‘She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry’ (documentary on women's liberation movement)
Film Review: ‘She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry’
Mary Dore's documentary offers a rousing, overdue summation of the U.S. women's liberation movement.
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An overdue documentary flashback to the U.S. women’s liberation movement, “She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry” arrives at a time when, despite notable gains, the clock seems to be turning backward on many of the issues — reproductive rights, sexual harassment, equal pay, etc. — that “libbers” fought more than 40-odd years ago. “The bitter lesson is that no victories are permanent,” one veteran activist says here. But Mary Dore’s feature is less cautionary that celebratory in tone, capturing the exhilaration felt by a generation of women who challenged and shed age-old gender role limitations in a surge of rebellious energy. The result should connect with older (and hopefully younger) women in a theatrical release kicking off Dec. 5 in NYC, Dec. 12 in L.A.
Limiting its purview to a first-wave period of 1966-1971, “Beautiful” crams a great deal of info, events, issues and individuals into a surprisingly smooth chronicle narrated by three dozen or so original participants. Some had been involved in the civil rights movement earlier that decade, and were encouraged by the presence of female organizers there. But upon returning home, they found that anti-Vietnam protests, as well as more radical causes like SDS and Black Power, remained bastions of strutting male leadership despite all talk of revolutionary change. Women were “used to lick envelopes,” their input ignored or belittled.
So they began talking and organizing among themselves, often in “consciousness-raising groups” that were revelatory for most, as few had ever been in any position to discuss myriad “shameful,” “private” experiences (including abortion, rape, spousal abuse, workplace harassment, et al.) that turned out to be very common indeed.
These initial awakenings rapidly led to aggressive public actions in the variously angry and prankish spirit of the era. On the latter front, there was W.I.T.C.H. (Women’s International Conspiracy from Hell!), whose members ran around casting “hexes” in Halloween garb; a “First National Ogling” of men on Wall Street; and other instances of provocative street theater. More seriously, women banded together to agitate against a host of inequities that suddenly seemed as inexcusable as they were obvious: Job discrimination, exclusion from standard academia (triggering the birth of women’s studies programs), the failure to acknowledge housework as “real” labor, etc.
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http://variety.com/2014/film/reviews/film-review-shes-beautiful-when-shes-angry-1201372161/
http://www.shesbeautifulwhenshesangry.com/
official trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=6sUsLn7v_wI