Suffragettes in the Silent Cinema (2003)

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This documentary examines issues related to the struggle for gender equity and the portrayal of suffragettes in the early days of the silver screen. It contains footage from many suffrage-era silent films, including A Lively Affair (1912); A Busy Day (1914), and the pro-suffrage film, What 80 Million Women Want (1913).

Transcript

00:26In the days long before the movies could talk,

00:29early silent films spoke openly of the battle between the sexes.

00:34The very idea of women voting was a laughing matter in comedies

00:38until women suffragists began to make their own films.

00:46Scores of comedies and melodramas both ridiculed and supported the suffrage movement

00:52before women throughout the United States won the right to vote in 1920

00:56with the passage of the 19th Amendment.

01:01Most of these films have disappeared without a trace,

01:05leaving behind only faded stills and reviews in trade journals.

01:10The rare surviving films give us a unique journey into sexual politics

01:15after the turn of the century.

01:17Their vision of women is sometimes surprisingly liberated,

01:21but often the portrait of early feminists is a cruel stereotype of man-hating or masculine-looking women

01:28who abandoned their husbands and children.

01:35In 1913, with suffragists such as Alice Paul bringing British militancy to the United States,

01:43suffrage comedies found grist for their satire on the front pages of the nation's newspapers.

01:48The Edison Company film, How They Got the Vote, traveled about the country's Nickelodeons that year

01:55with a satiric look at the British suffragettes.

01:58In England, feminists smashed storefront glass and broke windows at 10 Downing Street

02:05in an effort to gain Parliament's attention.

02:32The comedy's stern suffragist heroine disrupts the sedate

02:37of the United States when she exposes the Votes for Women banner stretched across her chest.

02:44She becomes the source of chaos in an otherwise orderly world.

02:51Even members of Parliament shaken their boots at her lecture.

03:08This sinister-looking suffragette hated men so much that she breaks up her own daughter's engagement.

03:39The director gave this film a surprising twist at the end.

03:42The defeated young man in this scene later resorts to magic to win votes for women

03:48and to win back his sweetheart.

03:52Though this comedy granted women the right to vote in its happy ending,

03:56its caricature of a cruel suffragist made the conclusion bittersweet.

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