ways, it doesn’t feel like we’ve come very far since then. The idea of a woman, Black or White, being ACTUAL President still feels like an impossibility. The ERA was never ratified. Mrs America reminded me that the feminist tide was once sweeping in; it feels like it’s going out again now.
So it wasn’t quite my jam. Not Marmite; more of a slightly tart lemon curd. But then, as Phyllis Schlafly says, sometimes women blame sexism for their failings when they didn’t try hard enough. Maybe I should make more of an effort.
- Mrs America – 9 episodes, BBC Two/Hulu
