Your Film Professor

In its profound depiction of a vital historical moment and in its resonance of women’s issues today Iron Jawed Angels is indeed an important feminist film.

I had intended this post to be in conjunction with a Hillary Clinton win; you can count me among those who were as wrong as I could be in predicting this presidential election (despite the Comey setback I still thought the election would be decisive for Hillary)! Here is how I was going to frame this pairing of the film Iron Jawed Angels (2004, Katja von Garnier) and Hillary Clinton’s presumed historical ascendance to the presidency:

Though I am no fan of Hillary Clinton I do want to recognize this monumentally historical moment of electing a woman for president. To do that I thought I would look at another vital historical marker of this evolution of women empowerment, women getting the right to vote. In thinking back to a time when women literally did not have a voice in our society, it really is astounding to think just how far women have come, from having no voice to ascending to the highest pinnacle of expression, becoming the voice of America (e.g., the presidency). And, to my mind, that informs empowerment in general, having an equal voice in society. For me, the film that best documents this extraordinary historical moment of women getting their voice heard (e.g., getting the right to vote) is Iron Jawed Angels. To be sure, I have some issues with the film (especially in terms of von Garnier’s use of music!); nonetheless, for me, this film is indeed one of the most important feminist films ever made.

Again, that was how I was going to frame my opening for why I chose this film for this moment. When Hillary didn’t win, I had tentatively decided to drop this post for now and bring it back at a later moment. However, after further thought, I’ve decided to go ahead and post it anyway for three reasons: First, though Hillary didn’t win the election, that she came this close is still uplifting, especially considering where women were just a hundred years ago (women got the right to vote in 1920)! Second, part of my aversion for Hillary is due to my belief that Hillary never really represented the working class, but instead represented a neoliberal (corporate) ideology, e.g., in short, simply put, she is in the pocket of corporate/Wall Street interests. In this context, I wonder if it is almost better that our first woman president was not Hillary Clinton. I think about one of my heroes, suffragist Alice Paul (the central figure in the film), and how she represents the kind of integrity and dedication to fighting for the rights of Others in a way that seems to me Hillary never really stood for, or at least in terms of her most recent political work (by all accounts, at one time, Hillary apparently did work for the betterment of Others). Finally, I just think that in the wake of Trump’s horrendous sexism and misogyny and sexual predation (e.g., objectifying and dehumanizing women), writing about a film about women empowerment just feels right!

To get at why I think this film is just so important, let me narrow my focus to these key elements in the film:

Literal Incarceration Allegorically Speaking to Women’s Symbolic Incarceration

The striking thing about the all-important ending incarceration sequence is how it is just SO allegorical, each signifier speaking volumes about larger issues going on in this movement:

*The incarceration itself mirrors the “invisible” prison women inhabited every day: As Emily tells her husband’s lawyer: “In prison or out American women are not free.” Further symbolizing this reality, we get a “bars” motif in the film. The best example of this motif is that early shot of Lucy and Alice looking at the White House, von Garnier shooting them from inside the White House fence, making it look as if Lucy and Alice are already in prison!

*When Alice first enters the prison, we see the women all working at sewing machines, echoing the earlier shot of Ruza and other women doing oppressive factory work, suggesting that women in general are all subject to the same narrow gender typed work and thus this literal manifestation of a “prison” speaks to their figurative (prescribed patriarchal determined way of being) “prison.”

*In this same scene, Alice immediately “stands up” to the phallic power of the woman prison guard, shattering a window, immediately shattering the boundaries imposed on her. She cannot literally break down the walls that imprison her but she can figuratively impose her will, in effect emphasizing that though walls have been erected, her “voice” will not be silenced, those boundaries will not contain her.

*In Alice’s stirring engagement with the psychiatrist, we get to see the strength and power of a woman, belying the lie that women are fragile and, ahem, the “weaker sex”! In that final shot in this sequence, we almost get a direct address shot (Alice almost looks right into the camera), us taking on the point of view shot of the psychiatrist, we then being forced into the position of oppressor (or apathetic bystander), which, in turn, forces us to address our own prejudices or apathetic inactions, Alice appealing to us.

