Mrs. America (2020)

The miniseries from FX on Hulu is quite good on the whole though some episodes in the middle are not as interesting. I think especially powerful is the Shirley Chisholm episode, helmed by an excellent Uzo Aduba. The episode speaks to the power of representation, even symbolic. Chisholm is the first woman and first African-American to make a run for president. And even if she never really stood a chance, seeing her on the stage was incredibly important. The Bella Abzug episode is also very good, helmed by Margo Martindale who tends to play politician-types, always very well; her costumes and accent and gestures are really great. What makes her episode especially powerful is the argument it makes about radical change. Ideas that may sound radical, over time, can and do move into the mainstream. The moment she realizes this while visiting Betty Friedan, known for her own brand of radicalism. Feminism, which once seen as radical, in her own lifetime, moved into the mainstream, and today (at least in the Obama era) are self-evident ideals, that a woman deserves equal pay as a man, for instance.  And then I also thought the Houston episode was very good, which takes place at the 1977 National Women's Conference. The STOP ERA women are at the Convention without their leader, and left on her own, Sarah Paulson's character in her drunkenness starts to see the light. The episode is a trip like something out of The Good Fight.

In a terrific ensemble cast, Cate Blanchett is the crown jewel as the awful Phyllis Schlafly. Even playing such a hypocritical brainwashed witch, Blanchett is typically excellent. I remember learning about Schlafly in school specifically as part of the anti-ERA movement but not as the mother of modern Republicanism. I think the series may give her a little too much credit for birthing Reaganism. Her valuable mailing list becomes the base of the modern Republican party. The irony is Reagan doesn't offer her a place in his administration, supposedly because he is already unpopular enough with female voters. However the line from Schlafly to Trumpism is much darker.