Women's business In recent years, the cinema has clearly increased interest in various civil rights movements that were active in the United States in the 60-80s of the last century. In 2012, director Robert Redford directed the film Dirty Games, which tells how membership in the left-wing group Weather Underground, which existed from 1969 to 1977, affected the lives of several people in our time. In 2014, Ava DuVernay released the film “Selma”, the center of the plot of which was the famous march from Selma to Montgomery, which took place in 1965 and is a landmark event for the fight for civil rights of blacks in the United States. In the same year, the premiere of Ryan Murphy’s acclaimed film “The Ordinary Heart” took place on HBO, which told about the fight for gay rights, which unfolded against the background of the AIDS epidemic in the early eighties. Even a very commercial film in the person of Ronald Emerych, who made a film about the Stonewall riots, could not resist the temptation to talk about the struggle for civil rights in those unique years of the last century. However, no director has touched on the struggle for women’s rights, which was actively developed in parallel with all these movements. This gap is quickly filled by documentary director Mary Dore with her film She's Beautiful When She's Angry, which chronicles feminism between 1966 and 1971.
Even if you’ve been actively exploring this topic before, Mary Dore’s film will provide you with new and fascinating insights into the struggle for women’s rights in those years, which largely determined what we have now, not only in the United States but around the world. The director interviewed brave and intelligent women who were members of various organizations and did hard and sometimes dangerous work. They provided young and desperate girls with the option of a safe abortion, at a time when the only alternative was suicide or "folk methods" that often resulted in a woman's death. They patrolled the dark streets of the city as a brutal killer roamed through it, waiting for girls returning late from work. They proved that the secretary is not the only profession that the “weaker” sex can master, and that instead of recipes for chocolate and apple pie, it is better to give information about women’s health, the structure of the female body and contraception. In her film She's Beautiful When She's Angry, Mary Dore gathered a huge number of unique women who couldn't keep quiet then, and spoke to you again now, years later. Life has changed, society has changed, but we still have a lot to grow, so this film is not only a look into the past, but also an appeal to the future.
The courage of the women interviewed for the film lies in the fact that they are not afraid to admit their mistakes, and talk about both victories and defeats. For example, about the time and moments when feminism grew from the struggle for equality to masculinity. Or the ignominious period when women's rights activists chose to dissociate themselves from gay associates because they mistakenly believed that lesbians could undermine the strength of their movement. "She's Beautiful When She's Angry" is a collection of bad and good, giving a full picture of American feminism from 1966 to 1971. And at the end, in the very last episode, you see completely different people, women and men, coming together to do one big thing. It’s a reminder that the fight isn’t over and you can always join in.