*The incarceration sequence doesn’t just metaphorically emphasize the invisible prison women inhabit but in its absolute “control” of the women (“eyes forward,” body manipulations, other coercions), it also signifies how men (patriarchy) “control” women’s lives in general. In this sense, Alice’s “hunger strike” is one of the few options she has to exert control of some aspect of her being in this absolutely controlling environment, though of course even that is undermined.

*I love that in this sequence, the women’s courage and dedication changes “hearts and minds,” most notably the woman prison guard (see below) but also I think the psychiatrist who in the above scene, becomes Alice’s advocate, in effect equating her with Patrick Henry, “an American hero,” an enormously subversive thing to say, especially in this most phallic of spaces, e.g., the oval office!

And I just love that the film has Emily’s husband have a change of heart. He reads her diary and perhaps for the first time in his life, he really comes to know his wife and her internal “voice”; in his passing on of Alice’s note, he in effect goes from being a typical patriarchal, sexist controlling man to a…suffragist! (The train often signifies “journey” or change, so that he discovers the note while on the train is appropriate!)

*That moment when the women sing is telling: Again, “voice” is just such a huge motif in the film, here the women exerting their “voice” in the face of the most monstrousness of oppression, their voices played over the worst moments of abuse of Alice. Singing in unison was often an act of agitation and solidarity….

*Solidarity is crucial for any movement, and we get this especially emphasized in this moment, that moment when the women emulate (in solidarity) Lucy’s stretched out cuffed wrists is just so important, signifying that the women support each other unconditionally. Equally important is Carrie finally coming around to support Alice’s sacrifice (yet another “heart and mind” changed!), re-connecting the lost solidarity of the two women’s groups. History is full of movements that lost their way due to fragmentation. In our present sensibility of emphasized individualism, I wonder if we have lost this potential for such a powerful act of solidarity.

*At the end of this sequence, while President Wilson speaks, we get a dramatic, emphasized moment of doors being opened as the women are let out of the prison, punctuating that their efforts truly have opened “doors”!

Changing Hearts and Minds: Emily

To my mind, the Emily thread is one of the most crucial threads in the film: For any activist issue – whatever it may be – the majority of people are Emily Leighton, comfortable, secure in their place in society and the world, apathetic to the issues that impact their (and Others’) lives. They are content to stay on the sidelines and live their lives blissfully ignorant and/or indifferent to the plight of Others. In this context, Emily’s role in this film becomes most spectators, who have never lifted a finger for a cause they believe in, and, thus, in seeing her progression from apathetic and reified (putting things and material interests before people) to activist is just such an invaluable movement for those who watch this film and relate to her. Moreover, in effect, what Emily discovers is that she too is living in a state of incarceration; yes, it is a perfumed custody, but it is a custody nonetheless. That is, the film takes a woman who is clearly objectified (has no agency, no “voice” in her own household, is the quintessential possession of her husband) and shows her gradual progression from objectified to not only finding her voice but putting herself on the firing line and subjecting her Self to verbal and physical abuse. Also, those diary entries are interesting because (A) they are so creative, almost poetical, which speaks to the “voice” that is already innately imprisoned by patriarchy, which, in turn, speaks to the many other “voices” submerged, unheard; and then (B) in her husband reading her thoughts, again, he “sees” and “hears” his wife for the very first time, her “voice” in these entries becoming a registering of her interior Self, so personal and intimate, a kind of intimacy that activates something in her husband, the epitome of transformative discourses! Finally, I just love that “typing” moment because though it is the most menial and seemingly insignificant of tasks, for the very first time, Emily is doing something concrete, activating that latent “voice” inside of her, the beginning of releasing her inner activist!

