Suffragette

JP Liz V1

It has a stellar cast and is written by Abi Morgan and no doubt Streep will land more award nominations for this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HdQ0iVrl2Y

MilesMorales1

I liked it a lot. Streep is hardly in it at all though, only one scene.

spurious

Enjoyed it, though I always like Helena Bonham Carter. I thought it conveyed very well the lack of ownership women had over things like their own money and even their own children. Emily Wilding Davison is worth a film on her own, but as a vehicle to get as much as possible into a hundred minutes, to tell a story many even today do not know, while trying to remain faithful to the facts, I thought it was very good.

I thought there were a couple of scenes merited more than a 12A classification, but that might be just me. The dates at the end were interesting.

NachoBusiness

I wouldn't go as far as to say it is a propaganda film (but it's not very far off one..) as all the film does really is try and reinforce long standing romantic myths about the suffragettes. Their bombing campaign for example was only ever so slightly touched on and while it did show one member being confronted about what may have resulted from her actions had they been successful, it was still shown as being justifiably by the overall tone of how it was dealt with. In Dublin at the time, the suffragettes had tried to burn down the Theater Royal in fact, whilst it was packed. How these people were't responsible for hundreds of innocent lives being lost is anybody's guess. Luck more than anything else, I would suggest.

As for what the film sets out to to deal with -- women's fight for the right to vote -- this is where the film really just becomes laughable. ""We're in every home. We're half the human race. You can't stop us all!!" is the cry of Carey Mulligan's character. Oh puhhleze. This is such a sanctimonious misrepresentation of the situation of the time. The impression is given that the vast majority of men were all scum and just wanted to use women, abuse women and ultimately stop them for achieving the vote, thinking little or nothing of them, other than being good for working in sewing factories and the like. The bastard patriarchy at work. Men off fighting and dying for women (and children) in World War I was them just off living it up I suppose. Anyway, I digress..

Women would have got the vote even if the Pankhursts, et al, had never moved a fecking muscle, as women's suffrage motions were being passed from 1897. The threat of World War is what delayed sufficient progress in electoral reform. Something which the suffragettes disgracefully took advantage of. Indeed, many historians have stated that there is ample evidence that the Suffragette's activities stifled and delayed women in regards to electoral reform, not progressed it and that they had also taken credit for the work of the Sufragists and the Labour party, who both predated them and had being campaigning for the vote of all people over the age of 21.

So what are we not told? Well, primarily it's not mentioned that almost 40% of men did not have the vote during this period because the right to vote was not just restricted by gender, as is suggested many times throughout the film, as it was restricted by class also as there was a property ownership criteria in place. Electoral reform had been ongoing from the mid 19th century and so the suffragettes were really just a bunch of upstarts who stole other people's thunder, primarily those who identified as suffragists.

Funnily enough, during one scene one of the characters is shown sympathetically as having been on the receiving end of abuse from her husband and she is comforted. A few scenes later however, we see Carey's character arguing with her husband (after she's returned from another bombing excursion) and she becomes furious with him and (justifiably of course..) starts belting the head and face off him. Nice to see the filmmakers at least wanted us to witness an early example of feminist hypocrisy at work.. and so it that sense, the film wasn't all bad I suppose.

1/10.

PressRun

Saw this tonight. Thought it was very good. Strong performances, particularly from Carey Mulligan, though the poster is a bit misleading given Meryl Streep only appears briefly. Thought it showed very accurately the lives of working class women of the time, depicting abysmal working conditions, one-sided marriages and how women were ridiculed for even being associated with the movement.

Sleepy

This will win a **** load of Oscars and despite liking some of the actresses involved, I won't be watching it until such a time as it can be watched with the same irony that one might now watch Reefer Madness or similar propaganda.

