Cate Blanchett owns the libs as anti-feminist activist Phyllis Schlafly in FX's Mrs. America trailer
Aux Features Coming Distractions
Cate Blanchett stars in FX’s Mrs. America—emphasis on the Mrs.—as Phyllis Schlafly, the anti-feminist activist who sought to trigger the libs when Don Jr. was but a twinkle in his father’s eye.
Set against Schlafly’s efforts to stop the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment in the ‘70s, the limited series also explores the firebrand’s relationship to her feminist rivals, including speaker Gloria Steinem (Rose Byrne) and The Feminine Mystique author Betty Friedan (Tracy Ullman). The result, per a synopsis, seeks to show how “one of the toughest battlegrounds in the culture wars of the ‘70s helped give rise to the Moral Majority and forever shifted the political landscape.”
Rounding out the impressive cast is Uzo Aduba as congresswoman Shirley Chisholm, John Slattery as Schalfly’s husband, and Margo Martindale as congresswoman Bella Abzug. Sarah Paulson and Melanie Lynskey, meanwhile, co-star as Schlafly’s allies in combating the “feminist totalitarian nightmare.”
Watch the trailer below.
The great contradiction of Schlafly, of course—and this is clearly interwoven into Dahvi Waller’s narrative—is that she fiercely advocated for women to embrace being mothers and housewives while also running for Congress and leaving her own children with a full-time nanny. She was driven in the same manner as her feminist opponents, but sought to irritate her critics by labeling her career a “hobby.”
Schlafly died in 2016, clinging to her ideals until the end. In 2010, she declared that no woman was fit to be elected president, and before her death claimed that if Donald Trump didn’t win the presidency “we’re not going to be America anymore.”
Mrs. America premieres on FX on Hulu on April 15.
51 Comments
Spoiler: In the end they set aside their differences and join forces to exclude transwomen from the movement.
But in Schlafly cases treating transwomen terrible did mean she was treating them like she treated other women, so win?
Did Steinem actually exclude transwomen from the feminist movement? My understanding was that she supported transwomen, but didn’t support surgery because she felt that the whole idea that women had to look or be a certain way was an idea forced upon women by the patriarchy. Which has a little bit of truth to it even if it is simultaneously naive.
Pretty much. She clarified the context of that ‘77 op-ed in a 2013 article. In that same piece, she acknowledged that those words were hurtful regardless of context and apologized, as well as asserted that she supports trans women.And to anyone responding: I’m merely stating some facts of how that went in that particular case. Judgement of whether that absolves her or not belongs to someone else than a cis white dude.Gotta say, though: glad she’s not a fucking TERF.
Yes, you are correct. She wrote about how instead of undergoing sex changes, we should change society so that no one felt they had to look a certain way in order to be a certain sex. I found it to be radical but a lot of people paint her as anti-trans.
They were only following precedent after the suffrage movement excluded black women.
Oof!But true.
What about the precedent of excluding working-class women?
What, were movies just not unpleasant enough up until this?
Ever since learning of Blanchett being half-American (her father was from Texas I believe) I’ve always wanted her to do more political material highlighting how she feels about that, being half American but living in a more progressive country. Or about to be the same, given Australia’s rightward politics of the last few years.In any case–shut up and take my money!
“Ever since learning of Blanchett being half-American (her father was from Texas I believe)“
Not only is Australia leaning ever more right, our conservative politicians seem to be following the very American trend of selling off as many public services as they can. Capitalism is a hell of a drug.
Rose Byrne is also an Aussie. Funny how they cast two of the biggest female adversaries on each side of the political spectrum with Australians.
Well, The Boys had the opposing sides led by Butcher and Homelander respectively both played by New Zealanders.The way politics is going, The Boys is becoming an increasingly accurate comparison, unfortunately.
The way politics is going, The Boys is becoming an increasingly accurate comparison, unfortunately.
You didn’t read the original comic did you? Predicted it a decade ago when it was written.
