Ruth Bader Ginsburg, one of the current U.S. Supreme Court justices, is very famous. I first got to know her because of the New Yorker in 2013, when she was eighty years old, for her short biography, Heavyweight. What struck me about that article was her belief that the soundness of the law needs to be gradual. She also relied on this strategy to win one case after another in the High Court for women's equality in the 1970s. The opposite of gradual progress is to eat a fat man in one bite, and reforms too quickly will cause backlash. She thinks today's strategy for equal rights for gays and lesbians is a bit aggressive.
After that, she became more and more famous, and there was a lot of news about her on SNL and in the news. Apart from admiration, I have not had time to read her biography.
Before this holiday season, I heard about a movie about her that was coming out over Christmas. On the last day of the holiday, which is the first day of 2019, I finally went to see this film, On the Basis of Sex. Big Love!
I especially like the family line in the movie. The scenes between her and her teenage daughter Jane are very good.
In the first, fifteen-year-old Jane skipped class to attend a demonstration by feminist Gloria Steinem (Rally). The two had an argument after her mother found out that Jane had faked a note written by her mother. At the time RBG was teaching sex discrimination cases at the university.
JANE …You know what, Mom? You may be satisfied sitting around with your students talking about how shitty it is to be a girl– M A RTIN H ey, language. JAN E Bu t don't pretend it's a movement. It's not a movement if everyone's sitting. That's a support group. For Ru th, it stings. Martin sees it. MAR TIN Jane that’s enough. RUTH ( t o Martin) We sh o uld get going. JANE Y e ah. G o make yourself pretty for Daddy's party.
In the second scene, the mother and daughter quarrel over Jane's writing about the lawyer in "To Kill a Mockingbird" as "a great American lawyer" in her book report. The RBG believes that murder cannot be condoned, and that lawyers who commit such mistakes violate the professional ethics that lawyers must abide by. Jane was so angry that she scolded her mother for being cold and inhuman, and ran back to her house to protest the music. Martin goes to mediate. I especially like this dialogue in the movie. The acting and editing are better than the script. This is the script.
He turns down the record. When Jane looks up at him, he's surprised to see her eyes are welled with tears… MARTIN Come here. She sits beside him on the bed. And for a beat, lets him hug her… Then shrugs him off . JANE I'm fine. I can be as tough as she is. … She's a bully. She needs everybody to know how smart she is. MARTIN You want Mommy to stop being smart? JANE I want her to stop rubbing it in everyone's face all the time. (off his look) Don't tell me she doesn't. MARTIN Rubbing it in people's faces is the only way she's ever gotten anyone to notice. Jane hears him. MARTIN (CONT'D) Grandma Celia died when Mom was about your age. But right up to her dying breath, they would read together, and debate ideas, and she'd make mom question everything. … Jane, Mom isn't bullying you. She doesn't want you to feel small. She wants to share what her mother taught her. …. That's how she shows her heart. Jane is touched.
The next one is also very good. Now that "a great American lawyer" was briefly written, RBG decided to take Jane to visit KENYON, an affirmative female lawyer whom RBG admired. So that my daughter can meet a really great lawyer. RBG told Kenyon about the Charles Moritz and Inland Revenue case they were taking. Kenyon believes the time has not come, citing her own losing streak of women's rights as evidence. But after leaving, Jane publicly confronted the construction workers who whistled at them and scolded them on the street, and taught her mother, "Mom. You can't just let boys talk to you like that." Let RBG realize that Kenyon is wrong and the times has changed! Past failures do not mean future gender equality cases will fail. She wants to try it for her daughter. A lot of the lines in this one are great. It's a bit long, so I won't quote it. If you are interested, you can read the script .
Under the step-by-step promotion of her daughter, RBG took the first step in the fight for women's equal rights, and fought and won the case in the Tenth U.S. Court of Appeals. During the debate in court, the judge asked, "But the word 'women' in the U.S. Constitution has never appeared once!" RBG responded calmly, "The word 'freedom' has also never appeared, your honor."
Interesting little article from The New Yorker: Ruth Bader Ginsburg's Nephew on Winning the Aunt Lottery
As he wrote the screenplay, Stiepleman made several trips to Washington, DC, where his aunt granted him access to her files at the Library of Congress. “Then, by night, we would sit together and have dinner and usually polish off a bottle of wine,” he recalled. A unt Ruthg ave detailed notes on his drafts. “I'd call her up, and she'd be, like, 'Oh, Daniel, I'm in the middle of reading the Affordable Care Act. Can you call me back in twenty minutes?' And then she'd be, like, 'OK, page 1,' and she'd go through it like a contract. 'Here you have me wearing high heels at Harvard, but in those days I used to walk to school, so I wouldn't wear high heels.'” After she saw the film for the first time, she told her nephew, “I just love that it’s joyous.”
New York Times Film Review: How Ruth Bader Ginsburg Became 'Notorious'
The real Justice Ginsburg has said that the only thing the movie gets factually wrong is that it portrays her at a momentary loss for words as she addresses the court for the first time. It's not only the character's self-confidence that falters there, but also the filmmakers'. Admiring as they are of their heroine's courage and brilliance in challenging tradition and convention, they can't help but enshroud her in biopic clichés.
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