Mrs. America by Dahvi Walle (review)

In January 2020, Virginia became the 38th and final state to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), forty-eight years after Congress approved the measure in 1972 and thirty-eight years after the ratification deadline expired. Although in 1982 most Americans considered the amendment to have failed, just three states shy of the required three-fifths majority, calls to revive the ERA gained momentum in the 2010s. Nevada approved the amendment in 2017, Illinois in 2018, and Virginia in 2020. The fate of the ERA now rests with Congress and the courts. What is the ERA’s backstory?

As new legal deliberations unfold, Mrs. America enriches our understanding of the ERA by looking back at the ratification debates of the 1970s. The FX on Hulu limited series, which premiered in April 2020, pits antifeminist Phyllis Schlafly (Cate Blanchett) and her grassroots organization, STOP ERA, against the leaders of feminism’s second wave, including Gloria Steinem (Rose Byrne), Bella Abzug (Margo Martindale), Shirley Chisolm (Uzo Aduba), and Betty Friedan (Tracy Ull-man). Although the ERA takes center stage, viewers will relate to undercurrents exploring the realignment of political parties, the rise of the New Right, and the emergence of culture wars that brought LGBTQ rights, reproductive rights, systemic racism, and gender equality to the fore.

Creator Dahvi Waller, whose credits include Mad Men and Halt and Catch Fire, brings together an impressive cast with crisp dialogue and near-perfect historical art direction. A range of characters evolve personally, politically, and stylistically, moving through the halls of Congress and state capitols, the offices of Ms. magazine, college campuses, party conventions, national elections, television talk shows, private homes, and the 1977 National Women’s Conference. In re-creating these worlds, Waller delved into biographies, interviews, photographs, television footage, and monographs such as Marjorie Spruill’s Divided We Stand: The Battle Over Women’s Rights and Family Values that Polarized American Politics (Bloomsbury, 2018) and Carol Felsenthal’s 1981 biography of Schlafly, The Sweetheart of the Silent Majority (Doubleday, 1981). The writers drew from the characters’ actual words while taking creative liberties with private conversations. The result is an ambitious nine-episode series without formulaic heroines or triumphant resolutions. Waller makes the personal political by exploring the private lives of public figures, each one grappling with disappointment and ambitions thwarted by sexism.

In taking on an incredible breadth of storytelling, the series may not be fully accessible to general audiences unfamiliar with the 1970s. Mrs. America imparts an accurate portrayal of second wave feminism as a diverse movement with fractures along the lines of race, age, social class, and sexuality. The characters are deeply human. Even Schlafly comes across not as a villain, but as a charismatic organizer and a paradoxical foil who embodies the feminist ideas she works to defeat. Blanchett, through subtle winces and quiet moments, imparts Schlafly’s understanding of herself as a living contradiction. At times, however, critical details are subsumed in the fast-paced dialogue and significant characters step into the narrative without introduction. For example, viewers meet Steinem’s love interest, Frank Thomas, who is barely named in the series but at the time led major civil rights and economic development initiatives in New York City. His story is compelling, but his influence on Steinem’s thinking is limited to her internal conflict about marriage. Fortunately, when viewers wonder aloud whether Friedan actually told Schlafly she should be burned at the stake, or whether Schlafly asserted that the ERA would lead to a “feminist totalitarian nightmare,” they can hit the pause button and take out their smart phones. Nearly every major news outlet offered in-depth reviews and analysis of the series and the historical events it portrays. The most helpful was a series by Los Angeles Times entertainment reporter, Meredith Blake, who painstakingly fact-checked each episode. Blake provided running commentary from scholars, a plethora of hyperlinks to primary sources, and suggestions for further reading...