I wouldn’t be too certain about Australia being more progressive than the US currently or even historically. More left wing on healthcare and employment protections, historically a bit further left on unions and public ownership (probably still a bit more left but edging ever closer). I guess we’re more ‘left wing’ on gun ownership, but I’m not sure most of the world sees gun ownership as a right/left thing anyway, so…
But culturally, I think Australia might be further right than the US in a lot of ways. We don’t really have anything as insane as the bible belt (North Queensland maybe, but they’re not that nuts), but I think most Australians are generally pretty culturally conservative.On race issues, we’ve had all the same atrocities against our Indigenous people and ongoing discrimination and prejudice toward both them and others. We’ve had exactly one female PM and she had to put up with a loooot of shit for daring to have ovaries while in power.
On immigration, we’re further right than the US I’d say. When Donald Trump put kids in cages, you guys flooded the airports with protests and a judge ordered it stopped. In Australia, we don’t stop at putting kids in cages, we drag them across the Pacific Ocean and lock them and their parents up in substandard concentration camps run by private security guards outside of Australian jurisdiction so we don’t have to mess about with their ‘legal rights’ or actually release them at any point. And we don’t protest that, hell, every major political party supports that system as ‘common sense’ because to oppose it would be electoral suicide. That’s how much we love those human rights abuses.Anyway, Australia’s a nice country with a great healthcare system and loads of awesome people (generally), but I wouldn’t go thinking we’re some progressive paradise. In a lot of ways, we suck worse than you.
Australia is definitely more to the left than America on every issue. It’s not that Australia is particularly leftist, it’s just that America is so far to the right that even the crazy conservative movement in Australia looks like a hippie commune by comparison. We don’t have TV hosts advocating multi-million death counts because they care more about their share portfolios. We don’t have armed yahoos protesting crucial public health measures. We don’t have partisan voting suppression supported by any of our major parties.
We didn’t even see gun ownership as a left/right thing until Americans who don’t know the meaning of “liberal” started ascribing the buyback and laws post-Port Arthur as left. It’s amazing how many Seppoes (and wannabe seppoes, like John Oliver) laud the coconut behind the Telstra sell-off, Children Overboard, the Tampa affair, wholesale copy-pasting of a failed Ipswich Chiko roll purveyor’s policies, two wars, the JSF, and munted bowling seem to hold him up as some bastion of progressiveness.Then again, to the Yanks he is.Seeing the gun issue as left/right thing is purely American. The way it’s talked about only makes sense in the context of America. The thing is – and I say this as someone who grew up in the bush, used guns, hell, owned one as a nine-year-old – Australia never had a “gun culture”. Which is how the debate is popularly framed…the same way it is in America.That it was a culture war between the gun-owners, and the non-gun owners.Except the only places where the gun has become totemic, a political symbol, is the USA, and maybe Mozambique.No, the post-Bryant gun laws only make sense when looked at from the perspective of someone Paul Keating rightfully called “a suburban white picket fence racist”.The racist bit isn’t important in this post, but the rest is:John Howard was a feckless, gutless, dull-arse Sydneysider city slicker. He could see no use for guns, and he was the kinda of dull old white fogey (Keating again) who thought that him not liking or needing something meant no one needed or liked that something. He is the kinda bloke who would nibble on a Cracked Pepper Jatz and declare it too spicy and then say “I don’t see why anyone would want to eat that” and mean it.So, there was no problem with him making it infinitely harder for legitimate users to shoot. He didn’t use or need guns. None of his friends needed or used gun. So why should he worry? You didn’t need a gun in Pymble. It wasn’t done out of any sense of appealing to the left or progressives, as much as those two would like to claim. It was simply done because he’s a man who, if he didn’t get into politics, would be doing conveyancing in a shopping centre.
Is a follow up to the 2019 film Mr. America?
All I need to know is whether or not AnimatedTie is going to watch this or if it’s an easy pass and that they’ll catch it on HBO eventually.
This looks like a great show with an extraordinary central performance that I’m going to absolutely hate watching.
Following up a few months later to say that your take was 100% correct.
Mixed feelings. The era is fascinating and Blanchett is my favorite actress, period (and holy shit that entire cast is WOW), but Phyllis Schlafly was a garbage person. I kinda don’t want to feel an inch of sympathy towards her.Still, already interested in how the show will handle the nuances of the subject. It’s already good to see that Schlafly’s opposition isn’t portrayed as having only the right answers – I just hope it won’t end up in comfy both-siding.
Did you watch the trailer? There’s not a second that doesn’t make her look like an unsympathetic sociopath.
