Post by pim on Jan 28, 2016 7:14:48 GMT 10
It's an important story that deserves to be told so I agree with the theme of the movie which sets out to show the intensity of the "Votes for Women" struggle in the UK. It's set in the years 1912 -13. 1913 is the year that suffragette Emily Davison was killed by the King's horse during a race at Derby when she ran out onto the track. History records that the suffragette issue fell into abeyance during WW1 but cranked up again afterwards. What shocked me, because I wasn't aware of it, was that full voting rights weren't awarded to women in Britain until 1928. The credits at the end of the movie scroll through a list of nations and when they gave women the vote. Hard not to feel a little smug at seeing that NZ women got the vote in 1893 and Australian women in 1902. After them comes a roll call of nations such as the US and Western European countries whose women had to wait decades longer. To put NZ and Australia into context, South Australia gave not only women the vote but also Aborigines back in 1894 only to see the vote stripped from women/Aborigines when the colonies federated in 1901. So for SA women there was a "blip" of a year when they were disenfranchised. I remember reading when I was studying the Federation period that SA made it a condition of signing up to Federation that the female suffrage question be made a priority in the Federation parliament since their women stood to lose the vote. As for the Aborigines, <sigh>, we know how that went. They had to wait a long long time - for the 1967 referendum in fact. Just to remind us that not everyone ended up better off with Federation.
But back to the movie. Helena Bonham Carter plays a strong supporting role as one of the suffragettes, the lead role as the working class girl Maud is played by Carey Mulligan, an actor I wasn't familiar with and who is impressive in the role. I like the way the movie sets out to make it a working class issue. Too often the suffragette story is tinged with sexism in the way it's portrayed as a bit of self indulgence by middle class women with too much time on their hands. But here's where I come to what I disliked about the movie. In fact it gave me the shits. Why on earth did they have Emmeline Pankhurst played by an American? Yes OK I agree Meryl Streep is a fine actress but that's not the point. Helen Mirren is a fine actress too and she'd have been superb in the role. And she's British. It isn't as if the British don't have any actresses of their own for the role. What is it with the Americans that they can't handle it unless the there's a reassuringly American face that they can recognise? Bah! Humbug!
But back to the movie. Helena Bonham Carter plays a strong supporting role as one of the suffragettes, the lead role as the working class girl Maud is played by Carey Mulligan, an actor I wasn't familiar with and who is impressive in the role. I like the way the movie sets out to make it a working class issue. Too often the suffragette story is tinged with sexism in the way it's portrayed as a bit of self indulgence by middle class women with too much time on their hands. But here's where I come to what I disliked about the movie. In fact it gave me the shits. Why on earth did they have Emmeline Pankhurst played by an American? Yes OK I agree Meryl Streep is a fine actress but that's not the point. Helen Mirren is a fine actress too and she'd have been superb in the role. And she's British. It isn't as if the British don't have any actresses of their own for the role. What is it with the Americans that they can't handle it unless the there's a reassuringly American face that they can recognise? Bah! Humbug!