Unaware of their own ironic position, the Stylist journalist writes, "a bittersweet celebration"of the story of those women. A magazine, which rarely falls outside the usual 'snoring' paradigms of reducing women and their "needs" to "style" (and rarely any other substance). That all said, they were here discussing the revolutionary nature of a film that was produced, directed and acted by some phenomenal women in the industry. This was fantastic, a great article vocalising how this movie has illuminated just how far... we haven't come! How there is still a battle, how we are still championing equal pay for female actors and representation in the industry. And the song they sing echos out across to all women and all industries. The inequality shown by the very fact that we still have to have these arguments and that these women still face these questions (compared to their male counterparts). No one ever gets asked; "So, why did you feel the need to tell this story about men..." they just do it.
Yet I couldn't get this nagging tug in my brain that something is missing. As a female, as a female actor, as a female actor of colour. Yes, that is it. That was what's missing. But then (immediately) it feels wrong to knock such a powerful film. A film that (without having to even watch yet) I can see is doing and going to do (hopefully) so much in opening up huge gaping chasms for discussion on this issue of sexism and gender inequality. I cant really complain about colour representation, can I? "Besides", as my brain tries to soothe me as my date strolls in, "this was such a long time ago and things were different back then. And there probably weren't even many people of colour in the movement anyway." And so, neglectfully, we slipped into the dark womb of the cinema to watch a very bloody Macbeth.
That was Monday.
It's now Thursday - and as I read more about the Sisters Uncut protesting at the film premiere in London's Leicester Square. How they stormed the barriers and lay in protest along the red carpet.The Twitter scandal surrounding the use of the Pankhurst quote; " I would rather be a rebel than a slave" on t-shirts, and how this has been construed as disrespectful to racial sensitivities. I can't get that nagging thought to quieten down.
The actors were right about the bringing to the foreground the battles of suffrage. Although won here, but still in it's infancy, and only nominally, in Saudi Arabia for example. This film brings a glaring light to inequalities still present 100 years later. Suffrage has been attained but suffering is an ever present risk to all women. Eve Ensler has raised the cry again with her campaign 1 Billion Rising. We are still living with the statistic that 1 in 3 women are abused violently or sexually at the hands of men. That equates to 1 billion (and rising) women in the whole world.
But fuck big statistics. Think about yourself. Pick 3 women in your life, fuck it, pick more.
Pick 6 or 9 or 12...
And just do the maths.
Yes, think about it...
Who are they?
Do you know what is going on?
Do you suspect?
Do you help?
Ahah!
Got it?
Enough said!
Actually no!
There is never enough said!
The protest from the the premiere was made by Sisters Uncut, an organisation which are campaigning against the government cuts to vital resources in the UK to assist and care for women in violent situations. Resources that are being systematically obliterated while we see another unchanging statistic that 2 women in the UK a week die in acts of violence from men. Bonham-Carter, Mulligan and others, shared support for this protest in their interviews to the press. Sisters Uncut also raised the point that there are disproportionate levels of non-white women in dire need of this service. That these cuts disproportionally affect "women of colour". And despite this film highlighting all the incredible issues, achievements, and battles still to be fought. It also brings up from its depths something else just as uncomfortable. How it disproportionately shows women of colour.
And by disproportionately I mean: none.
And I am not discussing the racial implication of the promotional slogans, "I would rather be a rebel than a slave". I think most of us are grown up enough, despite any sensitivities, to see how that was meant. And personally, following the line of De Beauvoir's thoughts, women treated as property. Bodies monitored and censored with no autonomy outside the male subjective; was/is a form of slavery. But this is not my song to sing, becasue I feel it misses a bigger and more urgent issue than semantics and implied meaning.
In terms of this film, as a non-white female actor; I have no representation and I have no opportunity for work (and selfishly is is probably the latter that bothers me most!)
In a film which, not only in its internal message but in its production values, is about the injustice of inequality: I am effectively barred from the discussion. And I think what is most frustrating is that this is not the usual "numbers/quotas" critisicm of film, tv and theatre. Where a mindless piece of work lacks any acknowlegement of gender/race/sexuality/disability. This is a film carefully and willfully constructed to challenge this: Both inside and out.
I have seen the reasoning that, with very little historical evidence for ethnic minorities protesting within the Suffrage movement, it would be too difficult to place a character of colour within this story. In the first instance, as a champion Googler, I already found one. Princess Sophia Duleep Singh. Who, to quote her biographer, Anita Anand, "despite her own personal losses to Imperalism, saw the value of the sisterhood in campagining for women's rights." Yes the history books are a bit of a blur. With the majority of minorities well within and below the working class and subject to little or no historical records.
Yet I still can't help feel that something is amiss...
This film isn't a factual account of historical figures, despite its deeply historical context. I believe that those producing this film are keen to demonstrate this is not about the more famous conterparts of this movement. Isn't its truer aim to show the lives of normal working class women. And the problem is this then: "normal" reads "white".
Even IF there is recorded evidence of non-white Suffragette experience, as perhaps there was more of for white women. This is a fictional tale, so why do we need historical validation as the go-to excuse for not representinng non-white Suffragettes in this movie.
Despite the wonderful and praiseworthy roll-call of great female writers, directors, producers, actors, etc... (and I will reiterate that this shouldnt be an issue still in 2015). Notwithstanding that. I can't help but see the same pattern of sexism being played out, but this time with regards to colour. The charge held against this and any other male-dominated industry, has been that: women, at the very best (and most optimistic way of putting this) are: overlooked.
This is exactly the same problem I can see here in the lack of representation of colour (and even sexuality, and disabilty for that matter). And is the charge here worse? That as part of a supressed group we should understand better than anyone, and be hyper-vigiliant not to commit the same mistakes as those who have subjugated us. It is not good enough to simple take hold; to regain some equality, only to use that same methods to ignore others in the same plight. To fall foul of to the same mistakes as before.
And I am aware that this puts women that I admire and am intensely proud of and awe of, in that awfully difficult female position again. That we always seem to be balancing on a knife-edge. Be it work or motherhood or family, is that we are "damned if we do and damned if we don't".
Yes, it would be more complicated to write and show and explain the relation of colour, or sexuality or disabilty in relation to the Suffragette movement. Yes, it may highlight a darker and more complicated structure of the movement, perhaps less positive, albeit still reedeemable. Yes, it may be more complicated to fit all those stories in to only two hours.
But isnt "complicated" what we women do best?...
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