Should have been more precise there: I’m inclined to feel automatical sympathy to a Cate Blanchett character. Even in Blue Jasmine, where the entire point of the film is that the protagonist is plainly an asshole and no amount of trauma can excuse that.I’d also say that the glimpse of an argument with her husband shown in the trailer suggests there will be some attempt to empathize with her of the “she’s a product of her environment” variety.But more to the point, I’m curious how they’ll handle her role structurally. The series is clearly about her, but a lot of the trailer focuses on her opponents – I’m wondering if she’ll be THE protagonist or rather a villain you’ll sometimes glimpse in private. To put it bluntly: I wonder if she’s gonna be like Thanos in Infinity War or like Thanos in Endgame.
I’d rather give the Infinity Gauntlet to Thanos than Schlafly.
Did you watch it? I think it does a good job of pointing that yes, Schafer was a bit of a product of her own environment because it was how she could gain respect within her republican environment, but she was still very much an asshole who kept pushing it further and further. It also shows how very little things have changed with women in politics on the republic side of things.Edit: also just saw this post is from January, popped up on todays feed.
Great idea for a limited series, even if using “American Woman” makes me roll my eyes a little. I know Tracey Ullman can be a good dramatic actress, but it’s strange seeing her here – she just seems like another Ullman character, rather than a person. Still, it’s nice to see her in more stuff.
she was surprisingly great in Into the Woods
No one will miss her old fashion backwards thinking.
Miss it? Take a look around. She won.
Not on my watch. Still fighting the good fight.
Plenty of people miss it.
Including way too many women.
I’m sorry. I want to know what makes a person like Schlafly tick. It’s like a rabbit trying to outlaw long ears.
I want to know what makes a person like Schlafly tick.
Self-loathing combined with a I’m-better-than-you attitude.
I don’t think you understand the nuances of using your own long ears to fight for national long ear suppression.
Can’t wait until the sequel series Mr. America and then finally bringing the trilogy to a close with the crowd-pleasing Mr. and Mrs. Erotic American.
So, who are going to play Dwight & Mamie Eisenhower in Mr & Mrs. Erotic American?
Hologram Ike!
Bryan Cranston and John Leguizamo
I expect the franchise will peak with Mrs America: Civil War.
I object to saying that Schlafly clung to her “ideals” until the end, not only because her only cause was evil and hatred, but because her love of Trump splintered her family right before she died, some of them were stupid enough to think she had ideals also and they got what was coming to them. At least she lived long enough to see her family fall apart, like Ayn Rand accepting social security at the end of her misbegotten life.
It does help (a little) to know her children were slinging insults at her deathbed.Hopefully she died having just started to realizing her mass failure as a mother.Then… poof.
I’m more happy that the idiots in her family who thought she stood for anything other than evil finally realized what she was
“Margo Martindale as congresswoman Bella Abzug”.Damnit, AV Club, the style guide is quite clear. The correct phrasing is “Beloved (or Esteemed) Character Actress Margo Martindale”.
I would normally expect them to follow the house style of “Featuring Margo Martindale” as the entirety of the review, but recognize that the remainder of the cast makes this approach problematic…
In the early eighties she went on the road with Karen DeCrow, the president of NOW, debating the Equal Rights amendment. I am proud to say I heckled her.She was one of those strange birds, a brilliant woman who nonetheless professed to want to keep us in our place. DeCrow called her “a very liberated woman”.
How in god’s name did she come to the conclusion Schlafly was “liberated”??? Feminism unlocked the cage doors and Schlafly not only refused to leave the cage, she fought to drag women back into it.
Set against Schlafly’s efforts to stop the passage of the Equal Rights
Amendment in the ‘70s, the limited series also explores the firebrand’s
relationship
Firebrand? Seriously? What the fuck is wrong with you? Schlafly was one of the most despicable people ever.
The great contradiction of Schlafly, of course—and this is clearly
interwoven into Dahvi Waller’s narrative—is that she fiercely advocated
for women to embrace being mothers and housewives while also running for
Congress and leaving her own children with a full-time nanny.
No, the contradiction is that she was a woman who hated other women.
Schlafly died in 2016…
Good fucking riddance. Should’ve happened much earlier.…clinging to her ideals spreading hate until the end.
FTFY.
My late mother hated this woman so much that she was so happy to have outlived her by a few months.
Shirley Chisholm deserves a limited series about her and only her. Fuck Schlafy