JP Liz V1

Ann Marie Duff was great as Violet, would like to see Mrs. Avoy get some leading roles from this, very underrated actress

PressRun

NachoBusiness wrote: »

As for what the film sets out to to deal with -- women's fight for the right to vote -- this is where the film really just becomes laughable. ""We're in every home. We're half the human race. You can't stop us all!!" is the cry of Carey Mulligan's character. Oh puhhleze. This is such a sanctimonious misrepresentation of the situation of the time. The impression is given that the vast majority of men were all scum and just wanted to use women, abuse women and ultimately stop them for achieving the vote, thinking little or nothing of them, other than being good for working in sewing factories and the like. The bastard patriarchy at work. Men off fighting and dying for women (and children) in World War I was them just off living it up I suppose. Anyway, I digress.

She says that to a cop who is actively trying to push back against the movement. I didn't get any sense that that was supposed to be a critique of all men. In fact, the doctor's husband is a member of the movement himself and is frequently seen to be actively participating in the various campaigns. In a number of scenes, men can clearly be seen getting involved in protests. So, I think this idea that the film is trying to say anything about "the vast majority of men" (much less anything about WWI, the film is called "Suffragette", not "Life For Everyone During WWI") is just a wee bit of defensiveness on your part.

e_e

PressRun wrote: »

So, I think this idea that the film is trying to say anything about "the vast majority of men" (much less anything about WWI, the film is called "Suffragette", not "Life For Everyone During WWI") is just a wee bit of defensiveness on your part.

I find you tend to get this online whenever the dreaded f word is brought up. It's a bit sad really, just go over to IMDB and look at all the misplaced anger there on the message board for this film.

Might try to see this over the coming weeks. A little let down though that it isn't supposed to be too, well, radical formally. Looks like a polite prestige picture through and through.

biko

Saw it a while back and liked it.
It was a bit ott in places (like the evil foreman) but in all a good movie highlighting the struggle of the suffragettes.
Gleeson is good as a Mick cop stuck in the system.

Looper007

I liked it, thought Carey Mulligan, Helena Bonham Carter and Ann Marie Duff were all excellent. Meryl Streep won't be getting a Oscar nod for this, she's only in it for 5 minutes if that. Brendan Gleeson did great with what he was giving. I agree with Biko that it was Ott places especially with nearly 99% per cent of the male characters, except the husband of Bonham Carter's character. But it's a decent 2 hour film really nothing more nothing else, I agree this has Oscar fodder written all over it although Mulligan, Carter and Duff are deserving of a nod.

NachoBusiness

PressRun wrote: »

She says that to a cop who is actively trying to push back against the movement. I didn't get any sense that that was supposed to be a critique of all men.

Never said that line was a critique of all men, but the cop was only against her because of her violent actions and so in that context, her comments were incorrectly implying that all women where on her side, and in agreement with how the suffragettes were conducting themselves, and that this cop therefore was against all women... when he wasn't, he was against the likes of her, who were willing to maim and kill for the right to vote when 40% of men couldn't vote and political parties and women's groups who also were campaigning for the right to vote at the time, for everyone over 21, were not resorting to violence.

In fact, the doctor's husband is a member of the movement himself and is frequently seen to be actively participating in the various campaigns. In a number of scenes, men can clearly be seen getting involved in protests.

Very briefly they can yes, but by and large, men are shown to want to keep women down. The subtext screams it for God sake.

So, I think this idea that the film is trying to say anything about "the vast majority of men" (much less anything about WWI, the film is called "Suffragette", not "Life For Everyone During WWI") is just a wee bit of defensiveness on your part.

Defensiveness? Ah here, I'm getting on a bit alright but I can assure you I wasn't alive back in the early 1900s. In any case, I didn't say the film said a thing about WWI. Quite the contrary, I suggested that it should have, in some way at least, given it's overall importance and how it was what was pretty much determining how people had to live their lives back then. The working conditions for men at the time were equally as deplorable for example but we only really see women suffering in that regard.

