“Give me freedom or death.” “Women make up half of humanity, but only a hundred years ago ... women lived a semi-conscious, twilight life, spending half their lives waiting and seeing only the shadows of men passing by. It was a man's world. Laws were made for men, government was formed for men, the whole country was only for men, said M. Carrie Thomas, a brilliant woman, the first president of Bryn Mor College, in 1908.
Over time, the movement for women's rights gained more and more momentum, but even when it became very representative, women, without the right to vote, could not force any political party to take them seriously.
Just as in the nineteenth century the struggle for the emancipation of women was the result of the struggle for the emancipation of slaves, in the twentieth century it was the result of the struggle for social reforms, the rise of the trade union movement and strikes against intolerable working conditions in factories. For girls who worked for a meager salary of six dollars a week on a working day that lasted until ten o’clock in the evening, girls who were fined for talking, laughing, singing – for them equality was more serious than just getting the right to education or the right to vote. Hungry, they stood in pickets in the extreme cold for months; dozens were beaten and dragged into "black crows" by police. They chained themselves to the fence of the White House. Fighting the arbitrariness of the police and the courts, they declared hunger strikes in prisons, and they were tortured by the fact that in the end they were force-fed.
The new feminists were no longer a handful of women, they were thousands, millions of American women, who, along with their husbands, children, and households, devoted as much time as they could afford. The winners of this battle won rights not only on paper. They cast off from themselves and from other women the veil of contempt that has humiliated women for centuries.
Joy, excitement and a sense of personal merit in achieving victory are perfectly described by the feminist Aida Alexa Ross Wylie: To my surprise, I found that, despite the knees turned inward and the fact that for centuries the feet of a respectable woman were not even mentioned in conversation, women at a decisive moment can run faster than the average English policeman. After a little practice, they learned to quite accurately get rotten vegetables into the heads of ministers. They were clever enough to get Scotland Yard agents to run around in circles. Their ability to organize impromptu events, to observe secrecy, to be loyal, their struggle against prejudice, their unwillingness to recognize the division of society into classes and to accept the established order were simply a revelation to everyone, and especially to themselves ... The day when in the theater where one of our tumultuous meetings was held, with a blow from the left in the jaw I sent a heavy detective into the orchestra pit, was the day of my maturity ... Since I was not born a genius, this episode could not turn me into one, but it made me free, from that time on I could afford to be wholly myself. For two years of frantic and sometimes dangerous struggle, I worked side by side with energetic, happy, fast-adjusted women who laughed loudly rather than punched, who walked with a free, proud gait rather than small, insecure steps that could starve longer than Gandhi and smile and joke. I slept on the bare floor next to elderly aristocrats, fat cooks and young saleswomen. We often experienced fatigue, resentment and fear, but we were happier than ever.
All of the above (facts taken from the book "The mystery of femininity" Betty Friedan) has to throw the film "Angels with iron teeth" a couple of points in advance - for choosing a topic.
The main advantage of this picture I consider casting. Some people may find it strange to have so many charming, smiling, glowing women’s faces in a feminist film. Even the daring Hilary Swank, who does not depart from her image of a rebel breaker (“Million Dollar Baby”, “Boys Don’t Cry”, “The Sentence”) in this film leads her battle, dressed in a pink hat. Her mischievous friend, played by Francis O’Connor, a brave factory girl with a beautiful tormented face (Vera Farmiga), a quiet senator’s wife, whose every move betrays inner strength and secret spiritual life (Molly Parker) and even a funny lump (Brook Smith) – they all radiate such a touching tenderness that tears come to their eyes. All of them passionately love life - not the mediocre vegetation that society tries to impose on them, but the true life, synonymous with human dignity and freedom.
The male cast of the film is also good in its own way. Charming Patrick Dempsey and restrained Joseph Adams play flawlessly, although they serve only as a backdrop for the ebullient activities of several truly bright, outstanding women.
Musical rhythms, borrowed from our modernity, give the film lightness and drive. The video series, adapting to the music, and then begins to “dance”, turning the drama from the life of America at the beginning of the century into a carefree video clip. Despite the fact that the picture has a couple of really dramatic scenes, in general it makes a positive impression, encourages and inspires achievements (the least of which is writing a review).
I recommend this film to watch not only women, but also men, as well as children who have reached school age. For men, it will be useful, as well as any work that opens the veil over the “mysterious femininity” (or rather, tearing it off), and for children, as a story about human heroism, for it really is.
10 out of 10