Film depicts #MeToo, Black Lives Matter as new feminist wave
‘Not Done’ an extension of a 2013 documentary
LOS ANGELES— The documentary genre’s power of immediacy is evident in “Not Done: Women Remaking America,” which includes the still-unfolding possibility of the first Black female vice-president and the loss of Breonna Taylor.
The film depicts a powerful female-driven advocacy, one represented by Black Lives Matter, #MeToo and other 21st-century movements that have built on and transcended past efforts.
“There is a new-found language around who gets to claim feminism,” Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors says in the film debuting Tuesday on PBS.
Or as Gloria Steinem puts it:
“Now it’s a majority and it’s unapologetic. Now we know it’s a revolution.”
While the enduring feminist leader provides context, this era’s activists are centre stage. Among the voices: a Native American who’s in her teens but already a veteran activist with a global perspective — and gender confidence.
“If I’m not fighting against the climate crisis, I’m fighting for Indigenous rights,” Tokata Iron Eyes says in the film. “If I’m not fighting for Indigenous rights, I’m still a brown person. And then I’m still a woman, which is also like a superpower at the same time.”
“Not Done” is an extension of 2013’s “Makers: Women Who Make America,” about the late 20th-century quest for female equality, and a 2014 follow-up series. There’s also an ongoing Makers initiative to advance the cause.
“Part of what was becoming obvious about the period we were living through was that women were back in the streets” after settling into complacency, said Sara Wolitzky, the film’s director. There’s an “awakening that sexism, racism and transphobia are entrenched” and collective action is required.
Women leading the charge is nothing new, although their work often has gone uncredited, Cullors said in an interview.
In America’s civil rights movement, “the most visible have always been men. I think there was an unfortunate perspective that women were to contribute, but not receive any accolades for the contribution that we’ve given,” she said.
There’s a who’s who of activists in “Not Done,” which moves briskly from historical prologue through the rollercoaster ride the country has been on since Hillary Clinton failed to shatter what she called the highest, hardest glass ceiling.
Her 2016 loss to Donald Trump fuelled the countrywide women’s march, which quickly revealed the fractures that haunted the “second wave” feminism of the 1960s and 1970s: what critics saw as a blinkered focus on white women’s issues.
There’s a retelling of how Black Lives Matter was launched by Cullors, Opal Tometi and Alicia Garza after Florida jurors acquitted the man who killed teenager Trayvon Martin. The three founders insisted on melding feminism and racial justice.
“Patrisse and I and Opal have been very clear from the beginning that it’s all of us or none of us. Black women, Black queer and trans folks are disproportionately impacted by the criminal justice system, by policing, by issues of safety, violence, and harm,” Garza says in the film.
While equality and justice are very much works in progress there is reason for optimism, Wolitzky said.
“The one thing you know for sure is that all of the women that we see in the film are incredibly brilliant, courageous and determined. Women are not going to be giving up,” she said.