Suffragettes where predominantly a nasty bunch that only by massive strokes of luck are not remembered as mass murdering lunatics, as had the innocent people in the theaters, trains and homes they bombed, and set fire to, died, that is precisely how they would have been remembered. They took advantage of the fact that Britain was preoccupied with imminent war and muscled their way into the complex, and ongoing, arena of electoral reform. What's most irritating about how they are portrayed in the film, is that the Suffragettes didn't even want votes for all women, as their primary goal was "Votes for Ladies" as so for history to hold them up as saints fighting for the working class women is nothing short of a joke. As said, it was Labour and Suffragists that were campaigning for votes for all, as they were campaigning for universal suffrage, given that almost 40% of men did not have the right to vote. In fact, the Suffragettes actually campaigned for sexist electoral reform as they wanted Ladies to have the right to vote and had they got that, working class men would still not have been entitled to vote, which they would have been quite happy about.

Emmeline Pankhurst is heralded as a hero of emancipation in the film. A woman bravely fighting off the oppressor. Pity they put in the credits how shortly afterwards, as part of the White Feather Movement where she went on to lobby for involuntary universal draft for young working class men and in the pinning of white feathers on any man seen walking the streets at the time as a symbol of 'symbol of cowardice' so as to shame him.

Seems to me people are more interested in political correct mythology than the truth, which is fine of course, and lets not forget Meryl Streep plays Emmeline, and Meryl's a lovely lovely woman. Sure that's the main thing.

MilesMorales1

NachoBusiness wrote: »

Never said that line was a critique of all men, but the cop was only against her because of her violent actions and so in that context, her comments were incorrectly implying that all women where on her side, and in agreement with how the suffragettes were conducting themselves, and that this cop therefore was against all women... when he wasn't, he was against the likes of her, who were willing to maim and kill for the right to vote when 40% of men couldn't vote and political parties and women's groups who also were campaigning for the right to vote at the time, for everyone over 21, were not resorting to violence.



Very briefly they can yes, but by and large, men are shown to want to keep women down. The subtext screams it for God sake.



Defensiveness? Ah here, I'm getting on a bit alright but I can assure you I wasn't alive back in the early 1900s. In any case, I didn't say the film said a thing about WWI. Quite the contrary, I suggested that it should have, in some way at least, given it's overall importance and how it was what was pretty much determining how people had to live their lives back then. The working conditions for men at the time were equally as deplorable for example but we only really see women suffering in that regard.

Suffragettes where predominantly a nasty bunch that only by massive strokes of luck are not remembered as mass murdering lunatics, as had the innocent people in the theaters, trains and homes they bombed, and set fire to, died, that is precisely how they would have been remembered. They took advantage of the fact that Britain was preoccupied with imminent war and muscled their way into the complex, and ongoing, arena of electoral reform. What's most irritating about how they are portrayed in the film, is that the Suffragettes didn't even want votes for all women, as their primary goal was "Votes for Ladies" as so for history to hold them up as saints fighting for the working class women is nothing short of a joke. As said, it was Labour and Suffragists that were campaigning for votes for all, as they were campaigning for universal suffrage, given that almost 40% of men did not have the right to vote. In fact, the Suffragettes actually campaigned for sexist electoral reform as they wanted Ladies to have the right to vote and had they got that, working class men would still not have been entitled to vote, which they would have been quite happy about.

Emmeline Pankhurst is heralded as a hero of emancipation in the film. A woman bravely fighting off the oppressor. Pity they didn't show her activities at the time as part of the White Feather Movement where she lobbied for involuntary universal draft for young working class men and in the pinning of white feathers on any man seen walking the streets at the time as a symbol of 'symbol of cowardice' so as to shame him.

Seems to me people are more interested in political correct mythology than the truth, which is fine of course fine, and lets not forget Meryl Streep plays Emmeline, and Meryl's a lovely lovely woman. Sure that's the main thing.

Why would they show her as part as the white feather when the film only goes up to 1913? Since the war only started in 1914.

Sleepy

That gives me an interesting idea for a movie: show how a national socialist movement managed to free Germany from the oppression of the Treaty of Versailles and end it in 1938.

NachoBusiness

MilesMorales1 wrote: »

Why would they show her as part as the white feather when the film only goes up to 1913? Since the war only started in 1914.

Fair enough. I'll edit my post to ask why they didn't put it in the credits along with the rest of the bs

MilesMorales1

NachoBusiness wrote: »

Fair enough. I'll edit my post to ask why they didn't put it in the credits along with the rest of the bs

Because that wasn't the point of the film? Just because working class men didn't get a fair shake in Georgian/Victorian England either, it doesn't minimise the hardships endured by the women.