Changing Hearts and Minds: Woman Prison Guard

Again, the incarceration sequence speaks to how “hearts and minds” are changed, most notably the woman prison guard. That is, the film is replete with figures (Emily, psychiatrist, Emily’s husband, woman prison guard, Carrie and the old guard suffragists) who are won over by the passion and dedication and endurance and willingness to put their minds and bodies on the line for their beliefs and…for enacting their beliefs, e.g., getting people to see the truth of their movement, that women are equal to men in every possible way and have a “voice” that needs to heard. We get this en masse with the movement becoming a constitutional amendment but more potently, we get this with the woman prison guard. The woman prison guard is part of the patriarchal matrix of their oppression – so allegorically figurated – a woman who participates in the abuse, torture, and the attempts to “punish” the activist women, “punish” them for attempting to exert their will and agency – all of which epitomizes patriarchy ideology. But in resisting this attempt at ideological (patriarchal) control and domination, the woman prison guard becomes part of the process of seeing herself in this attempt to make these women “docile” – always the hope of Otherness fights, Others seeing their Otherness in the plight of Others – and thus she slowly shifts her alliance to not just the women under fire but to her Self, a deeply profound movement, not unlike Emily’s movement, just coming in a different way!

Women’s Rights Transcends Class Divisions

In a key moment, Alice and Lucy are recruiting working class women from a factory and Alice appeals to their “everyday” (practical) sense of being, emphasizing their lack of safety (which, in turn, emphasizes their disposability) and how by not having a voice they are not heard and subject to a “ruling class” they are not part of. This moment in the film is a crucial, crucial moment because it was so important for the film to show that this wasn’t just a movement of privileged middle class women but that this was a movement for all women especially the most voiceless among them, the lower-working class. We especially get this particular Otherness spelled out in film form terms: We get that opening establishing shot of these working women’s working conditions, cramped, smoky, apparently humid and hot (we see Ruza sweating), dirty, darkly lit. Add in the working women’s “lifeless” colors (versus the colorful Alice and Lucy), and that conspicuous brick wall, and von Garnier gives us via form the cold, “dead,” lifeless lot of these women.

Choosing to Press Their Fight Despite the Outbreak of WWI

By making this choice of continuing their fight despite the outbreak of war, the women up the stakes in their movement, making it clear to oppositional groups that their movement to get a “voice” in their own country was that important! Indeed, arguably, there is nothing more important than equal rights (for women, for people of color, for the LBGTQ community, etc.), the foundation for any democracy. Inez says that there is nothing more important than ending a war but how can women end a war if they have no “voice” in the political system? Time and time and time again, the movement to get women the vote (or other equal rights issues) had taken a back seat to other movements or trivialized as not important; had these women packed it in, they would have only reinforced their own trivialization and perhaps postponed the vote for women indefinitely.

Women’s Rights Today Still Degraded!

One of the things that drove me crazy during this last election was how many talking heads suggested that Trump’s sexism, misogyny and sexual predation was tolerable because he offered relief to other more serious or important issues (e.g., economic issues, immigration issues, security issues, etc.). In this sense, this issue of downgrading women’s rights issues continues, most egregiously in the sense of how Trump’s violating comments and sexual predation contribute to sexual harassment, violence against women, and a rape culture and thus contribute to keeping women unequal and thus just as important as any issue or more so!

A Little Boy Loves the Parade

Finally, I want to say something about the parade sequence: The parade sequence is important for a lot of reasons but for me one element in this moment particularly stands out: The first reaction shot to the parade is monumental: A little boy is excited and enthusiastic and responds to the celebratory feel of the parade, not yet conditioned to see this celebration of women’s rights as something to be condemned and violently attacked. Though of course the little boy is just getting caught up in the moment and sees the parade as any other parade, not realizing the political impetus behind it; nonetheless, figuratively, set against the latter sexist men also watching the parade, who violently abuse the women, we get a profound statement here: Sexism, misogyny, objectification, violence against women is a conditioned, programmed response in males, not innate to masculinity.