Hulu's 'Mrs. America' is a captivating portrait of female ambition
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At this point, it hardly seems worth saying that America has long had an uncomfortable view of female ambition. Not because it's untrue, but because it's so obvious as to seem almost meaningless.
What's more challenging, and more interesting, is to consider what that means in practice — what forms this unease takes, how it's enforced implicitly and explicitly, how women have shaped their lives around it, and what there is to be done about it. That's where Mrs. America dives in.
Created by Davhi Waller (Mad Men, Halt and Catch Fire), the Hulu series dramatizes the 1970s battle over the Equal Rights Amendment. Phyllis Schlafly (Cate Blanchett) and her army of conservative white housewives stand on one side; second-wave feminists like Gloria Steinem (Rose Byrne), Bella Abzug (Margo Martindale), Shirley Chisholm (Uzo Aduba), and Betty Friedan (Tracy Ullman) on the other.
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But Mrs. America isn't interested in telling a simple story of heroes and villains. While it's clear which side the show's heart is on — and it's not the one clutching its pearls at the notion that the sexes might become "fully integrated, like the races!" — it insists on seeing each of its historical figures, and some invented ones, as fully human.
We see how Gloria's rock-star charisma and conventional good looks make her an ideal face of the movement, even as Byrne's face betrays her discomfort in the role, even as the dialogue explicitly acknowledges her dislike of being seen as just a pretty face. (To which Bella retorts, "I wish people would listen because I had a pretty face. Then I wouldn't have to shout.")
We witness how even an ostensibly progressive organization keeps finding reasons to push aside women like Shirley or Betty who don't fit the mold of acceptable white femininity, and the bone-deep frustration they feel at being sidelined by their supposed allies. We understand why a work-the-system-from-the-inside type like Bella might nevertheless see that as an acceptable tradeoff for a few modest promises from the men on top. We may not agree with it, and we may not like it, but we get it.
Mrs. America's most mesmerizing balancing act of all is Phyllis Schlafly.
Mrs. America's most mesmerizing balancing act of all, however, is Phyllis. She, too, finds herself chafing under the constraints society has put upon her. She plays the part of model housewife to perfection, but Blanchett's nuanced performance clues us into her brilliance at manipulating the men and women around her, her annoyance when the men in the room treat her as a mere secretary, or her hurt when she realizes her own husband only supported her last (failed) congressional run because he didn't think she'd actually win.
Rather than try to shatter the glass ceiling she keeps butting up against, though, she chooses to reinforce it. Unfortunately and unsurprisingly, it proves a winning strategy for her. Handing out home-baked bread to male politicians, Phyllis becomes, as Gloria puts it, a smokescreen for the chauvinism of men — a convenient excuse for male politicians to put women back in their place, under the guise of listening to women.
It doesn't matter to Phyllis that there's an inherent contradiction in building a career decrying career woman. When reminded, in an unrelated conversation, that she couldn't have gone to Harvard Law because the school wasn't accepting women at the time, she shrugs, "They would have made an exception for me." Phyllis, like so many hateful TV antiheroes before her, is perfectly aware of what the rules are. She's just not convinced they actually apply to her.
In getting up close with all these women, Mrs. America fills in an intricate picture of the movements they led, and the era they lived in. And in doing that, it gives the lie to the most oversimplified and condescending ideas about girl power, like that what's good for one woman or some women must be good for all women.
What Mrs. America understands about female ambition that peppy slogans about girl bosses and leaning in so frequently miss is that ambition does not become simpler or less objectionable simply because it's female. It matters who gets to wield the power, and how, and in service of what. It's not a feel-good arc, especially if you know where the fight for the ERA is headed. But it's one that does the history, and the women who made it, justice.
Mrs. America is now streaming on Hulu.
Topics Hulu
