Female ambition center stage with stars of ‘Mrs. America’
The FX limited series “Mrs. America,” which was nominated for 10 awards for the Sept. 20 Emmys, tells the riveting story of the battle over the Equal Rights Amendment, but it is also a rich study of female power in its many complex permutations.
On one side of the drama is conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly (Cate Blanchett), whose ferocious professional drive and political power are at odds with the traditional values she espouses. On the other are secondwave feminist leaders including presidential candidate Shirley Chisholm (Uzo Aduba), whose White House aspirations made her a target of vicious criticism and even death threats.
“What really excited me about doing this show was putting forth a whole spectrum of women who are unapologetically ambitious,” says creator Dahvi Waller, “women who are not saying, ‘But I’m also a good mother!’ They’re just unapologetically seeking agency and political power — I wanted young women to see that. I really feel like that’s what’s missing from television: those kind of women.”
Waller was joined in a video call by three other women who contributed to “Mrs. America” in key ways: Blanchett, Aduba and Brenda Feigen, the pioneering feminist lawyer who was played in the series by Ari Graynor.
Blanchett, who was also an executive producer, wasn’t deterred by the thought of playing Schlafly, who remains an influential, deeply polarizing figure in American politics and serves as the drama’s antihero. “It’s not my job to like or dislike a character. Nor do I think that women need to be nice to be inter
esting or watchable,” she says. Instead, the Oscar winner was excited to be part of a project that asked, as she puts it, “What is so scary about the notion of equality?”
Characters such as Chisholm and Bella Abzug, played by Margo Martindale, “were all women with aspirations,” Aduba says. “And it just begs the question, for me: Had they not had that limitation of being an ambitious woman, having that label slapped on them, who could these women have been?”
Feigen was one of the feminists of the time willing to debate Schlafly — who was known for stoking unfounded fears about the ERA — on television. “Over fire and coals did I become a feminist and learn in those days you had to be confrontational. That was the only way to be,” Feigen says. “It was a very heady and important time, and I’m terribly glad I lived through it — survived it.”
Feigen was initially wary of the series and even came down with a case of shingles days before the episode “Phyllis & Fred & Brenda & Marc” — which delves into her personal life — aired. “I thought I was going to have a nervous collapse,” she says. But Feigen was ultimately won
over.
“I think it’s an extraordinary show. It gives us all of the nuance of these characters very accurately,” she says. Feigen also resists the notion that “Mrs. America” portrays the leaders of the women’s movement as petty rivals, as some of her contemporaries have argued. “I have to say the word ‘catfight’ is not something that, in my opinion, was in the show. It was women disagreeing with each other.”
“Argument is part of a democracy,” adds Blanchett. “You have to have robust discussion. Certainly that’s what I found playing Phyllis. She has a woeful distaste for nuance. You have to go through discord and debate and disagreement to get to nuance.” While the actress resisted judging her character, Blanchett concedes she found it isolating to play someone who brooked little dissent within her ranks — something she felt acutely when she’d watch dailies of ERA proponent actresses engaged in spirited discussions.
“I would feel so lonely,” she says. “It really drove home for me that I much prefer being in conversation rather than monologue.”