Sleepy

The point of the film is first and foremost to make money with secondary aims to glorify the actions of some inept terrorists and to help the feminist industry continue to peddle it's "gender studies" misandry off as a Liberal Arts education at twenty or thirty thousand dollars a year.

e_e

How come we get thousands upon thousands of movies about men throughout history but when one film focuses on the women we get this "BUT WHAT ABOUT THE MEN!?!?!" bs?

I can't really speak authoritatively about the accuracy of this story put on screen, but I at least appreciate that it's from a perspective different to my own which is what I look for in movies really. If you want films about what the men went through pre and during WW1 I'm pretty sure there's a lot of choice out there.

e_e

Sleepy wrote: »

The point of the film is first and foremost to make money with secondary aims to glorify the actions of some inept terrorists and to help the feminist industry continue to peddle it's "gender studies" misandry off as a Liberal Arts education at twenty or thirty thousand dollars a year.

Is this a joke? You sound like that guy who wanted to boycott Fury Road because *gasp* a woman spoke in the trailers.

NachoBusiness

MilesMorales1 wrote: »

Because that wasn't the point of the film?

Oh I'm well aware of what the point of the film was

Just because working class men didn't get a fair shake in Georgian/Victorian England either, it doesn't minimise the hardships endured by the women.

That's true, but when you present a world where pretty much only women have it hard, and you do so in a historical drama, then you are open to criticism for being nauseatingly selective about what you show. Any young person that watched that film, without any knowledge of the time period, could be pretty forgiven for thinking that women were slaves during the 1900s in the UK.

Look, it's not just that they didn't show how difficult life was for working class men (why should they) it's that they implied it wasn't and there's very much a distinct difference. I am also clearly not just coming at this from the perspective of 'What about men?!?' as seems to be the suggestion, and not just from yourself, as I have a couple of times now mentioned the Suffragists (National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies) and how their thunder was stolen. Millicent Fawcett should be a household name when it comes to women's suffrage, not couple of terrorists and a woman who tried to pin a flag on a horse.

End of the day: the film is not anything close to accurate and all it does to reinforce myths about the suffragettes and electoral reform, with regard to suffrage of the time (both male and female).

NachoBusiness

e_e wrote: »

How come we get thousands upon thousands of movies about men throughout history but when one film focuses on the women we get this "BUT WHAT ABOUT THE MEN!?!?!" bs?

Oh quit white knighting. I highlight the Suffragists and how they got shafted by the film in my first post:

I can't really speak authoritatively about the accuracy of this story put on screen...

Well maybe if you could, you'd understand the criticisms.

Mickeroo

Aren't most (all?) hollywood true stories/historical films guilty of similar glorification and simplification of their subject matter though? Outside of 12 Years a Slave I struggle to think of one and even then I'm sure some people could raise issues with that movie too.

e_e

NachoBusiness wrote: »

Oh quit white knighting.

Quit using the same tired fallacy.

NachoBusiness wrote: »

I highlight the Suffragists and how they got shafted by the film in my first post:

...and I'll have to respectfully take it with a grain of salt since I both have not seen the movie and read up on the issue with any great detail. Especially since you show your own biased views in the same post.

Sleepy

e_e wrote: »

Is this a joke? You sound like that guy who wanted to boycott Fury Road because *gasp* a woman spoke in the trailers.

No, not a joke.

Though maybe your defending a movie celebrating some rather unsavoury women purely on the basis of their gender could be seen as such?

NachoBusiness

Mickeroo wrote: »

Aren't most (all?) hollywood true stories/historical films guilty of similar glorification and simplification of their subject matter though? Outside of 12 Years a Slave I struggle to think of one and even then I'm sure some people could raise issues with that movie too.

Aye, no question, and I criticized them too.

I hate any historical dramas that are fast and loose with the truth, not just this one.

Car bombs in Michael Collins. Kilts in Braveheart. Hate 'em all.

e_e

Sleepy wrote: »

Though maybe your defending a movie celebrating some rather unsavoury women purely on the basis of their gender could be seen as such?

