Iron Jawed Angels (2004) from Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy; Greg Wroblewski)

Iron Jawed Angels, fundamentally a historical docudrama, looks inside of a pivotal time in American history, the era of the last group of suffragettes who marched, spoke, picketed, and otherwise campaigned for the right of women to vote.

To bring the issue in clearer focus, let's review the circumstances. Black men received the right to vote after the Civil War (in theory at least), but women were still disenfranchised at the time of WW1. The general legal consensus was that the situation could not be changed by an act of Congress, but would require a constitutional amendment, and thus the approval of 2/3 of the states.

Nothing is ever simple in politics. President Wilson thought it politically inexpedient to support the vote for women, even though he was supposed to be the idealistic social liberal. The suffragettes thus directed much of their protest activity in his direction. Wilson was also a wartime President, and many people felt that it was inappropriate, even treasonous, for the crusading women to picket against him. Liberals, who would normally have supported the women, were appalled that the picketers were embarrassing the liberal Wilson and driving voters toward the dreaded Republicans.

There were more sub-plots and divisions among the women, split along racial and age lines. The white, educated suffragettes were divided into various warring factions among the older women who wanted to work within the system as good liberal Democrats, and the more radical younger women who advocated activism against anyone who failed to support them. Furthermore, the white women were asking black women to march in the back of their parades, so as not to antagonize the racial separatists, because they needed every supporter they could get.

This story is told with a clear, simple narrative, so that the issues and personalities are clear. Your reaction to the movie will hinge entirely on your interest in the topic. If you wonder about the struggles women had to go through to get the vote, a right which is universally recognized today, but was highly controversial only 80 years ago, or if you are interested in American politics and history in general, then Iron Jawed Angels is a painless and moderately entertaining way to learn all about the matter. If you are studying this topic in school, you should by all means watch this movie, since it will enable you to understand the topic on an emotional level and in context, rather than as dry facts written in a textbook. Many of us alive today can remember the great struggles which black people have faced since WW2, and the great victories which they have won, but there is virtually nobody still alive who can recall the passage of the women's suffrage amendment, so this is one way to get "inside" of the history. I found it fascinating and edifying. It is, as always from HBO, a handsomely mounted production.

If the topic does not interest you, my advice is to skip it. Although I found it interesting, you probably will not. It's basically an "educational" film, gussied up with a few cheesy moments of romance and fluff. There is no action. There is minimal plot development and virtually no dramatic conflict, since you know how it all came out. The film basically consists of people long dead talking about issues long since resolved, and the character development is not deep enough to carry the film as a stand-alone work of entertainment.