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This clever drama sees the actor portray Phyllis Schlafly – who led a 70s campaign against equal rights in the US – without turning her into a simple villain
Mrs America (BBC Two) will either kill or cure you. On the one hand, this miniseries about the fight between reactionary author and activist Phyllis Schlafly and the great and good of second-wave feminism will evoke a time when optimism infused the land and progress seemed unstoppable. On the other hand, it reminds us that Schlafly stopped such progress.
An oversimplification, obviously, but this basic duality runs through the nine-part drama and hits the fragile 2020 psyche harder, perhaps, than its makers ever planned. Mrs America – the first concentrated account of Schlafly’s story on screen, I think, and certainly in recent times – shows just how, and why, she managed to mobilise an army of fellow homemakers across the nation against the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA, which is still unpassed 50 years on), a piece of legislation that would have offered women protection from discrimination. That it manages to do so without making her either villainous or venal is testimony to the sophistication of the script (at least once it gets past its early, exposition-heavy stages) and the production’s intent. Like its spiritual predecessor Mad Men (one of whose writers, Dahvi Waller, created this series), its heart lies in showing how we got from there to here, rather than praising or damning individuals. Continue reading...