Where have I defended it? I've already said twice I haven't seen it.

MilesMorales1

But almost all historical dramas applied to film take a bit of artistic licence. Is saving private ryan/band of brothers worse cos thats not exactly what happened? Lawrence of Arabia? Das boot?

pq0n1ct4ve8zf5

MilesMorales1 wrote: »

But almost all historical dramas applied to film take a bit of artistic licence. Is saving private ryan/band of brothers worse cos thats not exactly what happened? Lawrence of Arabia? Das boot?

I suppose it's just when it's one's own particular bugbear in life more generally, it's going to be more irritating in a film. As in, if you're particularly attuned to racial issues then something like the recent Exodus film would annoy you, or the whitewashing in films like The Killing Fields; if misogyny and violence against women was something you deeply cared about, you're probably going to get annoyed at something Straight Out Of Compton or about 40% of the films made before the 1970s.

There are hundreds upon thousands of films which people view as problematic (personally I'm sick of even hearing that word) because of their depiction of women and minorities (or more often lack thereof), this just happens to be one that goes the other way, and there's nothing wrong per se with pointing that out. But I mean, if this film is propaganda against men then the vast, vast majority of films produced could be described as propaganda against women; designed to make people think that we're all air headed sexual objects who talk about nothing but shoes and men, never do anything interesting and need to be rescued every five minutes (which obliges us to have sex with you).

PressRun

NachoBusiness wrote: »

Oh quit white knighting. I highlight the Suffragists and how they got shafted by the film in my first post.

The film is called Suffragette, not Suffragist. The suffragettes were the militant wing of the women's rights movement of the time and that's what the film is dealing with, and more specifically, it's dealing with a particular group of women from that time (pre-WWI, incidentally). The film is barely about Emmeline Pankhurst, who you keep mentioning. If you want to watch a film about men during the first world war, then I'm sure there's plenty of them to be found out there, it's not exactly a topic that has gone undocumented. If you don't want to watch a film about the militant wing of the women's rights movement, then why watch a film called Suffragette?

You're asking for a completely different film, and frankly, no filmmaker owes it to anyone to completely change the focus of the film in order to accommodate some overly sensitive men who feel like they just haven't seen enough of the hardships men have endured over the years. Your complaints just sound like the whinging of someone who doesn't like that someone made a film that dares to deal with women's issues for a change.

MilesMorales1

Anthony Limited Fence wrote: »

I suppose it's just when it's one's own particular bugbear in life more generally, it's going to be more irritating in a film. As in, if you're particularly attuned to racial issues then something like the recent Exodus film would annoy you, or the whitewashing in films like The Killing Fields; if misogyny and violence against women was something you deeply cared about, you're probably going to get annoyed at something Straight Out Of Compton or about 40% of the films made before the 1970s.

There are hundreds upon thousands of films which people view as problematic (personally I'm sick of even hearing that word) because of their depiction of women and minorities (or more often lack thereof), this just happens to be one that goes the other way, and there's nothing wrong per se with pointing that out. But I mean, if this film is propaganda against men then the vast, vast majority of films produced could be described as propaganda against women; designed to make people think that we're all air headed sexual objects who talk about nothing but shoes and men, never do anything interesting and need to be rescued every five minutes (which obliges us to have sex with you).

Well you've articulated my thoughts pretty well :P the movie is pretty clear about what it is. And EB is right, for every movie like suffragette or I dunno, mad max, there's a thousand movies that reverse that stuff on women.

MilesMorales1

Ziszizco wrote: »

I think its the propoganda which is being criticised.

