She's Beautiful When She's Angry

"Whatever mistakes have been made along the path and however the movement has been stereotyped, THE ESSENTIAL PROJECT OF FEMINISM HAS ALWAYS BEEN THE PROJECT OF HUMAN FREEDOM.”

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She's Beautiful When She's Angry is a documentary made by Mary Dore that was just recently released December 5, 2014. The documentary "resurrects the buried history of the outrageous, often brilliant women who founded the modern women’s movement from 1966 to 1971. " 

The film wasn't particularly long (92 minutes) which makes it all the more impressive how comprehensively Mary Dore was able to tell the story of the women's liberation movement without letting it feel rushed. The film was a good mix of photographs from the period, excerpted videos from the news and advertisements, and interviews of women who were important to the movement. 

This is probably the best film I have gone to see in a while. The theater that was screening the movie was the Gene Siskel Film Center. The theater was a nice mix between modern and timey. The film has been showing for some time now so I wasn't expecting many people to be at the 6pm showing I attended. To my surprise, there was a decent amount of people in the theater. I didn't have the chance to fully inspect my fellow members of the audience but from where I sat (all the way in the back, right in the middle), the group seemed to be mostly women.  As I watched the film, I felt a sudden need to jump into the screen and join the revolutionaries. I think a huge flaw with my generation is a lack of organization and drive. Maybe it is because we've grown up in a time where we have been told all about the movements that have to a major extent bettered the quality of live we as a generation experience through the struggle of civil rights, anti-war, feminist, etc. Maybe we've been told for too long that we are the lucky ones. We aren't so blatantly segregated, we aren't being drafter, we have been afforded certain rights that protect us from discrimination based on gender, race, etc. This film made me think, what have I done? Why have I been sitting idly by as I watch the world around me be blatantly perpetuated by injustices? 

I feel so lucky to have been able to watch this film. I feel more knowledgeable and better informed. I've realized I need to question my education more, "yeah, why don't I learn about this in school? Why don't I have a class that focuses on women's history?" or better, "why are pieces of my identity (and that of many others) not being included in my classes?" Sure, a lot of colleges now offer specified courses in areas like women's history studies or gender studies, but shouldn't we be learning these things earlier, shouldn't we at least be exposed to movements like the women's liberation, shouldn't we have role models we can aspire to be like, role models we can relate to? 

http://www.shesbeautifulwhenshesangry.com/women/

This makes me think of the idea of representation. As women, we still have a long way to go in terms of being respected as equals to men. There are still professional fields where women are scarce, fields like Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. 

This film made me think back to a trip I recently went to with my school. It was a Civil Rights Tour through Mississippi and Memphis, TN. We had a guy, Hollis Walker, speak to us about his experience in during the Civil Rights movement and he told us that his experience was during the "early wave of the Civil Rights era" and that the struggle did not end, it simply faded from media but that now, it is up to our generation to move forward the second wave with our "own version of the civil rights movement, how we see it should be." This connected a lot to something they said in the website for the film, the "story still resonates today for women who are facing new challenges around reproductive rights and sexual violence, as the film shows present-day activists creating their generation's own version of feminism."

"SHE’S BEAUTIFUL WHEN SHE’S ANGRY is a film about activists, made to inspire women and men to work for feminism and human rights.  " 

I definitely think i am inspired.

picture of the movie screen