Oh ok. Well what about the hundreds of say, world war 2 movies that portray women as only being doting wives for the fighting husbands, rather than the useful roles they actually did? Or the way women are still portrayed in the movies as ditzy? Or the way a woman's bad mood in a movie can still be jokingly referred to as 'its her time of the month'

I didn't see much propaganda personally. It was biased for sure, its not mentioned for example that Lloyd George was sympathetic to the womens cause, and he worked closely with Pankhurst during the war to get women into the workplace making munitions and filling the roles of the men away fighting. But it was what it said on the tin, and it seems pretty accurate as to how women were treated at the time. I mean, you say those men might not have been able to vote, or have been treated badly? The women had no chance to vote for another 5 years, earned significantly less than their male counterparts for doing more work, and had no rights to their children, as the film shows. Is what it says on the tin.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

Saw this this afternoon. I thought it was brilliant. Very powerful, very moving. Much more than what the trailers make it look like. It's not a puff piece, it's not Downton Abbey. Some scenes were really hard to watch, I saw a few people watching one particular scene through their fingers.

It really makes me mad to see the criticism it's been getting. mostly from idiots, I have to say. It's taken over 100 years for this story to be told in any real way on the big screen and all it's been getting is people whinging about them not including this, or not mentioning that, or not focusing enough on this character or making men look bad. Boo f**king hoo.

There are 4 main male characters in this film. I thought it did an excellent job of portraying the varying opinions from men on the issue. Sonny is harmless but essentially a wimp who cares more about what the neighbours think than doing what's right. The laundry manager is a vile piece of filth that represents the very worst of mankind. Mr. Ellyn represents the men that supported their wives despite being afraid and worried for them. Brendan Gleeson's character represents the kind of man that didn't seem to have strong opinions one way or the other. He accepted this was how things were and upholding the law was all that mattered to him regardless of what the law was or how unjust it was. So, in one film, with small supporting roles, they've managed to do a better job portraying the complexity of the male of that time than many other male led pieces have ever managed.

What really winds me up is people complaining that they didn't focus enough on Pankhurst or Wilding Davison or even that they didn't mention the impact the war had on the role of women and the changing of opinions. I mean, it's one bloody film! Are they really supposed to cover the entire decades long struggle in one bloody film!? What needs to happen now is someone else needs to say Emily Wilding Davison should have her own film and go and make it. And someone needs to say the war did have a big impact on winning the vote for women, maybe we should tell that story too? And make it! And the same for Pankhurst, and the same for the more upper class women who didn't face the same risks as the working class women, and the same for a multitude of other important women in history who are largely ignored by the movie industry. This film, whether it's perfect or extremely flawed should be the starting point for more like it. I want to be able to look back in 10 or 15 years time and be able to say that Suffragette paved the way for X, Y and Z after it, to be able to sit down and have a discussion about the best films that deal with the this movement and have more than one bloody film to put on the list.

Look at the people who made this film, written and directed by women, mainly starring women and about 50/50 male/female on the producers list too. Do you know how rare it is for a proper dramatic film like this to be made predominantly by women? Too f**king rare. For that reason alone people should be lining up to see it so that studios will give more women the opportunity to tell these stories.

I don't see how anyone can claim this film is propaganda but even if it was so f**king what! Look at how many places in the world still have women living as second class citizens. Look at our own bloody country and the repeal the 8th campaign. 100 years later and we're still having parts of our lives controlled mainly by men.

For what it's worth, history and politics aside, I think this is a film worth watching in its own right. Carey Mulligan is just a phenomenal actress, she can do so much without even having to speak. The supporting cast are all excellent too and I have to tip my hat to the male actors who took on the roles here because I read that they had approached a number of different actors for them and their agents replied with a "no thanks, these roles are too small". How many films are talented actresses used for bit part underwritten cardboard cutouts that pass for parts? Another reason films like this are so important. As I mentioned above Abi Morgan has done an excellent job with the male characters, they're not one dimensional stereotypical bad guys, bar the laundry owner and given that Maud's entire character is based mainly on the real life testimonies given before Lloyd George I think it's fairly safe to say that the laundry manager is probably a pretty accurate portrayal of the bosses of the time.

/end rant.
(maybe)

PressRun

I actually came out of the film thinking that I'd like to see a film focusing on the Pankhursts some time in the future. Obviously Emmeline herself was a very interesting woman, but her parents were also very political, her husband was supportive of her role in the women's rights movement and her daughters followed in her footsteps. Would be interesting to see a film about the whole family.